Proceedings of the Constituent Assembly of the German-Israelite Community Association (1872)

Digital Volumes on the German-Israelite Community Association

The Deutsch-Israelitische Gemeindebund (German-Israelite Community Association) was founded in Leipzig in 1869. It was the first nationwide organization of Jewish associations in Germany, and therefore a forerunner of the Central Council of Jews in Germany. At the constituent assembly on 14 April 1872, numerous topics were discussed that were of concern to the communities at the time: the relationship of Reform Jewish communities to Neo-Orthodoxy, the equal treatment of Jewish and Christian religious education, the immigration of Eastern European Jews, and so-called “migrant begging.” A welcoming address to the Reich Chancellor Prince Bismarck demonstrated the new self-assurance of the Jewish community after the 1871 Law on the Equal Rights of Denominations had removed the last restrictions on civil equality throughout the empire.

Take a look at the digital volume Verhandlungen der Constituirenden Versammlung des Deutsch-Israelitischen Gemeindebundes (Proceedings of the Constituent Assembly of the German-Israelite Community Association) (1872)

After its move from Leipzig to Berlin in 1882, the Community Association concentrated on supporting the communities’ administrative, welfare, and educational systems. From the turn of the century, it attempted to achieve state recognition as an overall organization through a new communal constitution in Prussia, but this ultimately proved unsuccessful. During the Weimar Republic, the Community Association lost influence on Jewish organizational plans, so that it no longer played a role in the founding of the Reichsvertretung der deutschen Juden (Reich Representation of German Jews) in 1933.