49°24' N, 09°24' E, 20 miles NNE of Heilbronn, in Neckar-Odenwald-Kreis, N Baden-Württemberg.. Jewish population: 64 (in 1880), 35 (in 1933). Adelsheim was already home to some Jews in the Middle Ages when in 1338, Kaiser Ludwig of the Bavarians allowed the brothers Poppo and Berlinger from Adelsheim to "keep" four Jewish families in their lands. Also in 1690, four Jewish families lived in Adelsheim. A few protected Jewish families were known from 1338 and 1690 and the 18th century when the Jews lived in a ghetto, wore distinctive clothes, and were confined to their homes on Sundays and Christian holidays. Establishment of an actual Jewish community dates an ordinance from 1690 requiring the Jewish community to pay the Barons of Adelsheim four gulden annualy to be allowed to hold religious service The prayer room reportedly was set up on the second floor of the house built by Melchior Keller in 1418 in the Torgasse ("Gate Lane"). This house was demolished in 1952. Later, a prayer room existed in another no longer standing building in the yard of the Oberschloss. Straitened economic circumstances kept the Jewish population from growing beyond a peak of 64 in 1880 out of a total population of 1.602 or 70 in 1885. From the 1860s, their position improved so they could participate fully in public life. Urbanization reduced the Jewish population to 35 in 1933. 20 left by November 1938 to Palestine and the U.S.). Another six left after Kristallnacht (9 to 10 November 1938), when the synagogue was vandalized, and all eight deported to the Gurs concentration camp in 1940 died in the camps. The state-recognized resort of Adelsheim in the Neckar-Odenwald-Kreis datews back 1,200 years. The Adelsheim area is part of the greater geographical region known as the Bauland. Explained at Wikipedia for Sennfeld (Baden), Leibenstadt, Wemmershof, and Hergenstadt. From the middle of the nineteenth century until 1889, a synagogue stood at Turmgasse 27. A mikveh and a Jewish school were at the old synagogue in the nineteenth century also. In 1889, the new synagogue at Untere Austraße 1 was built. When the new synagogue was being torn down in 1977, the mikveh was rediscovered. After deportations by the Third Reich, at least 10 of the 35 Jews in town in 1933 were murdered.
- Encyclopedia of Jewish Life (2001), p. 20: "Adelsheim".
- Pinkas HaKehilot, Germany, Vol. 2 (1986), p. 216: "Adelsheim"
- JewishGen GerSIG