The Jewish community of Zurich, celebrating its 75th birthday recently reviewed its history and its growth in numbers from 56 to about 6,000. It is now the largest Jewish community in Switzerland.
There were only 56 Jews in Zurich in 1850 when Jews could not settle permanently in the city and had to renew their residence permits regularly. After 1856, native-born Jews received political rights and in 1862 all remaining restrictions against Jews were abolished.
On March 29, 1862, the constituent meeting of the Zurich Jewish community was held. On Sept. 17, 1884, the 300,000-franc Zurich Synagogue in the Loewenstrasse was dedicated. The community had 80 members then. Its first president was M. Dreyfus.
Since then two other communities have arisen–the orthodox Jewish community and the Agudath Achim of Eastern European Jews. In 1920 the Zurich Jews numbered 6,662, but they decreased to 5,728 in 1930. The Zurich Jewish community, now headed by M. Soly Braunschweig, is affiliated with the Swiss Jewish Communities.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
