While other Swiss kehillos are on the decline, Basel’s small community is actually thriving

Photos: MB Goldstein

T

here’s something unique about Basel — and it’s not the Alps, which are nowhere in sight in Switzerland’s third-largest city, nestled in the Rhine valley.

We’re here to visit because Basel today is the only “out of town” Swiss Jewish community to still be thriving, or even in existence, bucking the trend of decline among smaller European kehillos. For context, Zurich is Switzerland’s largest community, therefore considered “in town.” The Lucerne and Lugano kehillos have both sadly disappeared from the map; Geneva straddles the Swiss-French border and is often considered more closely linked to French Jewry than Swiss.

But Basel Jewry is proud of its kollel and the young families who call it home and is actively looking to attract more. Although they have limited kosher amenities, our Basler hosts assure us they are lacking nothing: “What’s the best thing about Zurich? The express train back to Basel.”

Swiss Charm

After Shacharis in the IRG (Israelitische Religionsgesellschaft) shul, and a glimpse of the exterior of the city’s main synagogue, our picnic breakfast in a local park is joined by several tame storks. We use a clearly marked tram service to get downtown, a fairly short journey traversing clean wide streets with well-bred citizens, and yes, the occasional Jewish person, with cap and backpack and even visible tzitzis.

The tram brings us across the Rhine, to the part of the city known as Kleinbasel. We cross back on foot on the Mittlere Brücke, a wide bridge on which gentle swarms of pedestrians and bikes take the same unhurried pace. Below, the blue waters are wide and fast-flowing, with boats of all sizes and swimmers sharing the inviting space on this summer day.

The center of town is artsy — Basel is considered Switzerland’s cultural capital, all museums and exhibitions and concerts. But the people here are just as friendly as in the gentile suburbs, as we wander through a produce market in the Marktplatz, a central square. Bright red cherries, flowers, and ripe zucchini squash fill baskets in the stalls.

The municipal building overlooking the square is painted crimson, with colorful frescoes depicting various scenes. We look upwards to spy the image we were told about, a monarch holding a stone tablet with the first pasuk of the Aseres Hadibros painted in Hebrew calligraphy, including the Four-Letter Name. This building is known as the Rathaus, the city’s town hall and seat of government.

Just a block away, overlooking the flowing Rhine, we encounter a piece of Zionist history and lore — the Trois Rois (Three Kings) Hotel, where Theodore Herzl stayed, while he held the first Zionist World Congress in the nearby casino. Apparently, he wrote in his diary, “In Basel, I founded the Jewish state,” he wrote in his diary. His grand idea of speedily bringing all anti-Semitism to an end by creating a country for Jews, possibly in some hospitable region like Uganda, doesn’t seem to have been all that prescient, looking back. The five-star, Michelin-starred premises with stretch limousines drawn up outside appear dauntingly grand.

We make our way out of the old city through the Spalentor, or Spalen Gate, one of the most beautiful and impressive city gates in Switzerland. It’s a three-turreted tower that was part of the protective wall around the medieval city of Basel. We scan the walls carefully, but the historic sign requiring Jews to pay a higher toll for entering the medieval city has been taken down, although it can be viewed in our host’s photo albums. A relic from 1775 that remained in place on the Spalentor until 2012, it specified that the charge for entering Basel varied according to age, and was higher for “Juden.”