PÖSING or BÖSING (Hungarian, Bazin):
Small town in the county of Presburg, where on May 27, 1529 (Friday, Siwan 13), thirty Jews were burned to death on the accusation of having murdered a Christian child for ritual purposes. The charge was invented by the lord of the place, Franz, Count of St. Georgen and Pösing, who wished to rid himself of the debts which he owed to the Jews of Marchegg and Pösing. Isaac Mandel, prefect of the Hungarian Jews, demanded protection and justice at the hand of King Ferdinand I. for the Jews of both these places; but the feudal lord did not heed the king's warning. The memor-book of the Cracow ḥebra ḳaddisha records the names of those who suffered death at this time. In order to witness the martyrdom the inhabitants of Neisse, Olmütz, and Vienna, as well as those of the neighboring cities, poured into Pösing. Among those who suffered was Moses b. Jacob Kohen, who with his children voluntarily cast himself into the flames. The Jews of Marchegg were saved, as in the meantime the missing child was found alive.
For centuries after this event Jews were not permitted to live in Pösing, nor even to spend a night there. When a Pösing senator gave shelter to the Jew Lazar Hirsch, the excited populace besought King Leopold I. (1657-1705) to confirm their old right of prohibiting Jews from sojourning there. The king decided in favor of the town, and Lazar Hirsch was compelled to remove to the estate of the counts of Palffy.
- G. Wolf, in Leopold Rosenberg, Jahrbuch für die Israelitischen Cultusgemeinden in Ungarn, i. 263-273, Arad, 1860;
- Büchler, A Zsidók Története Budapesten, p. 96, Budapest, 1901;
- Kaufmann, in Monatsschrift, 1894, pp. 426-429;
- Sokolow, in Ha-Asif, vi. 133;
- Ain Erschrockenlich Geschicht, etc., ed. Büchler, in Magyar Zsidó Szemle, xi. 90.
