A '''schulklopfer''' (or '''shulklopfer'''; {{etymology|yi||synagogue knocker}}<ref name="Wexler2006">{{cite book|last=Wexler|first=Paul |title=Jewish and Non-Jewish Creators of "Jewish" Languages: With Special Attention to Judaized Arabic, Chinese, German, Greek, Persian, Portuguese, Slavic (modern Hebrew/Yiddish), Spanish, and Karaite, and Semitic Hebrew/Ladino; a Collection of Reprinted Articles from Across Four Decades with a Reassessment|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ic5Kth7aiusC&pg=PA587|year=2006|publisher=Otto Harrassowitz Verlag|location=Wiesbaden|isbn=3447054042}} (page 587, footnote 8).</ref>) is the person who calls a Jewish community to prayer in the local synagogue.<ref name="JEschulklopfer">{{cite book|last1=Singer, Isidore & Adler, Cyrus (Eds.)|title=The Jewish Encyclopedia, vol. 11|date=1906|publisher=Funk and Wagnalls|location=New York|page=114|url=http://d2b4hhdj1xs9hu.cloudfront.net/C11K114R.jpg|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20150923091738/http://d2b4hhdj1xs9hu.cloudfront.net/C11K114R.jpg|archivedate=September 23, 2015}} [https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/13326-schulklopfer Alt URL]</ref><ref name="Rose2001">{{cite book|last=Rose|first=Emily C.|title=Portraits of Our Past: Jews of the German Countryside|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=N9KbwXcS7OgC&pg=PA57|year=2001|publisher=Jewish Publication Society|location=Philadelphia|isbn=978-0-8276-0706-4|page=57}}</ref>
The ''schulklopfer'' was usually a beadle, who would perform the task by wandering around the community, knocking on each household's door early in the morning.<ref name="JEschulklopfer" /> In Neustadt, he would knock four times. Israel Isserlein, a rabbi from Neustadt, argued that this pattern encoded the biblical phrase "I shall come to thee and bless thee"<ref>{{bibleverse||Exodus|20:24|}}</ref><ref name="JEschulklopfer" /> In the Rhine, the custom was to strike thrice.<ref name="JEschulklopfer" />
In medieval Eastern Europe, the ''schulklopfer'' also had the role of individually inviting people to marriage ceremonies (''nissuin''<!--not erusin-->); the invitations were made to the entire community by the ''schulklopfer'' on the morning of the marriage ceremony itself (such ceremonies were usually an evening affair).<ref name="JEschulklopfer2">{{cite book|last1=Singer, Isidore & Adler, Cyrus (Eds.)|title=The Jewish Encyclopedia, vol. 8|date=1906|publisher=Funk and Wagnalls|location=New York|pages=340ff|url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.49015002282243;view=1up;seq=368}} [https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/10434-marriage-ceremonies Alt URL]</ref>
The name stems from the Holy Roman Empire (Germany) in the Middle Ages.<ref name="JEschulklopfer" /> Christians in nearby communities sometimes referred to ''schulklopfers'' as ''campanatores'' (a Latin term meaning ''bell-strikers'') or as ''Glöckner'' (German for ''bell-striker'').<ref name="JEschulklopfer" />
==See also== *Muezzin, the Islamic equivalent *Klopfer, surname
==References== {{reflist}}
==External links== * ''Jewish Encyclopedia'': [https://jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/13326-schulklopfer "Schulklopfer"] by Cyrus Adler and Max Seligsohn (1906)
Category:Jewish religious occupations