THE ROMAN BORDERS IN GERMANY
Isenburg Bundigen stretched throughout the region of Oberhessen and sud Hessen
as a corridor similar to the one of Hannau. These regions are ancient in their
history. Archeologists have unraveled extraordinary digs along the border that
separated Germania of the Roman empire against the wall of Germanic tribes,
which existed as far back as the destruction of the Second Temple.
That border was a man-made line called the "Obergermanisch-Raetischer Lines"
(The Upper German-Raetian Limes). You can find a map of this enormous man made
border at:
http://www.taunus-wetterau-limes.de/index2.htm
It separated the small communities of the empire including the central territory
of the Wetterau and the small magistrates that became Dieburg, Butzbach and
Friedberg, from the barbaric German tribes.
Little information exists about the region from 475 CE to 1076 CE, as the Roman
empire began to crumble. With Charlemenge's ascent to power, however, Jews (said
to be 10,000 in population), found themselves settled within the communities
of Speyer, Mainz and Worms. These communities lay east of Hassia (the former
name of Hessen) and along the central artery of Western Europe, the Rhine. Jews
were finally given rights of settlement in 1076.
How these 10,000 people survived under relentless assault can only be called
heroic. At the time of Maimonodes, the Jews of the north developed sophisticated
systems of justice between themselves and the feudal overlords. They had three
great Rabbis who developed a justice system that would lay the foundations for
trade and capitalism. No one knows how the Hanseatic league developed their
trade system. No doubt someone must have studied how the Jews handled their
business dealings.
Jewish life changed after the pogroms of 1096 CE when the Crusades began. By
1188 CE and the start of the third Crusade, Jews left their Torah scrolls in
the large communities and fled to the burgeoning villages and fortifications
along all the tributaries of the Rhine. One of these fortifications was Munzenburg,
a medieval castle some twenty kilometers north of Frankfurt. For example, the
Wolfersheim cemetery, where Jews are buried, is five kilometers from Munzenburg
castle.
By the fifteenth century, the principality was bought out by the Isenburg family.
They had then begun to build castles in Bundigen, Birstein and through family
alliances in Ronneburg and then later Assenheim, Wachterbach, Solms and Rodelheim.
There is a famous Mikvah in Friedberg (@1250 CE), but there is also a Mikvah
in AlteWiedemus, now just an ordinary-looking house some three kilometers east
of the Ronneburg, but that castle also is home to existing Jewish graves. It
is said they go back to the 16th century.
The Eckerthausen cemetery (some five kilometers from Ronneburg) was shared by
people from that community, Langenbergheim and AlteWiedemus, after Jews left
the castle walls. By the 17th century, the Isenburg-Bundigens began to fall
into financial disrepair and sold their castle at Ronneburg to some Moravians
who were fleeing Saxony religious oppression. Some Moravians claim that they
converted Jews, but Lazarus Mai from Rodelheim along with his wife Caroline
are buried in this cemetery. This lays further evidence that Jews connected
themselves through the relations that the various Counts and princes had with
each other. Thus Oberhessen with all its many small fiefdoms must have been
particularly tolerant of Jewish travel since all its Princes needed trade to
survive. That is why you can see Gruenbaums in Assenheim, in Meerholz, in Friedberg
and throughout the region as well as Ienburgers and Sterns.