Jacob Moser

Jacob Moser (born November 28, 1839 in Kappeln , † July 18, 1922 in Bradford ; also Jacob Moses) was an entrepreneur , Zionist and philanthropist .

Life

youth

Jacob Moses was the son of a merchant family based in Kappeln. He received private tuition and learned the trade of a textile merchant in the retail business of his father Moses Jacob Moses in Kappeln. Like his uncle, the doctor Jacob Samuel Moser in 1836, he changed his name to Moser. His uncle had justified the change by saying that he felt "a certain displeasure with the old-fathers name Moses, which, as it is very common among our fellow believers, could easily give rise to confusion". Jacob Moser emigrated via Paris , where he made his first connections to England , to Bradford in the north of England , which grew rapidly into a center of the English textile industry . There he worked for nine years for various companies and founded his own company with the savings in 1872 together with Victor Edelstein , who was also from Germany . He passed the successor in his father's business to his brother Adolph.

Entrepreneur

Jacob Moser developed the company into the leading Bradford export company for woolen goods and worsted yarn . He was so successful in this that in 1902 he was able to build a prestigious commercial building for his company in the Bradford district of Little Germany and at the same time retired from active management and, together with his wife Florence, was able to devote himself to social and philanthropic goals.

Zionist

The focus of his sponsorship activities was the enthusiasm for Zionism founded by Theodor Herzl . Moser made a significant financial contribution to the establishment of the Herzliya grammar school in Tel Aviv , the first Hebrew grammar school in Palestine . The Herzliya High School, built in the Moorish style by Yosef Barski in 1910, was Tel Aviv's first public building. He also supported the establishment of the first Hebrew art school, the Bezalel College for Art and Design in Jerusalem . Both institutions still exist today, albeit in newer buildings. As a friend and financier of Herzl, Moser had a meaning for him that can be compared to that of Friedrich Engels for Karl Marx . Jacob Moser was an active member of the English Zionist Federation and from 1903 to 1911 a member of the Great Action Committee of the Zionist Organization.

philanthropist

However, Moser did not neglect Judaism in his new home in Northern England either. It enabled the establishment of a Jewish cemetery and two synagogues in Bradford, a reform synagogue and an Orthodox . He also supported the establishment of Jewish hospitals in Leeds and Manchester . He helped set up a kindergarten in Bradford, donated 12,000 books to the public library, and supported an aid organization for released inmates.

Memorial plaque for Jacob Moser's father in the old Kappelner hospital

Further merits

Moser had become an English citizen, became a justice of the peace , city ​​councilor and, in 1910/11, even Lord Mayor of Bradford. He collected art and sponsored artists; He gave the Tate Gallery the picture Mourning Jews by his Bradford fellow citizen William Rothenstein , who also came from a family who immigrated from Germany.

Moser felt very attached to his hometown of Kappeln. When plans for a hospital were drawn up in Kappeln in 1878, he made the construction of the (no longer existing) old hospital possible on today's Hospitalstrasse with a gift of 10,000 Reichsmarks (RM). As a token of thanks, the city put a marble plaque on the building in memory of Moser's father. Moser also supported the establishment of the city retirement home with 10,000 RM and set up a foundation to provide for poor people in Kappeln. At the beginning of the 20th century, in 1909 Moser assumed half of the investment costs for building a water supply for the city and donated 67,000 RM. The city of Kappeln then granted him honorary citizenship.

Awards

Jacob Moser received the Order of the Red Eagle for his services in Prussia , and honorary citizenship of this city for his services to Kappeln, and he was an honorary member of the German Society for the Rescue of Shipwrecked People .

End of life

In 1921 Moser wanted to start his third trip to Palestine when his wife Florence fell ill and died. He then withdrew from his public duties and died about a year later. He is buried with his wife in the Bradford Jewish cemetery. The Jewish Chronicle mourned his death with the words: "A prince of the Jews has fallen."

literature

• Bernd Philipsen: Jacob Moser entrepreneur - philanthropist - companion of Theodor Herzl. Hentrich & Hentrich Verlag Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3938485-52-1 .
• The lost bronze bust of Jacob Moser by Joseph Hebroni is found in the Herzliya grammar school in Tel Aviv. In: Flensburger Tageblatt from August 15, 2007

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Bernd Philipsen: Samuel Jacob Moser. A doctor in a family of merchants from Kappeln. In: Yearbook of the Heimatverein der Landschaft fishing 2004

Web links

• Literature by and about Jacob Moser in the catalog of the German National Library