DYHERNFURTH

DYHERNFURTH (Pol. Brzeg Dolny ), town in Lower Silesia; from 1945 in Poland, near Wroclaw (Breslau). Its Jewish community dates from 1688, when Shabbetai *Bass, founder of modern Hebrew bibliography, leased printing privileges from the local magnate who, in turn, held them from the emperor. The first work he printed in Dyhernfurth was *Samuel b. Uri Shraga Phoebus' Beit Shemu'el, a commentary on Shulhan Arukh Even ha-Ezer (1689). A community was formed by 13 families, all employed in Bass's printing works. Both Bass and his son Joseph had to contend with the hostility of the Jesuits, but printing continued until 1762, from 1717 under Berel Nathan, husband of Bass's granddaughter Esther, and later under Esther herself. Other printing houses were established by Samuel b. Abraham Katz (until 1767), Abraham Lewin (until 1771), Solomon Koenigsberg (1774–75), M.L. May (until 1819), H. Warschauer & Co., and lastly D. Sklower whose press closed in 1834 when he moved to Breslau. The Dyhernfurth productions, which included a complete Talmud and Maimonides' Mishneh Torah, were very popular at the time, but business declined due to outside competition. A Yiddish newspaper, serving the Breslau community, was printed there in 1770. The cemetery of Dyhernfurth was used by Breslau Jews until 1765; a Memorbuch was started before 1700. The synagogue, consecrated in 1847, was sold in 1926. The numbers of the community declined from 191 in 1833 to 42 in 1885, and 5 in 1910, and it was dissolved in 1916.

bibliography:

M. Gruenwald, Zur Geschichte der juedischen Gemeinde Dyhernfurth (1881); I. Rabin, Aus Dyhernfurths juedischer Vergangenheit (1929); D. Weinbaum, Geschichte des juedischen Friedhofs in Dyhernfurth (1903); Landsberger, in: mgwj, 39 (1895), 120–33, 187–92, 230–38; Brann, ibid., 40 (1896), 474–80, 515–26, 560–74; Brilling, in: zgjb, 7 (1937), 109–12. add. bibliography: M. Marx, in: C. Berlin (ed.), Studies in Jewish Bibliography … in Honor of I.E. Kiev (1971), 217–36; H.C. Zafren, ibid., 543–80.