IVANCICE

IVANCICE (Czech Ivančice ; Ger. Eibenschitz ), town in S. Moravia, Czechoslovakia. According to unattested records Jews built a synagogue there in 956, but documentary evidence of the existence of Jewish settlement begins in 1490, when three Jews of Ivancice signed as guarantors to a financial transaction. In 1608 the community was exempted from paying guard duties but was expected to help to defend the town with the Christian population in emergencies. There were 27 Jewish-owned houses in 1672 and 67 in 1752. The community numbered 533 (living in 72 houses) in 1791, 797 in 1830, 619 in 1869, 400 in 1914, and 141 in 1930 (2.8% of the total population). There was an important yeshivah in Ivancice which had some noted rabbis, including Joseph Rakov (d. 1707), editor of a letter-writing handbook; Nathan Nata Selig of Cracow, the father of Jonathan *Eybeschuetz; Moses Karpeles (1814–28), friend of Moses *Sofer; and Beer Oppenheim (1829–59), one of the first rabbis to combine talmudic with secular scholarship. Ivancice was constituted as one of the *Politische Gemeinden. In the 1920s it was under the guidance of R. Heinrich *Flesch of Dolni Kounice. After the *Sudetenland crisis (1938) a large refugee camp was opened in Ivancice, which existed until 1942. Under Nazi rule the community was constituted a district-community. In 1942 the Jews from Ivancice were deported to death camps. The synagogue appurtenances were transferred to the Jewish Central Museum in Prague. The synagogue building was demolished in 1950. A religious congregation existed for a short time after World War iI. A number of Jewish families are named after the town of Ivancice, in variant spellings.

bibliography:

B. Wachstein, in: M. Stein (ed.), Jahrbuch des traditionstreuen Rabbiner-Verbandes in der Slowakei (1923), 34–66; idem, in: H. Gold, Juden und Judengemeinden Maehrens …(1929), 183–92; R. Trpik, ibid., 75–82; Germ Jud, 1 (1963), 94. add. bibliography: J. Fiedler, Jewish Sights of Bohemia and Moravia, (1991), 84–85.

[Isaac Ze'ev Kahane]