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A Jewish Community is born in Nyiregyháza An outline of the history of Jewry in Nyiregyháza was written in the German language by Dr. Béla Bernstein the chief rabbi of the former religious community. Its title was "Die Anfänge der Judengemeinde in Nyiregyhaza." This saw the light of day after his death in 1947, in the collection of studies called "Semitic Studies. In memory of Immanuel Löw" edited by Dr. Sándor Scheiber. In this carefully worked and well thought out study, Dr. Béla Bernstein drew, albeit at a high level, the historical background of the creation of a Jewish Community in Nyiregyháza. He pointed to the fact that in Nyiregyháza, as in the general across all of Hungary, until 1840, the settlement of Jews in the main cities was officially, but voluntarily prevented. In 1840 the famous clause XXVIII made possible some meaningful changes to this situation. It also made passable the road to settlement in Nyiregyháza. At first the Jews came one by one. There were few of them. They did not form a religious community. In 1843, Emánuel Stern, Jóna Mandel, Dávid Goldstein, Bernát Lusztig and Salamon Klein, prepared and presented a well written submission to the city council by referring to the abovementioned clause. Their request was for a plot of land, as residents of the area, which could be used as a cemetery. Their request was granted. In 1848 there were seventy one souls in Nyiregyháza. With one exception, who was a tobacco tax inspector who had immigrated from Czechoslovakia, all of them were born in Hungary. Those eligible for the draft took part in the 1848/49 revolutions. Until 1865 they belonged to the county’s largest religious communities in Nagykalló. At this time they received permission from the county’s Chief Rabbi, Abraham Weinberger to form their own religious community. They already had a prayer house and butchery. In August of the same year they invited Károly Friedmann, a pupil of the Pozsonyi Szofér Kötáv to become rabbi. In 1868 they built the building of the primary school. The teachers were not employees of the community. They dealt with the children on a voluntary capacity. In 1873 they had to increase the number of seats by fifty. On April 2 1879 they celebrated the day of the golden anniversary of the wedding of Franz Joseph by collecting twenty thousand forints for the building of a new temple. On the 5th of September 1889 this was opened. A marble remembrance plaque was placed in the wall of the entrance to commemorate the contribution of Moricz Haas to the momentum for the building of the temple. They built the temple according to the wishes of the congregation to the plans of Aruch Sulchan. To maintain the peace and safety of the temple they created new guidelines. Those who violated the guidelines were fined. From 1872 they determined that soliciting donations within the temple could only be made for the following purposes:
On 22nd May 1881 they elected Sault Lieber as Kantor. He commenced his country wide renown at the age of eighty one years of age and maintained this until his death. For each holy occasion he donned the same uniform as that worn by the children’s choir that he brought with him from Poland. His successors, cantors Weizer and Bernat were also held in high esteem by the congregation.
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