Cerf Beer

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Hertz von Medelsheim alias Cerf Beer

Herz Cerf Beer von Medelsheim , originally Naphtali Ben Dov Beer (French also Cerfbeer ), (* around 1726 in Medelsheim ; † December 7, 1793 in Strasbourg ) was an important French court Jew and an early champion of Jewish emancipation .

Life

His father Beer Hertz (also Dov Beer) was a businessman. Cerf Beer was born in Medelsheim (now Saarland ) , which at that time belonged to the Counts of Leyen . Nothing is known about his childhood. However, it is likely that he received a good education because of his great skill and dexterity in business.

On September 3, 1748, he married Jüttel or Julia Weyl from Bischheim in Strasbourg and settled there. The marriage had eight children. After the death of his first wife, he married Hannah around 1783, who like him was widowed and had three children from her first marriage to Jacob Sussmann Ratisbonne. His stepson from this marriage, the banker Jean Sussmann called Auguste Ratisbonne, married his granddaughter Adelheid. Two of her sons, Théodore and Alphonse Ratisbonne , later gained importance as founders of the order after their conversion to the Catholic faith.

In 1775 King Louis XVI awarded him . French citizenship was the first Jew in Alsace. After the outbreak of the French Revolution , Cerf Beer, who was now withdrawn, was temporarily arrested in the spring of 1793. He died that same year and was buried in the Jewish cemetery in Rosenwiller .

He maintained an extensive network of relatives, which also includes other well-known personalities. He was related to the Seligmann merchant family. Two sons of Cerf Beer were respected bankers in Strasbourg and the opera composer Giacomo Meyerbeer was his nephew.

Entrepreneur

Cerf Beer benefited from the activities of his father, who laid the foundations of his business, and was involved as a tenant of several iron works. He entered into business relations with Prince Wilhelm Heinrich von Nassau-Saarbrücken . In the years after 1746, Cerf Beer became very wealthy. He owed this particularly to his role as an army supplier. It is documented that around 1767 he delivered fodder to the French cavalry in the Strasbourg garrison. Louis XVI awarded him the official title of Directeur général des fourages militaires . He was also of the ordinary for Jews body tax exempt.

He appeared as the financier of the princes and their courts, but especially of the French king. In this context, his name appeared in the collar affair . He acquired extensive real estate and real estate, especially in Strasbourg but also in Paris, which Jews were not allowed to do without further ado.

philanthropist

Cerf Beer is always described as God-fearing and strong in character. An improvement in the situation of the Jews was very important to him. He demanded that the Jews be represented at the Estates-General . For his services to his co-religionists, he was the first to be awarded the title of Syndic général de la nation juive .

In connection with the ongoing discrimination and a smear campaign against the Alsatian Jews , Cerf Beer turned to Moses Mendelssohn , who in turn got his friend Christian Wilhelm Dohm to publish his work On the bourgeois improvement of the Jews .

With considerable funds he bought the Alsatian Jews free from body duty. He financed a cemetery for German Jews in Paris and donated 175,000 livres for the Talmudic study of Jewish youth and for poor girls who wanted to marry.

literature

  • Mordechai Breuer , Michael Graetz (ed.): German-Jewish history in the modern age, vol. 1: Tradition and Enlightenment. 1600-1780 . Beck, Munich 2000, ISBN 3-406-45941-2 .
  • Karl Lillig: Cerf Beer von Medelsheim (1726–1793) . In: Saarheimat. Zeitschrift für Kultur, Landschaft und Volkstum , Vol. 24 (1980), pp. 171-176, ISSN  0724-6218 .
  • Joachim Motsch: Meltis or Medelsheim, Vol. 1: From the beginnings to 1815 . Gersheim municipality, 1985, p. 82, p. 470-474.
  • Michel Prevost: Cerfbeer . In: Jules Balteau, Marius Barroux (ed.): Dictionnaire de Biographie francaise, Vol. 8 . Letoutey & Ané, Paris 1959, pp. 54f.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Motsch, p. 474
  2. ↑ Lillig: Cerf Beer, p. 175
  3. ↑ Prevost: Cerfbeer, p 54
  4. ^ Graetz: Jewish Enlightenment, p. 318
  5. ↑ Lillig: Cerf Beer, p. 175
personal data
SURNAME Beer, Cerf
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Beer, Naphtali Ben Dov
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Banker, court factor, philanthropist
DATE OF BIRTH 1726
PLACE OF BIRTH Medelsheim
DATE OF DEATH December 7, 1793
Place of death Strasbourg