Now in Buttenhausen: the album of the former rabbi of Buttenhausen, Jakob Stern (1843-1911)

Page of the Stern-album with quotations from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Ludwig Börne. At the top Stern's stamp as proof of his ownership

Jakob Stern from Niederstetten, rabbi in Buttenhausen from 1874 till 1880, is one of the most remarkable personalities of Jewish Württemberg around the turn of the century. Stern, who was formed by traditional Jewish devoutness, finally experienced a deep conflict with his community in Buttenhausen. The hostility was so enormous that Stern left Buttenhausen and moved to Stuttgart to start a completely new life there. He left the Jewish community and became a representative of the “Freidenker” (freethinkers). After Albert Dulk had died in 1884 he took over the leadership of it’s Stuttgart union. Moreover Stern was an important personality for the workers’ education in Württemberg and he wrote numerous articles for the socialist newspaper “Schwäbische Tagwacht”. Due to his miserable personal situation he committed suicide in 1911. The great socialist and peacenik Clara Zetkin wrote his obituary.

Although Stern had written so much and was in contact with important people in his time, like Karl Kautsky, only few archival evidence has remained. The Jewish museum of Creglingen keeps a Kiddush cup of Stern to celebrate the Sabbath. He had received this cup when he left Niederstetten. The only other piece from his property is an album with quotations, newspaper clippings and aphorisms which was in posession of some descendants in Esslingen up to the 1980s. Then it came to the “Konfessionskundliche Institut” in Bensheim (Hesse) and through Dr. Sebastian Prüfer, Berlin, finally to Buttenhausen.

This album accompanied Stern since the time of his candidacy for a rabbi in Niederstetten and it is headed with “aphorisms which have a reference to my life”. It shows quotations in Latin, in Greek, in Hebrew, in French and in English, even one aphorism from India. The album therefore is also a wittnes of Stern’s wide-ranging interests and his erudition. Some entries refer to the family’s history. They mention the birth of the children and the bitter farewell from the two sons who were brought, by Stern himself to the ship in Bremen in 1886 when they emigrated to the USA.

The album is now available for the scientific research in the rooms of the town’s archives. The future presentation and keeping is checked at the moment.
Contact: roland.deigendesch@muensingen.de


Translation: Dirk Hösch and Timo Reiff, Gymnasium Münsingen