Soundwalk: on Jewish Life in Esslingen

In 1819, the Jewish congregation, newly reestablished, was large enough for its own synagogue, but too small for the construction of a new building. The medieval guild house of the tailor, a vacant building that happened to face Jerusalem, fulfilled this important requirement for the foundation of a synagogue. Soon a community center would also be established there, which would exist until 1938. By 1889, a rebuilding project began to reflect the spirit of reform of the Esslingen Jews: the strict rule regarding segregation of the sexes in the prayer room was relaxed, and the children and adolescents were placed in the middle, at the center of the community. Since 2012 the house is once again a center of Jewish life in Esslingen - in 2016 a new Torah moved into the synagogue.

The first Jewish families lived among Christian citizens of Esslingen. It was only in the 16th century that the allocation of Jews to designated, specially segregated living areas began to spread as a trend across Europe. Esslingen fully jumped onto this trend in 1530, as the city council ghettoised the Jews onto the so-called "Judengasse"" ("Jew street"). In 1542 the council passed a law finalising the banishment.

Under the progressive legislation of King Wilhelm of Württemberg, Esslingen became a center of Jewish learning. The Israeli orphanage, founded in 1841, was to turn Jewish children and adolescents from poor backgrounds into faithful followers of the Torah as well as patriotic citizens of Württemberg. The directors pushed for a familial atmosphere without corporal punishment. The newest building of the institution that today sits above the castle is named after the last director, Theodor Rothschild. The Theodor-Rothschild-House was destroyed in the November pogrom, the children deported. Today it belongs to the 'Stiftung Jugendhilfe'.

Mayer Levi (1814-1874) was one of the first Chasanim that was trained in Esslingen - Chasanim, or cantors, are prayer leaders in the Jewish congregation. Levi moved as a young child to Esslingen with his mother and studied as an adolescent in a teaching seminar. Following several posts as a cantor in southern Germany, he returned in 1843. He founded a synagogue choir, taught prayer singing at the teacher's college and catalogued the songs he taught. His plans to move to America never came to fruition. Instead, he left behind one of the most important collections of Ashkenazy liturgical songs from the time of the Jewish emancipation. His tomb is the first in the Jewish section of the municipal Ebershaldenfriedhof and remains there today.

In the center of the prayer room of the Esslingen Synagogue stands, stored in a grand armoire, the Torah. “Torah” means “instruction”: the first part of the Hebrew bible includes the five books of Moses - the history of the world and god’s chosen people and the laws derived from them. In the center of the liturgy itself is also a recitation from this text, framed in liturgical song, the way Mayer Levi practiced it. The orthodox understanding of the Torah as the Word of God gives it both revealed and hidden dimension and constitutes four different levels of interpretation: the literal, the referential, the abstract and the mystical. In liberal Judaism, the Torah is seen as the progressing dialogue between god and the people of god, a process in which not only theologians but also people of all professions, genders and generations participate in.

The Hafenmarkt (“port market") belonged to the most prosperous districts of medieval Essligen. Despite the religiously-motivated hostility of its surroundings, here in the center of the Reichstadt stood the very first Esslingen synagogue. The first Jewish congregation of the 13th century blossomed; works of the Jewish art of book-making from Esslingen remain famous to this day. And yet, the market is also the setting for the first antisemitic pogrom of the city: in 1348, Christian citizens of Esslingen drove their fellow citizens into the synagogue and set it on fire because they blamed the Jews for the spread of the plague. It took centuries until a new congregation could establish itself for the long-term.

Directly in front of the city wall lies the first modern Jewish cemetery in Esslingen: following the re-establishment of the congregation in 1806, the cemetery was inaugurated in 1807. Soon thereafter there was not enough space: attempts to buy neighbouring properties failed, and instead the newly burgeoning anti-semitism showed itself in desecrations of graves. Starting in 1874 the Esslingen Jews, like their non-Jewish fellow citizens, were buried in the Ebershaldenfriedhof. The old cemetery was used as a storage yard during the Nazi-era and to a large extent destroyed.

In 2012 the old synagogue in Esslingen was newly consecrated. An even bigger celebration for the Jewish community, however, was the new arrival of the Torah-scroll in 2016, endowed by participants of the Esslingen civil society and innumerable fellow citizens of all ideologies and faiths. The Israeli rabbi Yitzhak Goldstein had taken over the writing in Jerusalem - every scroll must be flawlessly hand-written - and in the old town hall of Esslingen, set down the last letters. Subsequently, the Torah was brought into the synagogue in a festive parade - around the Marktbrunnen and over the Hafenmarkt, through the former Judengasse and lastly in the Heppächer: a celebration of the Jewish past and present in Esslingen.

Jewish existence in the territory of today's Germany is about as old as that of the Christian faith. The oldest proof, an edict on the rights and duties of the Jewish citizens in the Roman city Cologne, comes from the year 321 AD. Based on this document, the Federal Republic of Germany is celebrating 1,700 years of Jewish life in Germany this year - a celebration year which is being realized with around a thousand events hosted locally around the country. One such event is being held in Esslingen. Over the past nine centuries, the Jewish presence in Esslingen was repeatedly extinguished and continually re-established. The Jewish past and present in Esslingen, which is expressed in the creative and the quotidian, under threat and through resilience, is the basis of the artistic contributions for this special experiment. On this individually-walkable Soundwalk, with pieces specially composed for the experience by seven contemporary composers, many often-overlooked traces left behind on the Neckar are revealed. Along the historic and contemporary locations of Jewish existence an impressive musical trail comes to life, which is accessible with a smartphone at all hours.

Today, the Jewish community in Esslingen has around 300 members. Their synagogue is once again the Fachwerkhaus on Heppächer that was acquired in 1819, in the middle of the Altstadt. In 2019, the synagogue celebrated its 200th anniversary. Such joyful occasions, however, occur alongside the fact that Germany faces a return of brazen antisemitism. One of the main objectives of the Soundwalk is to make a stand against this rising trend. Through such offerings as its specially-tailored podcast for youth and its education program, PODIUM Esslingen offers the community an opportunity to learn about Jewish daily life.

The seven stations of the Soundwalk and the accompanying podcast can be played on smartphones and headphones. After 9pm there is limited access at some stations; for that reason we would recommend daytime visits to the Soundwalk.

Contributors

• Artistic Direction: Steven Walter & Joosten Ellée
• Research and Dramaturgy: Lena Fritschle
• Composition: Shasta Ellenbogen, Rike Huy, Elischa Kaminer, Paulina Kiss, Marco Mlynek, Mary Ocher, Amir Shpilman
• Technical Implementation: Brendan Howell
• Podcast: MUJK // Thilo Braun, Maria Gnann und Marie König
• Management PODIUM Education: Wiebke Rademacher
• Management PODIUM Digital: Julian Stahl
• Audio Engineering: Simon Heinze
• Audio Programming: João Pais
• Editorial Support: Steffen Greiner
• Project Management: Pamina Rottok

Ein Project by PODIUM Esslingen.

This project has been funded by Innovationsfonds Kunst 2021 of the Ministry of Science, Research and Art of Baden-Württemburg as well as by the Karl Schlecht Stiftung within the framework of the celebratory year "1,700 Years of Jewish Life in Germany" and has been developed in partnership with many institutions and individuals, including IRGW Zweigstelle Esslingen / Elena Braginska, das Stadtarchiv Esslingen / Dr. Joachim J. Halbekann, der Verein DENK-ZEICHEN e.V. ESSLINGEN / Gerhard Voss, die Initiative Women* of Music (W*oM) / Hajnalka Péter, das Ensemble Mediterranea / Alon Wallach, the Detect Festival as well as Dr. Joachim Hahn und Oron Haim.