Jakob Loewenberg

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Jacob Loewenberg as a teacher (1875)

Jakob Loewenberg (born March 9, 1856 in Niederntudorf near Salzkotten ( Westphalia ), † February 7, 1929 in Hamburg ) was a German writer and educator .

Life

Jakob Loewenberg was born in Niederntudorf near Salzkotten in 1856 as the ninth child of Levi Loewenberg. His family belonged to the Westphalian rural Jewry, which earned its money as merchants ( Kiepenkerle ). Jakob Loewenberg later wrote about his home village and his family:

The community consisted of only a few families, almost all of whom had to laboriously earn their piece of bread. The only wealthy among them was farming; one was a dyer and the others were merchants. One traded in grain, the second in furs, the third in fabric, the fourth in cattle, and the fifth with everything together and with many other things. The fifth was my father.

In the village Loewenberg grew up in modest, traditional surroundings. But resentments between Jews and Christians made everyday life difficult:

Had it not been for the grown-ups interfering, the Jewish and Christian boys and girls would have continued to associate in the same amicable manner as they did as small children. Any given relationship is natural to children; Since everything is new to them, everything is different, nothing is different for them, and they would never think of themselves that one should behave differently towards people with different hair colors or different noses. But if on any occasion it was said: “The Jews are there” - or “something like that can only happen with Eiszews [von Esau = non-Jews]”, the young ears listened, and the cry “olle Jew '”, “ olle Christ ”soon flew over and over. And more of the differences were then revealed to the peering eyes: different food, different holidays, different places of worship, yes even a different language; because in the Jewish families (...) only standard German was spoken, although everyone understood Platt and used it in their dealings. Now we felt offended by the word Jew, but not offended. In the depths of our hearts we felt not only different, but also much better than our Christian companions, and looked down on their ecclesiastical customs and institutions with the same disdain as they did on ours.

Since Jakob Loewenberg started attending school, it was clear to him that he would become a teacher himself. In this sense, after six years of elementary school, in 1870 he entered the teachers' seminar of the Marks-Haindorf Foundation in Münster . The Marks Haindorf Foundation was known nationwide as a Jewish education center with elementary school and teacher training college. There, the learners were taught both the spirit of the Jewish tradition and that of Prussian patriotism.

In 1873 Loewenberg was able to successfully pass the first elementary teacher examination. He then gained experience at several Jewish elementary schools in the Münsterland. The second elementary teacher examination, the secondary school teacher examination and the rectorate examination followed from 1877 to 1879. At the same time he took private lessons in English and French with a Catholic chaplain in the diocese of Münster . In 1881 he had been able to afford trips to London and Paris through tutoring .

His diary entry from November 25, 1881 from London reads:

I am happy that I am German, that I am a Jew and a teacher; I'm proud of it, and yet all three are strong enough to protect against hunger, perhaps also against starvation? Ideals? O how beautiful, how great, how sublime. But where are they when your stomach asks you: What do you live on?

This illustrates the difficult financial situation of Loewenberg during this time.

In 1884 he began studying philosophy and languages ​​at the University of Marburg . There Loewenberg was taught by the philosopher Hermann Cohen , who deeply impressed and shaped him. This showed him how closely Judaism and (Protestant) Christianity, how closely Jews and Germans, if they only understand themselves correctly, are related to one another .

Then Jakob Loewenberg went to Heidelberg , where the partly subliminal, partly open anti-Semitism of many fraternities bothered him. Nevertheless, he himself enjoyed studying in a student union , which he later worked through in his poem Between Green Mountains . In 1886 he received his doctorate. phil., in the same year he began his work as a teacher at the secondary school of the Evangelical Reform Congregation in Hamburg.

In the following decade, Loewenberg's first literary works appeared, in which he always expressed the unity of Germanness and Judaism . ( The brook, which flows from two springs, also unites its water calmly in the great sea. )

Jakob Loewenberg's first literary works were created in the 1890s, in which, despite all anti-Semitic hostility, he acknowledged the unity of being German and Jewish. In 1891 Loewenberg joined the Young Literary Society . After just a few years as an active member, however, he left the society because of anti-Semitic incidents.

In 1892 Loewenberg was able to take over the management of a secondary school for girls. The liberal private school in the spirit of Reform Judaism and German idealism made the all-round development and harmonious training of the spiritual and physical strength of its students in the service of the purely human, which is at the same time the divine, in the service of the true, the good and the beautiful .

Twenty years later (1912) the German Empire honored Loewenberg's educational work with the appointment of the girls' school to the imperial lyceum . From now on the school became attractive for Christian pupils as well.

Jakob Loewenberg committed himself more and more emphatically to the German Empire despite the headwind in the form of anti-Semitic hostility . His collection of poems Vom goldennen Überfluß (including his well-known song Laterne, Laterne ) was very successful with several high editions from 1902 onwards. He expressed himself to the effect that the development of mankind slowly forwards (progresses). When Lessing wrote his little comedy 'Die Juden' about 160 years ago, one critic said that the process of the play was hardly possible because such a decent or noble Jew, as described in it, did not even exist. Thirty years later 'Nathan' appeared and was already believed. (...) And finally 100 years ago we received civil rights. After another 100 years - we have learned to hope and wait - it may not occur to a single person to doubt that we are Germans. (...) Only we are not allowed to forgive our human dignity, we only have to feel ourselves as Germans and act as Germans - despite everything.

His last entry in the diary before his death read:

According to the Jewish entry, today was our father's 50th anniversary . I went back to memories ... In the afternoon I went to the cemetery in Ohlsdorf. On the way home a little boy, maybe three to four years old, who was standing in front of a house garden asked me: Where do you live? Do you want to go home now - I'll be going home soon, I thought.

Loewenberg died on February 7th as a result of severe flu. He was buried in the Jewish cemetery in Ohlsdorf . The Zionist Jüdische Rundschau wrote in an obituary that Loewenberg was a typical representative of a previous generation that saw assimilation as its highest ideal. The Hamburg Senate wrote in the official obituary: " He was an exemplary educator for the youth, a sensitive poet, a kind and helpful person at all times. "

Loewenberg's works were destroyed in the 1933 book burning in Germany . Shortly before his death, Jakob Loewenberg wrote: If I was ever proud of something, it was because of it: to be German and a Jew.

family

Loewenberg had been married to Jenny Stern since 1895 ; the couple had three children: Ernst Lutwin Loewenberg (1896–1987, also a teacher), Richard Detlev Loewenberg and Annette Friederika Loewenberg.

Works

literature

  • Ingrid Bigler: Loewenberg, Jakob . In: Wilhelm Kosch (greeting), Heinz Rupp and Carl Ludwig Lang (ed.): German Literature Lexicon. Biographical-bibliographical handbook, Vol. 9: Kober - Lucidarius . 3rd edition Francke Verlag, Bern and Munich 1984, column 1612–1613, ISBN 3-7720-1538-7 .
  • Loewenberg, Jakob. In: Lexicon of German-Jewish Authors . Volume 16: Lewi – Mehr. Edited by the Bibliographia Judaica archive. Saur, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-598-22696-0 , pp. 101-110.

Web links

Wikisource: Jakob Loewenberg  - Sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Frank M. Loewenberg: The Family of Levi and Friederike Lo (e) wenberg , 2nd Edition]
personal data
SURNAME Loewenberg, Jakob
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German writer and educator
DATE OF BIRTH March 9, 1856
PLACE OF BIRTH Niederntudorf
DATE OF DEATH February 7, 1929
Place of death Hamburg