History of the Jews in Switzerland

The history of the Jews in Switzerland extends back at least a thousand years. Jews and Judaism have been present in the territory of what is now Switzerland since before the emergence of the medieval Old Swiss Confederacy in the 13th century (the first communities settling in Basel in 1214). Switzerland has Europe's tenth-largest Jewish community, with about 20,000 Jews, roughly 0.4% of the population. The majority of the Jewish communities are domiciled in the largest cities of the country, i.e. in Zürich, Geneva and Basel. The first World Zionist Congress of 1897 was held in Basel, and took place ten times in the city — more than in any other city in the world. Basel is also home to the Jewish Museum of Switzerland, the first Jewish museum to have been opened in German-speaking Europe after the Second World War. Whereas the communities of Basel and Zürich are traditionally shaped by large Ashkenazi communities, Geneva also hosts an important Sephardic community. Its main synagogue, the Synagogue Hekhal Haness, is considered to be the most important Sephardic synagogue in Switzerland. A ring with a Menorah depiction found in Augusta Raurica (Kaiseraugst, Switzerland) in 2001 attests to Jewish presence in Germania Superior, a province of the Roman Empire. The Encyclopaedia Judaica mentions a first documentation of Jews in Switzerland in 1214. In the Middle Ages, as in many places in Europe, they frequently suffered persecution, for example in 1294 in Bern many Jews of the city were executed and the survivors expelled under the pretext of the murder of a Christian boy. Another pogrom occurred in Zürich in 1249. A plaque was mounted at the location of the former synagogue at Froschaugasse 4 in the former Neumarkt quarter to commemorate the pogrom. The Jews were also victims of persecution during the Black Plague, which they were frequently accused of having caused by poisoning wells. In 1349, 600 Jews in Basel were burned at the stake and 140 children forcibly converted to Catholicism, while in Zurich Jews' belongings were confiscated and a number of Jews were burned at the stake.