What was Jewish life and culture like in germany before the Holocaust?

Question: What was Jewish life and culture like in germany before the Holocaust!?
Best Answer - Chosen by Asker:

From Wikipedia :Freedom and repression (1815–1930s)

Map showing the distribution of Jews in the German Empire in the 1890sNapoleon emancipated the Jews across Europe, but with Napoleon’s fall in 1815, growing nationalism resulted in increasing repression!. In 1819, Hep-Hep riots—according to one interpretation from the Latin Hierosolyma est perdita (Jerusalem is lost), the rallying cry of the Crusaders, but more likely derived from the traditional herding cries of the German Folk—destroyed Jewish property and killed many Jews!. The Revolution of 1848 swung the pendulum back towards freedom for the Jews, but the financial crisis of 1873 created another era of repression!. Starting in the 1870s, anti-Semites of the v?lkisch movement were the first to describe themselves as such, because they viewed Jews as part of a Semitic race that could never be properly assimilated into German society!. Such was the ferocity of the anti-Jewish feeling of the v?lkisch movement that by 1900, anti-Semitic had entered English to describe anyone who had anti-Jewish feelings!. However, despite massive protests and petitions, the v?lkisch movement failed to persuade the government to revoke Jewish emancipation, and in the 1912 Reichstag elections, the parties with v?lkisch-movement sympathies suffered a temporary defeat!.

Jews experienced a period of legal equality from 1848 until the rise of Nazi Germany!. In the opinion of historian Fritz Stern, by the end of the 19th century, what had emerged was a Jewish-German symbiosis, where German Jews had merged elements of German and Jewish culture into a unique new one!.

A leaflet published in 1920 by German Jewish veterans in response to accusations of lack of patriotism: “12,000 Jewish soldiers died on the field of honor for the fatherland”A higher percentage of German Jews fought in World War I than that of any other ethnic, religious or political group in Germany—in fact, some 12,000 died for their country!.[7][8] The chancellor during the first two years of the war, Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg, was the son and grandson of German Jewish public servants!. Ironically, it was a Jewish lieutenant, Hugo Gutmann, who awarded the Iron Cross, First Class, to a 29-year-old corporal named Adolf Hitler!. When Hitler came to power in 1933, Gutmann left Germany and escaped to the United States!.

In October 1916, the German Military High Command administered Judenz?hlung (census of Jews)!. Designed to confirm accusations of the lack of patriotism among German Jews, the census disproved the charges, but its results were not made public!.[9] Denounced as a “statistical monstrosity”,[10] the census was a catalyst to intensified antisemitism and social myths such as the “stab-in-the-back legend” (Dolchstosslegende)!.[11][12]

Many German Jews received high political positions such as foreign minister and vice chancellor in the Weimar Republic!. The Weimar constitution was the work of a German Jew, Hugo Preuss, who later became minister of the interior!. Marriages between Jews and non-Jews became somewhat common from the 19th century; for example, the wife of German Chancellor Gustav Stresemann was Jewish!.

[edit] Jews under the Nazis (1930s–1940)
The Holocaust
Early elements
Racial policy · Nazi eugenics · Nuremberg Laws · Forced euthanasia · Concentration camps (list)
Jews
Jews in Nazi Germany 1933–9
Pogroms: Kristallnacht · Bucharest · Dorohoi · Ia?i · Kaunas · Jedwabne · Lviv

Ghettos: ?achwa · ?ód? · Lwów · Kraków · Budapest · Theresienstadt · Kovno · Vilna · Warsaw

Einsatzgruppen: Babi Yar · Rumbula · Ponary · Odessa · Erntefest

Final Solution: Wannsee · Operation Reinhard · Holocaust trains

Extermination camps: Auschwitz-Birkenau · Be??ec · Che?mno · Majdanek · Sobibór · Treblinka

Resistance: Jewish partisans · Ghetto uprisings (Warsaw)

End of World War II: Death marches · Berihah · Displaced persons

Other victims
Roma · Homosexuals · Disabled individuals · Slavs in Eastern Europe · Poles · Soviet POWs

Responsible parties
Nazi Germany: Hitler · Himmler · Kaltenbrunner · Heydrich · Eichmann · SS · Gestapo · SA

Collaborators

Aftermath: Nuremberg Trials · Denazification · Reparations Agreement
between Israel and West Germany

Lists
Survivors · Victims · Rescuers
Resources
The Destruction of the European Jews Functionalism versus intentionalism
v ? d ? e
In 1933, persecution of the Jews became active Nazi policy, but at first laws were not as rigorously obeyed and were not as devastating as in later years!.

On 1 April 1933, Jewish doctors, shops, lawyers and stores were boycotted!. Only six days later, the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service was passed, banning Jews from being employed in government!. This law meant that Jews were now indirectly and directly dissuaded or banned from privileged and upper-level positions reserved for “Aryan” Germans!. From then on, Jews were forced to work at more menial positions, beneath non-Jews!.

On 2 August 1934, President Paul von Hindenburg died!. No new president was appointed; instead the powers of the chancellor and president were combined into the office of Führer!. This, and a tame government with no opposition parties, allowed Adolf Hitler totalitarian control of law making!. The army also swore an oath of loyalty personally to Hitler, giving him power over the military and allowing him to easily create more pressure on the Jews than ever before!.

In 1935 and 1936, persecution of the Jews increased pace!. In May 1935, Jews were forbidden to join the Wehrmacht (Armed Forces), and that year, anti-Jewish propaganda appeared in Nazi German shops and restaurants!. The Nuremberg Racial Purity Laws were passed around the time of the great Nazi rallies at Nuremberg; On 15 September 1935, the Law for the Protection of German Blood and Honor was passed, preventing marriage between any Jew and non-Jew!. At the same time the Reich Citizenship Law was passed and was reinforced in November by a decree, stating that all Jews, even quarter- and half-Jews, were no longer citizens (Reichsbürger) of their own country (their official status became Reichsangeh?riger, “subject of the state”)!. This meant that they had no basic civil rights, such as that to vote!. (But at this time the right to vote for the non-Jewish Germans only meant the obligation to vote for the Nazi party!.) This removal of basic citizens’ rights preceded harsher laws to be passed in the future against Jews!. The drafting of the Nuremberg Laws is often attributed to Hans Globke!.

In 1936, Jews were banned from all professional jobs, effectively preventing them from exerting any influence in education, politics, higher education and industry!. Because of this, there was nothing to stop the anti-Jewish actions that spread across the Nazi-German economy!.

After the Night of the Long Knives, the Schutzstaffel (SS) became the dominant policing power in Germany!. Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler was eager to please Hitler and so willingly obeyed his orders!. Since the SS had been Hitler’s personal bodyguard, its members were far more loyal and skilled than those of the Sturmabteilung (SA) had been!. Because of this, they were also supported, though distrusted, by the army, which was now more willing to agree with Hitler’s decisions than when the SA was dominant!.[citation needed]

All of this allowed Hitler more direct control over government and political attitude towards Jews in Nazi Germany!. In 1937 and 1938, harsh new laws were implemented, and the segregation of Jews from the true “Aryan” German population was started!. In particular, Jews were penalized financially for their perceived racial status!.

On 4 June 1937 a young German Jew, Helmut Hirsch, was executed for being involved in a plot to kill the Nazi leadership—including Hitler!.

As of 1 March 1938, government contracts could no longer be awarded to Jewish businesses!. On 30 September, “Aryan” doctors could only treat “Aryan” patients!. Provision of medical care to Jews was already hampered by the fact that Jews were banned from being doctors or having any professional jobs!.

Beginning 17 August 1938, Jews had to add Israel (males) or Sarah (females) to their names, and a large J was to be imprinted on their passports beginning 5 October!. On 15 November Jewish children were banned from going to normal schools!. By April 1939, nearly all Jewish companies had either collapsed under financial pressure and declining profits, or had been persuaded to sell out to the Nazi German government!. This further reduced Jews’ rights as human beings; they were in many ways officially separated from the German populace!.

The increasingly totalitarian, militaristic regime that was being imposed on Germany by Hitler allowed him to control the actions of the SS and the military!. On 7 November 1938, a young Polish Jew, Herschel Grynszpan, attacked and shot two German officials in the Nazi German embassy in Paris!. (Grynszpan was angry about the treatment of his parents by the Nazi Germans!.) On 9 November the German Attache, vom Rath, died!. Goebbels issued instructions that demonstrations against Jews be organized and undertaken in retaliation throughout Germany!. The SS ordered the Night of Broken Glass (Kristallnacht) to be carried out that night, November 9–10!. The storefronts of Jewish shops and offices were smashed and vandalised, and many synagogues were destroyed by fire!. Approximately 100 Jews were killed, and another 20,000 arrested, some of whom were sent to the newly formed concentration camps!. Many Germans were disgusted by this action when the full extent of the damage was discovered, so Hitler ordered it to be blamed on the Jews!. Collectively, the Jews were made to pay back one billion Reichsmark in damages, the fine being raised by confiWww@QuestionHome@Com

When the Nazis came to power in Germany in 1933, Jews were living in every country of Europe!. A total of roughly nine million Jews lived in the twenty-one countries that would be occupied by Germany during World War II!. By the end of the war, two out of every three of these Jews would be dead, and European Jewish life would be changed forever!.

The Jews in western Europe -- Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, and Belgium -- made up much less of the population and tended to adopt the culture of their non-Jewish neighbors!. They dressed and talked like their countrymen, and traditional religious practices and Yiddish culture played a less important part in their lives!. They tended to have had more formal education than eastern European Jews and to live in towns or cities!.

Jews could be found in all walks of life, as farmers, tailors, seamstresses, factory hands, accountants, doctors, teachers, and small-business owners!. Some families were wealthy; many more were poor!. Many children ended their schooling early to work in a craft or trade; others looked forward to continuing their education at the university level!. Still, whatever their differences, they were the same in one respect: by the 1930s, with the rise of the Nazis to power in Germany, they all became potential victims, and their lives were forever changedWww@QuestionHome@Com

Much like the lives of those living in Germany, Eastern Europe in fact throughout the planet!. Their lives were patriarchal!. They were mostly orthodox, absorbing themselves in the Talmud and obeying the Jewish traditions like the briss and understanding Kosher food laws!. They were pacifists!. I wish I could tell you more about my uncles Hymie (who survived to become a hustler at Scrabble in Miami Beach) and Meyer who opened a successful carpentry business on Broadway in NYC where he let me make dinosaurs out of spare wood!. Suffice it to say pre-Hitler Germany was full of emerging artists, craftsmen and businessmen - the kind of people you would welcome next doorWww@QuestionHome@Com

There's an annual Jewish holy day called "Tisha B'Av" to remember the exile of the Jews and how terrible it was!.

After observing it for 2000 years, a group of Rabbis in 1920s Germany moved to abolish it because it was so happy and safe for Jews in the Fatherland!.

Just shows, you never know!.!.!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

I've heard it was happy, fun, and free!.Www@QuestionHome@Com