Editing Silesia (section)

====Religion====
[[File:Verbreitung der Konfessionen im deutschen Reich.jpg|thumb|upright=1.5|Confessions in the German Empire (Protestant/Catholic; c. 1890). Lower Silesia was mostly Protestant, while Glatz ([[Kłodzko]]) and Upper Silesia were mostly Catholic.]]
Historically, Silesia was about equally split between [[Protestants]] (overwhelmingly [[Lutherans]]) and [[Roman Catholics]]. In an 1890 census taken in the German part, Roman Catholics made up a slight majority of 53%, while the remaining 47% were almost entirely Lutheran.<ref>[[Meyers Konversations-Lexikon|Meyers Konversationslexikon]] 5. Auflage</ref> Geographically speaking, Lower Silesia was mostly Lutheran except for the [[Kłodzko Land|Glatzer Land]] (now [[Kłodzko County]]). Upper Silesia was mostly Roman Catholic except for some of its northwestern parts, which were predominantly Lutheran. Generally speaking, the population was mostly Protestant in the western parts, and it tended to be more Roman Catholic the further east one went. In Upper Silesia, Protestants were concentrated in larger cities and often identified as German. After World War II, the religious demographics changed drastically as Germans, who constituted the bulk of the Protestant population, [[Flight and expulsion of Germans|were forcibly expelled]]. Poles, who were mostly Roman Catholic, were resettled in their place. Today, Silesia remains predominantly Roman Catholic.

Existing since the 12th century,<ref>Demshuk, A (2012) The Lost German East: Forced Migration and the Politics of Memory, 1945–1970, Cambridge University Press P40</ref> Silesia's Jewish community was concentrated around Wrocław and Upper Silesia, and numbered 48,003 (1.1% of the population) in 1890, decreasing to 44,985 persons (0.9%) by 1910.<ref>Kamusella, T (2007). ''Silesia and Central European nationalisms: the emergence of national and ethnic groups in Prussian Silesia and Austrian Silesia, 1848–1918,'' Purdue University Press, p.173.</ref> In Polish East Upper Silesia, the number of Jews was around 90,000–100,000.<ref>Christopher R. Browning (2000). ''Nazi Policy, Jewish Workers, German Killers,'' Cambridge University Press, 2000, p.147.</ref> Historically, the community had suffered a number of localised expulsions such as their 1453 expulsion from [[Wrocław]].<ref>van Straten, J (2011) The Origin of Ashkenazi Jewry: The Controversy Unravelled, Walter de Gruyter P58</ref> From 1712 to 1820 a succession of men held the title Chief Rabbi of Silesia ("Landesrabbiner"): Naphtali ha-Kohen (1712–16); Samuel ben Naphtali (1716–22); Ḥayyim Jonah Te'omim (1722–1727); Baruch b. Reuben Gomperz (1733–54); Joseph Jonas Fränkel (1754–93); Jeremiah Löw Berliner (1793–99); Lewin Saul Fränkel (1800–7); [[Aaron Karfunkel]] (1807–16); and Abraham ben Gedaliah Tiktin (1816–20).<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/7747-hirschberg |title=Silesia |author=<!--Not stated--> |website=1906 Jewish Encyclopedia |publisher=JewishEncyclopedia.com |access-date=6 December 2017}}</ref>