Mitau — the residence of the Dukes of Courland; from 1795, a provincial city of the Courland Governorate (Doblen District). Today it is the city of Jelgava in Latvia. The Jewish community arose here at the beginning of the 18th century; most likely Jews lived in Mitau earlier as well, but were permitted to reside only on Doblen Street.
In 1730, Isaac ben Judah founded the local Jewish community—the ḥevra kadisha, which usually marks the beginning of organized communal life. In 1750, in the Piltene district, the institution of Jewish deputies was introduced to collect taxes from the Jewish population; they were granted the right to levy the so-called Geleitzoll—a Jewish transit tax—on Jews arriving in Mitau, in the same amount as was paid in Mitau by Piltene Jews. On August 6, 1759, Regent Karl issued a decree demanding that Jews leave Mitau within four weeks; however, this order was apparently not enforced. The community continued to exist: in 1770 a society for assisting the sick was established, and in 1784 construction of a synagogue began, financed by S. Borkum.
Mitau became the center of the struggle over granting civil rights to Courland Jews, which arose in the 1780s. Pamphlets both against and in favor of Jews appeared here. In 1793, the Jews of Mitau petitioned the Landtag to secure permanent residence rights for Jews in the future, and at the Landtag’s initiative a project for Jewish reform was developed.
In 1797, 642 Jews were registered in Mitau (excluding women and children). According to the 1835 census, the community numbered 4,987 people (including 219 from the merchant estate). By 1850—after the resettlement in 1840 of 863 people to the southern provinces of Russia and the cholera epidemic of 1848—the population declined to 4,189 (402 merchants). According to the 1897 census, Mitau had 51,131 residents, including 5,879 Jews (the district had about 100,000 residents, of whom 6,878 were Jews). In 1910, Mitau had three synagogues, a Talmud Torah, a state Jewish boys’ school, and two private Jewish boys’ schools.
In the 1840s, a legal case was initiated concerning Jewish clockmakers in Mitau. Until 1841, only Jews practiced clockmaking there, while Christians who repaired tower clocks belonged to the guild of locksmiths and gunsmiths. In 1841, Christians were granted the right to establish their own guild, while Jews were denied permission to create a similar guild. As a result, Jews were prohibited in 1841 from taking on apprentices and journeymen and from displaying shop signs. These former rights were restored to Jews only in 1848, on the condition that the number of apprentices and journeymen not exceed their number in 1841.
The most renowned rabbis of Mitau include Samuel ben Elkanah Teomim-Ashkenazi (d. 1742), author of the responsa Mekom Schemuel; David Ezekiel ben Jekuthiel; Menahem Mendel Israelson (who served as a censor of Hebrew books); Zvi Hirsch Rabinovich (d. 1910, Kovno); and Nahman Idel Margaliot (d. 1897).
Bibliography:
Wunderbar, R. Geschichte der Juden in den Provinzen Liv- und Kurland. Mitau, 1853;
Gessen, Yu. The Jews in Russia (Eвреи в России);
Ovchinsky, L. History of Jewish Settlement in Courland (דנאלרוקב םידוהיה תבישי תודלות
), pp. 110–128.