“Ordinance Regarding the Communal Affairs of the Israelites,” issued by William II, Elector of Hesse [Present-day Germany]: “2. Every Jewish community shall generally have its own prayer-house (synagogue). As long as individual communities are lacking such a prayer-house, they shall have to hold their religious services in the prayer-house of a neighboring community. 3. Outside of the public prayer-houses, no Israelite service, nor any communal worship by others and not allowed by the synagogue-regulation (see Section 16), shall take place, unless these others should be relatives by blood or marriage. 16. In order to eradicate the abuses which have surreptitiously encroached upon matters of culture and synagogues, and which are anathema to Jewdom itself, a separate ordinance shall regulate synagogues and rabbis, and in it, it shall be specified that the German language shall be preferred for song and sermon alike.”
Scheel, Friedrich [publ.]. Zusammenstellung der die Israeliten des vorhinnigen Kurfürstenthums Hessen betreffenden gesetzlichen Erlasse (Compilation of Decrees Concerning the Israelites in the State of Hesse). Scheel: Cassel, 1901. Page 12. Researched by Dominik Jacobs 3/16/2020