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Cleve, Germany

The 1901 Jewish Encyclopedia

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City of Rhenish Prussia, near Aix-la-Chapelle, situated on the Ruhr. In 1227 Emperor Frederick II. conferred upon Count Wilhelm of Jülich the right to dispose, without any interference on the part of the crown, of any Jews who should settle in his dominions. It can not be ascertained whether Wilhelm availed himself of this privilege and invited Jews to settle at Jülich; but that several Jewish families were living there at the end of the thirteenth or, at the latest, in the first year of the fourteenth century, is shown by the fact that a certain Simon and his wife Minna, living at that time in Cologne, were designated as natives of Jülich (comp. Stern and Höniger, "Das Judenschreinbuch der Laurenzpfarre zu Köln," p. 157). Like many other German communities, that of Jülich was wiped out in 1349 at the time of the Black Death. A seal of the fourteenth century preserved in the archives of Clervaux bears the Hebrew inscription (= "Jacob, son of the martyr Joel of Jülich").

In the following centuries the presence of Jews at Jülich is probable, though not certain. The same uncertainty prevails concerning the Jewish community of Cleve, which also was a dependency of the margraves of Jülich. In 1901 Jülich numbered 102 Jewish inhabitants in a total population of 5,385; Cleve, 145 in a total population of 14,684.