Behrend Levi

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Be (h) rend Levi (also Bär Levi ; * around 1600 ; † 1666 ) was a German-Jewish army supplier in the Thirty Years War or court factor of the Elector of Brandenburg . Warendorf (1647) and Bonn (1650) are named as places of origin, the East Westphalian city ​​of Minden as the last place of life .

Life

Behrend was the son of the headmaster and tax officer for the Electorate of Cologne, Levi von Bonn († around 1621) and married Feile in Coesfeld in 1618 , a daughter of Isaac Jakob von Dülmen. In 1641, the Klevische Ständetag consulted the enterprising banker to pass on contributions. In 1647 he received the right of residence in Emmerich from the elector. He also had business relationships with the bishops of Münster and Paderborn and with the estates of Hessen-Kassel . Above all, Levi advised the Great Elector on economic and financial questions; so he planned, albeit unsuccessfully, an increase in exports of the products of the alum and vitriol factory near Schwelm in the Brandenburg region . Together with his son Abraham he financed the Brandenburg embassy to the peace negotiations in Münster and Osnabrück. In return, Levi received a letter of safe conduct for Herford on December 3, 1647 with the right to collect two groschen a day from the foreign Jews who stayed there and to settle them with the court chamber . The imperial city of Herford, which had recently been subjugated by Brandenburg, initially resisted the forced settlement of a Jew, but later asked him for a credit because of tax debts. His son Levi Levi stayed in Herford.

In 1650, the Great Elector appointed Levi to be the head of all Jews in his dominions west of the Elbe . This gave Levi the power to determine their residences, collect taxes, and grant personal and business freedoms. He took taxes from the Jews in Halberstadt , Minden , Ravensburg and Kleve with great severity , which sparked resistance from the communities. At the complaint of the Gomperz family in Emmerich , his office in the Duchy of Kleve and Mark was revoked in 1652. The same followed for the mandate won in 1651 over the bishopric of Paderborn in 1654. Nevertheless, the elector was favored by him and renewed his patents in 1657. Levi was sentenced to imprisonment several times, also for the deterioration of coins , but was released at the request of the elector. For the Brandenburg governor in the Principality of Minden , Count Johann von Sayn-Wittgenstein , he obtained the right to mint, bought a great deal of silver and triggered regional inflation. That is why it came to the trial with the city council.

His brother Nini Levi from Warendorf received a similar power of attorney in 1651 in the bishopric of Münster. Brother Salomon was head of Paderborn before him.

literature

Web links

  • Meta Kohnke, Bernd Braun, Manfred Jehle, Andreas Reinke: Sources on the history of the Jews in the archives of the new federal states , Vol. 2, Part 1, Walter de Gruyter, 1999, ISBN 3-59822442-7 ( google.de [accessed on February 8, 2020]).

Single receipts

  1. ↑ Birgit Klein: Levi von Bonn alias Löb Kraus and the Jews in the old empire. On the trail of a betrayal with far-reaching consequences . Duisburg 1998, p. 521 ff .
  2. ↑ Jews in Herford. Cell Wing Memorial in Herford Town Hall, pp. 20–26 , accessed on February 7, 2020 .
  3. ↑ Martin Krieg: The Jews in the City of Minden until 1723 , WZ 1937, Internet portal “Westphalian History”, URL: http://www.westfaelische-zeitschrift.lwl.org online, pdf
personal data
SURNAME Levi, Behrend
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Levi, Berend; Levi Bear; Levi Warendorf
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Jewish merchant and tax collector
DATE OF BIRTH around 1600
DATE OF DEATH 1666