The article below was written by my fifth cousin, Richard Bloomfield, who recently visited our mutual ancestral town, Momberg, Germany, with his first cousins (and my fifth cousins) Jim and Steven Bloomfield. Momberg is where our mutual four-times great-grandparents Abraham Blumenfeld I and Geitel Katz lived and raised their children, including my three-times great-grandmother Breine Blumenfeld Katzenstein and Richard, Jim, and Steven’s three-times great-grandfather Jakob Blumenfeld.

In this article, Richard discusses the construction and history of the Momberg synagogue, including the terrible story of how it was damaged on Kristallnacht and of the Torah scroll that the Blumenfeld family rescued and brought to America. Richard mentions many Blumenfeld relatives whom I’ve mentioned and written about on this blog, including Abraham Blumenfeld IIA,  Sitta Blumenfeld Spier and her daughter Gisela Spier-Cohen, Fritz Blumenfeld, Kathinka Blumenfeld Rosenberg, and some of their descendants including my cousins Simeon Spier, Michael Rosenberg, and Alan Blumenfeld, all of whom have helped me with my research and with whom I’ve exchanged emails and zoomed.

I am so grateful to Richard for sharing this article and his photographs so that I can share them with my readers, especially all the Blumenfeld cousins I’ve been so lucky to connect with through my blog and my research.