Goslar

Town in the province of Hanover, Germany; on an affluent of the Ocker at the north-east foot of the Harz. According to the chronicle of Erdwin von der Hardt, "Plebis Tribunus et Antiquitatum Goslariensium Mirator," Frederick I. in 1155 collected from the Jews of Goslar a third of their possessions as "allegiance money" ("Huldigungsabgabe"); such a tax, however, was unknown until the fifteenth century; and the original document which the chronicle cites as authority for its statement has not been found. On April 3, 1252, King William of Holland promised not to molest the Jews nor to imprison them unjustly, but to protect them as his "servi cameræ." Rudolph I., in confirming the privileges of the citizens of Goslar, expressly reserved his rights over the Jews of that town. In 1285 Emperor Rudolph directed the latter to pay more promptly the yearly tax of 6 marks for the maintenance of the royal palace at Goslar.

The Jews of Goslar escaped the massacres at the time of the Black Death, but suffered so much from the plague in 1350 that their cemetery, situated on Mount St. George, no longer sufficed, and another, near the forts, had to be acquired. Like all the other Jews of the province of Hanover, those of Goslar were expelled in 1591.

At present (1903) there exists in Goslar a small Jewish community numbering about 100 persons in a total population of 13,311.

Bibliography:

  * Wiener, in Jahrbuch für Gesch. i. 107;
  * idem, in Monatsschrift, x. 121;
  * Aronius, Regesten, p. 249;
  * Adolph Kohut, Gesch. der Juden in Deutschland, passim:
  * Hebr. Bibl. xii. 9;
  * Stobbe, Die Juden in Deutschland, p. 18;
  * Zeitschrift des Harzvereins, v. 457.



G. I. Br.