Adelsheim was already home to some Jews in the Middle Ages. In 1338, Louis IV, Holy Roman Emperor had allowed the brothers Poppo and Berlinger von Adelsheim to "keep" four Jewish families in their lands. Also in 1690, there were four Jewish families resident in Adelsheim. The establishment of an actual community can be traced back to the seventeenth century. The highest number of Jewish inhabitants was reached in 1885 when the count was 70. Under an ordinance from 1690, the Jewish community yearly had to pay the Barons of Adelsheim four gulden for "school", that is to say, to be allowed to hold their religious services. The prayer room used at that time, according to oral tradition, was set up on the second floor of the house built by Melchior Keller in 1418 in the Torgasse ("Gate Lane"). This house was dismantled in 1952. Later, there was a prayer room in a likewise no longer standing building in the yard of the Oberschloss. From the middle of the nineteenth century until 1889, a synagogue stood at Turmgasse 27. A ritual bath and a Jewish school were housed at the old synagogue in the nineteenth century at Turmgasse 27, and as of 1889 at the new synagogue (Untere Austraße 1). When the new synagogue was being torn down in 1977, the ritual bath was rediscovered. Burials were performed in Buchen-Bödigheim and after 1884 in Sennfeld. After the deportations during the Third Reich, at least ten of the 35 Jews living in town in 1933 lost their lives. As a result of the Reformation, the people became Lutheran. Until 2000, Adelsheim was the seat of a deaconate of the Baden State Church, part of the Evangelical Church in Germany. In the course of deaconate reform, the deaconate moved to Hirschlanden in Rosenberg. Catholics are a minority. After 1945 a rough balance between the two faiths was reached through the arrival of refugees from the east. After 1960, a further Catholic church was established, St. Mary's. The forerunner to the folk festival (Volksfest) was the Homeland Days (Heimattage) in 1948. The occasion for Adelsheim's second folk festival in 1949 was the celebration of the dedication of the new Kirnau Bridge, which replaced one destroyed in 1945. On 11 November 1948, the Adelsheim District Agricultural School (Kreislandwirtschaftschule Adelsheim) opened its doors under Dr. Leopold Wiswesser's leadership. In the years that were to come,