Friedrich Brandeis (missionary)

Friedrich Wilhelm Brandeis (born April 6, 1835 in Baiertal ; † August 9, 1920 ) was a German missionary to the Jews as well as co-founder and first director of the Zurich section of the Blue Cross .

Life

Brandeis was born to Jewish parents from the Baiertal Jewish community . He was officially given the name Lazarus , the name given to his Jewish-Hebrew form Eleazar. First he completed an apprenticeship with a Jewish tailor, then an apprenticeship as a shoemaker and then went on a journey that took him through Hesse, the Rhineland and the Bergisches Land. In Hattingen he converted to Christianity in 1854 and was baptized in the name of Friedrich Wilhelm. He joined the Basel Mission , was trained as a missionary and sent to Abyssinia from 1860 to 1868 , where he was successful in the mission to the Jews . He then worked in Constantinople on a mission himself. From 1875 he was in Zurich . In 1896 he was one of the founders of the Zurich section of the Blue Cross , which he headed for another 20 years.

literature

• Friedrich Greminger: Friedrich Brandeis - once missionary to Jews in Abyssinia and Constantinople and then city missionary in Zurich for 32 years. A picture of life designed mainly on the basis of his own notes , Zurich 1926.
• District association Baiertal: From buridal to Baiertal , Wiesloch 1988, pp. 221–222.