My grandfather was a rabbi in Wurzburg a district rabbi
because he not only served in the city of Wurzburg but also in the surrounding area
where there were small villages and they had Jewish populations there
And he served these small villages as well His father was also a rabbi in Wurzburg
He was known as the 'Wurzburger Rav', the rabbi of Wurzburg
And he still goes by that name to this day His name was Seligman Bamburger
I felt very Jewish and I never thought about anything else but being a Jew
And, I learned in my elementary school And I took religion
I knew what I was, and who I was, and where I came from
And I can say even though we were not very religious Jewish people but we identified
Only with Judaism And that was my religion
And I, it never came to my Even though I had many Christian friends and
most of my friends that I remember playing with as a child were 90% Christians
And I But I was the Jew and they were not the Jew
Well, every Shabbat we walked to services and came home and had a Shabbat meal
And then in the afternoon my parents had pre-paid at an outdoor café sort-of, we lived
in the suburbs actually, The town was small but we lived out of town
And I think that it was called Gerber's lynn We all met with other families, relatives
And we all had coffee And the children were allowed to have a little
bit of coffee with a little milk and a Schlagsahne (German: whipped cream) on it
And we played with our friends So it was a delightful delightful experience
No problems, no worries, Germany was the most beautiful country in
the world we always thought, but that changed eventually, as did so many
other things but we really enjoyed Shabbat
Friday night we'd go to services too, we enjoyed the holidays
and it was a very wonderful way of life for us because we,
I always felt I had a very big support group Friday night I would go to,
first to services with my father and then we would come home and we would have a shabes
meal And at times, because the distances were rather
small We would visit after the meal with some of
our other Polish Jewish relatives Aunts, uncles and so on
And spend the evening with them Did you celebrate Shabbes?
Not really, we were not In Wurzburg was only one temple
Except they didn't call it temple, they called it synagogue
And it was mostly orthodox My parents were not orthodox but they kept
the holidays Like especially Rosh Hashanna and Yom Kippur
and they would also try to fast But my mother never lighted candles, I don't
know why We went also every Shabbes
At six o clock to an hashkama minyan which was held in the old synagogue
A small syngagoue – “Matai-Shetub” they called it
Where an interesting man was upon us He was… von Manstein was his name
He was a baal teshuva, not a baal teshuva, he was a ger tsedek
He became Jewish due to an incident when he was in the army before the first world war
He had what you call amim o'mnuvos?? And in those days the officers were in the
Had to be in homes of people And by coincidence he was with the Ansbachers
In Heidingsfeld And they were very religious and observant
By seeing this he became interested and later on became a ger tsedek
The synagogue was again an orthodox synagogue And it was services were conducted there
There were additional synagogues At one time or another in Wurzburg
Especially after the first world war When a number of Eastern European Jews came
to Wurzburg They wanted to pray among themselves
And so therefore they established their own But within the confines of the general community
In other words, they didn't start something else
The way we have it in United States It was all part of the confines of the Jewish
community of Wurzburg
