Issachar Berend Lehmann

Issachar Berend Lehmann , Berend Lehmann , Jissachar Bermann Segal , Jissachar ben Jehuda haLevi , Berman Halberstadt (born on April 23, 1661 in Essen ; died on July 9, 1730 in Halberstadt ) traded in luxury goods, was a banker, coin agent, military supplier and negotiating diplomat worked as a court factor mainly for August the strong . Thanks to his varied work, his temporary wealth, his privileges and his social and cultural commitment, he was a famous Jewish authority figure in Central and Eastern Europe around 1700.

Surname

Lehmann's Biblical-Hebrew proper name Jissachar (Issachar) traditionally associated Jews with the symbolic animal bear; he was therefore copied as Bärmann in Yiddish. High German became Berend . His father's name in Hebrew was Yehuda , whose biblical symbolic animal was the lion, so in Yiddish he was called Lema or Lima (lion man). Lehmann was further Germanized from it . So: Bärmann, son of the lion man; the addition haLevi or Segal means: belonging to the religious elite of the priestly assistants ( Levites ).

Life

Origin and education

Lehmann's father belonged to the Jewish upper class in Essen, from which his brother-in-law, who was born in Bochum and later established in Hanover, came, the court Jew Leffmann Behrens . With him, so older biographers assumed, Berend Lehmann was trained, for him he did commission business. Together with him, he was involved in negotiations with Duke Ernst August von Hannover-Calenberg in 1692 to acquire the title of elector at the imperial court in Vienna. Berend Lehmann was first documented in 1687 as a 26-year-old trader at the Leipzig trade fair, where he was subsequently often present at the three annual trade fairs at that time. In 1694 he became a Brandenburg mint agent and court factor .

Family and own business in Halberstadt

His place of residence was Halberstadt, where he appears in the Jewish list in 1688 as married to Miriam, a daughter of the protective Jew Joel Alexander. He derived his transfer (legally secured tolerance) from his letter of protection. Two years later his first son, Lehmann Behrend, was born. He built a modest house in the Jewish quarter of Halberstadt (Bakenstrasse 37 on the left, parts of which are still preserved in the entire complex of Little Venice ). With his sovereign, the Brandenburg Elector Friedrich III. , he managed to get a second, representative house in Halberstadt (Bakenstrasse 28), an exception for a Jew. He had a rear building torn down and built a new building for a future Torah Talmud teaching house (a yeshiva ), which was probably intended as the starting point for a community center with a future synagogue. But he was forbidden to continue building. And before he could buy two neighboring properties, the property was confiscated for newly admitted French Reformed religious refugees ( Huguenots ). The intervention of his patron, August the Strong, was unsuccessful.

Service provider for August the Strong

From 1695 he was in business connection with the electoral Saxon court. Two years later he was entrusted with negotiations by August the Strong in order to financially secure the acquisition of the Polish royal crown. He was given power of attorney to sell or borrow from Saxon exclaves located outside the heartland , and obtained loans from Christian and Jewish business partners in the amount of millions of guilders, which the cleverly tactical Saxon Field Marshal Jacob Heinrich von Flemming used for this purpose, the majority of the Polish To suggest the election of August as Polish king to the nobility. In recognition of such services, August Berend made Lehmann a royal Polish resident in the Lower Saxony district , a vaguely defined privilege that Lehmann invoked time and again with more or less success.

Between 1700 and 1704 Berend Lehmann worked as a money and material supplier for August the Strong in the Northern War . Letters from that time showed him how he kept trying to get new loans in the Baltic theaters of war and worried about their repayment; they also contained discussions on the political and military situation.

Talmudic print

He achieved a religious feat: When the Dessau court Jew Wulff wanted to have the Talmud reprinted and therefore got into financial difficulties, Lehmann took over the printing privilege in Frankfurt (Oder) , "he lets gold flow out of his pocket", so that the 12-volume edition 2000 copies could be completed within two years (1697–1699). Lehmann gave away a large number of the books to destitute Jewish communities.

New marriage and community service in Halberstadt

Lehmann's wife Miriam died in 1707; then he married again, namely Hannle, a daughter of the Jewish chief Mendel Beer in Frankfurt am Main. In the years 1707/1708, hindered by the local Prussian administration but supported by the Berlin court chamber interested in income, he expanded the modest half-timbered house at Bakenstrasse 37 in Halberstadt into an extensive building complex in which, in addition to the business premises (including the warehouse and wine cellar ) and his growing family also accommodated the appropriate servants. There he also accommodated six poor Jewish families “out of mercy, so that they can worship”. As one of the three heads of the community, he had the task of "repairing" (dividing) the Jewish special charges repeatedly demanded by King Friedrich Wilhelm I (the soldier king) among the community members. He himself bore the lion's share of these burdens.

Branch in Dresden

On March 8, 1708, August the Strong gave him a letter of protection and permission to buy a house in Dresden. Lehmann now worked as a coin entrepreneur (silver supplier of the coin) for the Saxon-Polish state. He also procured gemstones for the later Green Vault . In 1708, a new Dresden branch of the Halberstadt store was established, in which Berend Lehmann and his brother-in-law Jonas Meyer also worked for the now 18-year-old eldest son, Lehmann Behrend. The Lehmanns and Jonas Meyer were the only "slipped" Jews in Saxony; the big business (from around 1720 in the Alten Posthaus , Landhausstrasse 13) employed and housed up to 70 Jewish employees who had not slipped themselves.

Agriculture and printing in Blankenburg

From Halberstadt in 1717, Lehmann acquired an agricultural business of 75 hectares in neighboring Blankenburg (Harz) , which included a representative manor house. At that time, Jews were generally not allowed to own land in Europe. Lehmann owed this privilege to good business connections with Duke Ludwig Rudolf von Braunschweig . He also founded a Hebrew printing press, which from the Köthen / Blankenburg Jeßnitzer printer Israel Abraham was headed. This failed after a short time due to problems with Christian censorship.

Foreign policy initiative

In 1721 Lehmann made an adventurous attempt to induce the rulers of Prussia and Saxony to partition Poland , where he had large debts. He hoped to be able to collect them in the area intended for Prussia. Even Emperor Charles VI. and Tsar Peter the Great should benefit from the division. He tried to interest the emperor through his father-in-law, Prince Ludwig Rudolf of Blankenburg . The Tsar, initiated by Prussia, reacted angrily and demanded that the Jew be severely punished. Augustus the Strong saved this from death, he was able to win back the favor of the benefactor with a valuable gift.

Difficulties in Hanover and Dresden

At the same time he lost large amounts of capital that were unlawfully confiscated from him when his son-in-law Isaak Behrens , court Jew in Hanover, went bankrupt and Lehmann was accused of saving securities, money and jewels for Behrens from the bankruptcy estate. The Kurhannoversche justice office wanted to try him in Hanover, but Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm I refused to extradite his protective Jew . A long-standing dispute between the Berlin and Hanover judicial authorities arose over the question of the place of the process. Lehmann tried, through his own concessions and by renouncing other Jewish creditors, to bring about a comparison with the other creditors, and repeatedly protested passionately against the inhuman treatment of his Hanoverian relatives, who had been imprisoned for five years and finally tortured, both in vain. From around 1722 anti-Jewish protests by the Saxon estates (particularly active in them: merchants and clergy) against the Lehmanns and Meyer, which August the Strong fought off for a long time, but to which he finally gave in more and more from 1722 onwards. The sale of goods had to be stopped. Only the banking business initially continued.

Bankruptcy and death

Further unexplained losses were added, so that Lehmann's own bankruptcy occurred in 1727. At the beginning of 1730 he was unable to fend off a claim by the Margrave of Bayreuth for 6,000 thalers from 1699. He struggled to free himself from the house arrest he had been "executed" by borrowing money. After his death on July 9, 1730, several 100,000 thalers were due for the estate, some of which were satisfied by the sale of some of his properties. The protective measure to give his children parts of his property in good time did not succeed. His son Lehmann Behrend also "banquered".

However, in good time Berend Lehmann endowed two important foundations; one of them provided young bridal couples from the Halberstadt community with a trousseau; the other secured a basic income for the scholar of his Torah / Talmud academy, Klaus . It served its good cause until the community was dissolved as a result of the November pogroms of 1938.

His tombstone in Halberstadt's oldest Jewish cemetery has been preserved; the inscription sings his praise as a promoter of rabbinical scholarship, as a community benefactor and advocate above all of the Polish Jews.

reception

Saint and hero

His image is initially shaped by eulogies and legends in the Hebrew and Yiddish congregation chronicles. These were included in his history of the Israelite community of Halberstadt in 1866 by Rabbi Benjamin Hirsch Auerbach . Auerbach treats the legends with a certain skepticism, but in principle with great respect. Around the same time, the orthodox Mainz rabbi and publicist Marcus Lehmann was writing for his Jews. Volksbücherei the two-volume novel The Royal Resident , in which he glorifies Berend Lehmann as a pious patriarch and lets him experience exciting adventures on long journeys. The Frankfurt Judaist Lucia Raspe (2002) writes about the Berend-Lehmann picture by the last two authors that it “has nothing to do with historical reality; it is a construct, created on Benjamin Hirsch Auerbach and Marcus Lehmann's desk, an offer of identification. "

More objective biographers

Two decades after Auerbach, a great-great-great-grandson of Berend Lehmann, the Dresden lawyer and politician Emil Lehmann , wrote a contribution (1885) about his famous ancestor, which for the first time was properly archived. He emphasized his skill in dealing with the authorities and the wise foresight with which he invested his foundations. As a Reform Jew , Emil Lehmann viewed his Orthodox ancestor with sympathy, but as belonging to a bygone era with outdated principles of life.

Around the turn of the 20th century, the Dessau rabbi Max Freudenthal was concerned with Lehmann's services to Hebrew letterpress printing. With great meticulousness he examined the circumstances in which Lehmann's Talmud edition was created, in particular his tense relationship with the printer Michael Gottschalk , and thus showed Lehmann for the first time as a robust businessman. Freudenthal also described the fruitful relationship Lehmann had with his Klaus scholars and with the Jeßnitz printer Israel Abraham. The Berlin archivist Josef Meisl took a further step towards a historically objective assessment of Berend Lehmann in 1924. He published a total of 16 letters that Lehmann wrote to Dresden from the scenes of the Northern War. They illustrate the resident's extensive activity as an army supplier, as well as his attempts to help shape political events (which Meisl, however, rates as amateurish).

Selma Stern against anti-Semitic caricature images

The historian Selma Stern gave a big boost. Between 1925 and 1962 she first worked on the subject of Jews in Prussia, then specifically on the Jews of the court. Through her collection of documents, Lehmann's activities in the Halberstadt community and for the entire Jewish community became more clearly recognizable. In her book she contrasts him as a “real court Jew” (methodically risky) with the critically judged Joseph Suss Oppenheimer .

National Socialist anti-Semitism produced two works on Berend Lehmann, a caricature as "Usury Jew" by Peter Deeg and a problematic depiction by Heinrich Schnee (historian) , which could still appear in the 1950s.

Relapses and new objectivity

1970 followed with Juif de Cour by the French private scholar Pierre Saville, the first monograph on Berend Lehmann, which, however, only elaborated on Auerbach's / Marcus Lehmann's "offer of identification". The American Rabbi Manfred R. Lehmann did this to an even greater extent .

Critical Lehmann research on the sources was only carried out again in the first decade of the 21st century by Lucia Raspe and Berndt Strobach, whose book from 2011 reflects the current state of research.

meaning

Berend Lehmann is one of the most highly esteemed Jewish personalities of his time; he belongs to the great court Jews with the Viennese Wertheimer and Oppenheimer as well as with the Württemberger Joseph Süß Oppenheimer, the Hanoverian Leffmann Behrens and the Frankfurt Mayer Amschel Rothschild . His ambitious endeavors to play a decisive role in the life of his time made him, not unlike his noble Christian contemporaries, a baroque personality. Naturally they brought him into conflict with the Christian authorities. In Judaism he was the model of a rich man who, as a pious person, also acted as a benefactor of his community.

family

Berend Lehmann was married twice:

1. Miriam Joel (died 1707)
2. Hannele Beer, daughter of the headmaster Mendel Beer in Frankfurt

Children:

• NN, daughter, ∞ Jacob Hannover (died 1784), Klaus rabbi
• NN, daughter, ∞ Mose Kann from Frankfurt
• Lea ∞ Isaak Behrend, court factor and chamber agent in Hanover, later in Halle, Hamburg and Altona
• Lehmann Berend (died 1774), war supplier in Hanover, court factor in Dresden
• Mordechai Gumpel Behrend (died 1784), lived in Halberstadt
• Mose Kosman Behrend (born 1713; died February 29, 1784), court Jew in Dresden for the Principality of Münster, ∞ Golde Michael David (died October 17, 1753 in Hanover), daughter of the Hanoverian court factor Michael David (1685–1758).

Remembrance culture in Halberstadt

The building complex Bakenstrasse No. 37 still exists today as a remnant of his extensive construction activities; What is remarkable there is the clearly visible remnant of a pedestrian bridge he built “for the public” over the Holtemme, which at the time flowed openly through the city .

The Berend Lehmann Museum , founded in 2001 by the Moses Mendelssohn Academy, which has been based in Halberstadt since 1995 , contains documents on the life of court Jews in buildings that already housed institutions of the Jewish community in Lehmann's time, along with rich material from the history of Jewish Halberstadt in the 19th century. and 20th century.

Baroque door arch, according to the information board remains of a Berend-Lehmann-Palais

There is no documentary evidence that the remaining arch of the door of a representative baroque building, which was demolished in 1986 and reminiscent of Lehmann near the museum, actually came from a Berend-Lehmann-Palais. Klaus , Rosenwinkel 18, which was once founded by Lehmann , has survived the bombing raid and GDR neglect and is now the seat of the Moses Mendelssohn Academy, which is dedicated to providing information about Jewish life and culture in conferences, exhibitions and lectures. Affiliated to this is Café Hirsch , which offers dishes inspired by Jews.

Today's Jewish life in Halberstadt

After the Nazi-induced destruction of the synagogue and the Holocaust , there was only a brief Jewish community in Halberstadt in the post-war period, in which survivors of the concentration camps gathered. After some Jews from the CIS countries live in the city , a religious community is being established again.

literature

• Cathleen Bürgelt: The Jewish court factor Berend Lehmann and the financing of the Polish royal crown for August the Strong. In: medaon, magazine for Jewish life in research and education. Issue 1/2007, Dresden 2007, pp. 1–17 .: [2]
• Jutta Dick: Issachar Berman Halevi - Berend Lehmann, '' founding father '' of the modern Jewish community in Dresden. In: Jewish Community of Dresden (ed.) :: Once & now. On the history of the Dresden synagogue and its community. Dresden 2001, ISBN 3-932434-13-7 , pp. 42-55.
• Jutta Dick: Berend Lehmann. Court Jew August the Strong , Berlin: Edition Hentrich 2020 (Jewish miniatures; 249), ISBN 978-3-95565-366-8 .
• Max Freudenthal : From Mendelssohn's homeland. Moses Benjamin Wulff and his family, the descendants of Moses Isserles. Berlin 1900. (Reprint: Dessau 2006, ISBN 3-00-019835-0 )
• Heinrich Schnee:  Lehmann, Behrend (Issacher Halevi Bermann). In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 14, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1985, ISBN 3-428-00195-8 , p. 68 f. ( Digitized version ).
• Berndt Strobach: Privileged within narrow limits. New contributions to the life, work and environment of the Halberstadt court Jew Berend Lehmann (1661-1730) , Vol. 1: Presentation , Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-38442-0200-7 , Vol. 2: Documents , Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-3 -8442-0215-1 .
• Berndt Strobach: The court Jew Berend Lehmann (1661-1730). A biography, Berlin; Boston: De Gruyter Oldenbourg 2018 ISBN 978-3-11-060448-1 .

Web links

• Works by and about Issachar Berend Lehmann  in the German Digital Library
• http://www.moses-mendelssohn-akademie.de/
• The Moses Mendelssohn Academy & The Berend Lehmann Museum for Jewish History and Culture
• Article in the Saxon Biography

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Bernd-Wilhelm Linnemeier: A riddle's solution - On the Westphalian origin of the court and chamber agent Leffmann Behrens, in: Westphalia. Hefte für Geschichte, Kunst und Volkskunde, Vol. 90 (2012), pp. 75–91
2. ↑ Auerbach: History of the Israelite community Halberstadt. Halberstadt 1866, p. 45.
3. ↑ Berndt Strobach: With liquidity problems: torture. The proceedings against the Jewish merchants Gumpert and Isaak Behrens in Hanover. Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-3-8442-4986-6 , p. 83.
4. ↑ Max Freudenthal: Leipziger measurement guests. The Jewish visitors to the Leipzig trade fairs from 1675 to 1764. (Writings of the Society for the Advancement of the Science of Judaism, No. 29), Frankfurt / Main 1928, p. 106
5. ↑ Berndt Strobach: Privileged within narrow limits. New contributions to the life, work and environment of the Halberstadt court Jew Berend Lehmann, Volume 1: Presentation, Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-3-8442-0200-7 , p. 35
6. ↑ Strobach: Privileged, 2011, Vol. 1, p. 42
7. ^ Emil Lehmann: The Polish resident Berend Lehmann, the progenitor of the Israelite religious community in Dresden (1885), in: Gesammelte Schriften, Berlin 1899, pp. 99-102
8. ↑ Josef Meisl: Behrend Lehman and the Saxon Court, year book of the Jewish-literary society, vol. XVI (1924), p. 226
9. ↑ Meisl: Hof, passim
10. ^ Max Freudenthal: For the anniversary of the first printing of the Talmud in Germany. In: Monthly for the history and science of Judaism. Vol. 42, 1898, pp. 80-89
11. ↑ Auerbach: Geschichte, p. 48
12. ^ Strobach: Privilegiert, Vol. 1, p. 38
13. ↑ Heike Liebsch: Jewish traces in the Green Vault. In: medaon, magazine for Jewish life in research and education, issue 1/2007, Dresden 2007, pp. 1–4. [1]
14. ↑ Heinrich Schnee: Die Hoffinanz and der moderne Staat, Berlin 1953-1967, Vol. 3, The Institution of the Court Factors in the Spiritual States of Northern Germany, at small Northern German royal courts in the system of the absolute princely state, 1954. P. 176–177
15. ↑ Dirk Sadowski: '' Printed in the holy community Jeßnitz '' - The printer Israel bar Avraham and his work, yearbook of the Simon Dubnow Institute VII (2008), pp. 39-69.
16. ↑ Berndt Strobach: Hebrew book printing between court Jewish patronage and Christian censorship, magazine for religious and intellectual history, vol. 60 (2008), issue 3, pp. 235-253
17. ^ Strobach: Privileged, B. 1, 2011, p. 110
18. ^ Snow: Hoffinanz, Vol. 3, p. 189
19. ↑ Strobach: Liquiditätsprobleme, 2013, pp. 47–54
20. ↑ E. Lehmann: Schriften, 1899, pp. 126–129
21. ^ Meisl: Hof, 1924, p. 233.
22. ^ Strobach: Privileged, Vol. 1, 2011, p. 61
23. ↑ Lucia Raspe: Individual fame and collective benefit - Berend Lehmann as a patron. In: Rotraud Ries, J. Friedrich Battenberg (Ed.): Court Jews - Economy and Interculturality. The Jewish business elite in the 18th century. Hamburg 2002, ISBN 3-7672-1410-5 , pp. 199-200. (Hamburg Contributions to the History of the German Jews, Vol. XXV)
24. ^ Pierre Saville: Le Juif de Cour, Paris 1970, pp. XXVIII
25. ↑ Marcus Lehmann: The Royal Resident. A historical narrative. Mainz undated (= Lehmann's Jewish public library, vol. 26)
26. ^ Raspe: Ruhm, 2002, p. 199.
27. ↑ Selma Stern: The Prussian State and the Jews. 3 parts in 7 volumes, Berlin 1925. (Reprint Tübingen 1962)
28. ^ Marina Sassenberg (ed.); Selma Stern: The court Jew in the age of absolutism. A contribution to European history in the 17th and 18th centuries. Tübingen 2001, ISBN 3-16-147662-X
29. ^ Peter Deeg: Court Jews. (Series Jews, Jewish Crimes and Jewish Laws from the Past to the Present. Editor Julius Streicher, Part I, Volume 1), Nuremberg 1939.
30. ↑ Manfred R. Lehmann: On My Mind. New York 1996.
31. ↑ Strobach: Privilegiert, Vol. 1, 2011, p. 57.
32. ↑ Werner Hartmann (Ed.): Jews in Halberstadt. On the history, the end and traces of an extradited minority. 6 volumes. Halberstadt 1988-1996, Vol. 5, 1994, pp. 14-15.
33. ↑ Jewish communities in Saxony-Anhalt - overview ( Memento from September 9, 2012 in the web archive archive.today )