A Synagogue for Christians: Anshel Moshe/Christoph Wallich (1672-1743) and The Mayerische Synagogue in Greifswald

• In Event: Of Divided Minds: Conversion Conflicts and Identity Challenges

Abstract

In approximately 1706, the University of Greifswald professor and Theology Faculty dean Johann Friedrich Mayer commissioned a young Jewish convert to Christianity named Christoph Wallich to set up a "teaching Synagogue" in his vast private library. Greifswald, a small German town near the Baltic Sea, had no Jewish community at the time, and so this so-called Mayerische Synagogue offered the faculty's Protestant students the firsthand exposure to Jewish practice that they otherwise would have lacked. Auctioned off after Mayer's death in 1712, this most peculiar of synagogues then made its way via Leipzig to the Dresden Zwinger, where it was on view until 1836 as part of the "Juden-Cabinets" in the Wallpavillon. While all physical trace of the synagogue disappeared for good soon thereafter, Wallich's description thereof, DIE MAYERISCHE SYNAGOGA IN GREIFFSWALDE, survives. Part description of Jewish ritual, part museum catalog, Wallich's text was printed four times in the Eighteenth Century and is a treasure trove of information (some otherwise unknown) about German-Jewish life (particularly in Worms, Wallich's hometown), Jewish folk traditions, and Wallich's own divided soul. My paper will offer a close reading of DIE MAYERISCHE SYNAGOGA IN GREIFFSWALDE, focusing on the manner in which Wallich uses it to negotiate the ambivalence between his Jewish and Christian selves. I will stress in particular the prominent role of humor in this process and also highlight the continued significance of Jewish expressions of piety for him even after his conversion. In addition, I will showcase the extensive degree to which Wallich's text makes use of--and periodically revises--the Yiddish Minhogimbuch, a best-selling early Modern account of Jewish practices throughout the liturgical year, thus adapting Jewish text and practice for a Christian audience. Treating a fascinating, yet little-known episode from the German-Jewish past, this paper will be of interest to scholars of Jewish history, folklore, and literature; conversion studies; and Jewish-Christian relations.

Author

• Daniel Stein Kokin, University of Greifswald