Elblag
ELBLAG
ELBLAG (Ger. Elbing ), a city near Gdansk (Danzig), Poland, from 1772 to 1945 in Germany. Jews were reported to have been burned there during the *Black Death. There were no Jews living in Elblag after the first partition of Poland in 1772, but in 1783 Moses Simon was permitted to settle in the city and provide for visiting Jewish merchants, obtaining a trade license in 1800. There were 33 Jewish families in 1812 and 42 in 1816, all of whom had been granted the right of settlement despite opposition from the local merchants. The community opened a cemetery in 1811, an elementary school in 1823, and a synagogue and mikveh in 1824. A rabbi was engaged from 1879. In 1932 the community numbered 460 and maintained three charitable and five welfare organizations, and a school attended by 60 children. The synagogue was burned down by the Nazis on Nov. 10, 1938, and most of the homes and shops of the Jews there were looted. Part of the communal archives (1811–1936) are in the Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People in Jerusalem. There has not been an organized Jewish community in Elblag since World War ii.
bibliography:
Neufeld, in: Zeitschrift fuer die Geschichte der Juden, 2 (1965), 1–14; 5 (1968), 127–49; 7 (1970), 131f.; Neufeld, in: awjd (March 25, 1966); Germ Jud, 2 (1968), 200.
[Ze'ev Wilhem Falk]