Elias Mayer

This article deals with the court factor Elias Mayer. For his father see Elias Hayum .

Elias Mayer , originally Mayer Elias or Mayer Stuttgart (* between 1733 and 1737 in Stuttgart ; † 1803 in Mannheim ), was an electoral Palatine court and militia factor (1759) and from 1778 Oberhof factor in Mannheim. He was the first head of the Israelite community in Mannheim (mentioned in 1793).

family

Elias Mayer was the son of Elias Hayum , hoping actuator in Stuttgart , later Elector Palatine court and militia factor in Mannheim, and the Judle born Lock.

Around 1760 he married Judle Geseke, the daughter of the Hamburg merchant Gottschalk Geseke. He was the father of the merchant Gottschalk Mayer .

Life

Mayer Elias came with his parents as a toddler from Stuttgart to Mannheim, which is why he was also called Mayer Stuttgart .

There he was mentioned in 1759 as an electoral Palatinate court and militia factor. In the course of the Seven Years' War (1756–1763) in 1759 he received an order from the electoral general state treasury to equip the troops of the Electoral Palatinate, which also required the procurement of many millions of guilders , as well as an advance of 30,000 fl , for which Mayer his and had mortgaged his wife's entire property. After the end of the war, he was accused of unjust enrichment and a counter-account was therefore secretly drawn up parallel to his own. Fortunately, Mayer's own billing was half a million below the counter bill, so that he was completely rehabilitated.

Several times he used his position at court for community issues. In 1775, at Mayer's request, Karl Theodor softened the provision that Jews should be prohibited from living in certain streets of Mannheim to the effect that they were allowed to stay there but not build new houses.

After the end of the one-year War of the Bavarian Succession , the residence was moved from Mannheim to Munich, which is why Mayer had to travel to Munich several times a year.

In 1778 he was appointed Oberhofaktor by Elector Karl Theodor and granted him a request, whereupon - shaped by his experience as an army supplier - he asked for a promise that he himself and none of his sons would ever be allowed to take over delivery business for the government (see Gottschalk Mayer ). That promise was made to him.

In 1797 he received the assurance from Maximilian Joseph , the Count Palatine of Zweibrücken, that Mayer and his two sons would retain their privileges and salaries even after the death of the reigning elector.

Mayer was a respected man, but because he was recognizable as a Jew, he was considered an outsider at court. The elector once offered to increase his salary if Mayer would remove his beard, but he decidedly refused this request out of religious conviction. From 1793 he was mentioned as the first head of the Israelite community in Mannheim.

In recognition of his services, Mayer received a lifelong salary in gold, food for two horses, wood and wine. He remained rooted in the Jewish faith until his death in 1803 and lived in his old Mannheim house in G2 within the Jewish community.

literature

• Sigismund von Dobschütz: The ancestors of Elisabeth Goldschmidt from Kassel and Mannheim . "Hessische Familienkunde" (HFK), published by the Working Group of Family Studies Societies in Hessen, Vol. 24, Issue 4 (1998), ISSN  0018-1064 , pp. 161f.
  • New publication with additions and corrections: "Maajan - The Source", Swiss Association for Jewish Genealogy, Issue 76, Zurich 2005, ISSN  1011-4009 .
• Britta Waßmuth: Court Jews: Economy and interculturality. The Jewish business elite in the 18th century . Ed .: Rotraud Ries, J. Friedrich Battenberg. Christians Verlag, Hamburg 2002, ISBN 978-3-7672-1410-1 , p. 263-273 .

See also

• Jewish life in Mannheim

Individual evidence

1. ^ ^{A b} Britta Wassmuth: In the field of tension between court, city and Jewish community: Social relations and change in mentality among court Jews in the Palatinate residence city of Mannheim at the exit of the Ancien Régime . 1st edition. pro MESSAGE, 2005, ISBN 978-3-934845-30-5 , pp. 226 .
2. ↑ Britta Waßmuth: Court Jews: Economy and Interculturality ... , p. 266.