Oberaula

General information: First Jewish presence: 1646; peak Jewish population: 106 in 1861; Jewish population in 1933: 70
Summary: In 1700, the Jews of Oberaula and the neighboring villages formed a small Jewish community. Services were initially conducted in an old building. The construction of a two-story, half-timbered synagogue was begun in 1830 and completed in 1837, the year of the synagogue’s inauguration. Other communal institutions included an elementary school—it closed in 1932, when only 10 children were enrolled there—and a Jewish cemetery, the latter of which was located in the vicinity of the synagogue. On Pogrom Night, the synagogue’s interior was plundered and devastated, shortly after which the building was converted into an apartment building. The building was demolished in 1969 due to unsafe structural conditions. A memorial plaque was unveiled at the old cemetery’s site in 1984. Later, in 1989, another plaque was erected in a barn (adjacent to the former synagogue site) belonging to a local Evangelical church; the plaque bears an etching of the destroyed synagogue.
Author / Sources: Moshe Finkel
Sources: AJ, DJGH, LJG
Located in: hesse