Lemle Moses Reinganum

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Lemle Moses Reinganum (* 1666 in Rheingönheim ; † March 25, 1724 in Mannheim ) was a court Jew from the Electoral Palatinate .

family

Lemle Moses Reinganum was the son of Mendel Moses and Sussche. His marriage to Fromet Mayer-Hess remained childless. Due to his influence, however, his brothers Abraham Moses and Susskind Moses and his nephews Emanuel Mayer and Moses Mayer also became court Jews in the Electoral Palatinate. Three of the nieces were married to the grandchildren of the Brandenburg court Jew Elias Gomperz . Another niece, Rebecca, married Simon Wolf Oppenheimer, a grandson of the imperial court Jew Samuel Oppenheimer in Vienna.

Life

In the 1780s, Reinganum and his father moved to Mannheim as a horse dealer, where he was granted property rights in 1687. Just two years later, Mannheim was completely destroyed by French troops in the Palatinate War of Succession and he fled to Heidelberg . During the war he supplied the Palatinate army with horses, which made him a factor in the upper war. He was one of the first to return to Mannheim and took part in the reconstruction of the city and the Jewish community that elected him to be head of the city . In Mannheim he owned several houses and in 1711 he built a large country house with stables, a garden and an orangery on the outskirts of the city near the Rheintor . On the nearby Mühlauinsel he had a model estate for fruit and cattle breeding built in 1712 and supplied the farm with cattle.

An important basis for Reinganum's entrepreneurial and social advancement was his connection to the imperial court Jew Samuel Oppenheimer . He was its governor in the Electoral Palatinate and in 1699, together with his son Isaak Beer, leased the Palatinate salt monopoly for 120,000 guilders annually for ten years. He became an important lender for the Palatinate court. In 1703 he lent the elector 775,000 guilders and in 1709 406,656 guilders on the basis of subsidies promised by Austria . He often stepped in when major expenses burst the Palatinate budget at short notice, such as the Turkish tax demanded by the emperor or the construction of the Mannheim Palace . In gratitude for his services, Elector Johann Wilhelm appointed him court and chief militia factor. Reinganum was also active outside of the Electoral Palatinate. He was the lender of the emperor and of Landgrave Ernst Ludwig von Hessen-Darmstadt and had business connections in Berlin , Frankfurt and Vienna . His business included trading horses, cattle and jewels, lending and bills of exchange, and trading real estate. In addition to his houses in Mannheim, he owned several houses in Frankfurt.

In accordance with his possibilities, Reinganum repeatedly campaigned for the Jewish community. In 1697 he spoke to the city council for a convention of Jews who had fled Mannheim in the Palatinate War of Succession. In 1717 he and Michael May campaigned with Elector Carl Philipp for a renewal of the Jewish concession. As a shtadlan , he was an advocate for the Jewish community and an intermediary for the government. He made several of his houses available to fellow believers, because according to the electoral concession, a Jew only had the right of settlement if he could show that he owned a house. Most enduringly, however, his foundation should prove to be a Klaus . In 1706 he obtained permission from Elector Johann Wilhelm and set up a foundation with assets of 100,000 guilders. Two years later, the Lemle-Moses-Klaus , a Talmud school with a synagogue, was opened . It was later the center of the Orthodox Jews and was desecrated by the National Socialists in 1938.

Lemle Moses died in Mannheim in 1724 as the richest court Jew. In his will he bequeathed 66,666 guilders to Klaus. His gravestone in the old Jewish cemetery was one of the few made from precious Jurassic limestone. When the Jewish community was forced to clear the cemetery in 1938, his tombstone was one of the few that was moved to the new cemetery . The city of Mannheim named a street after him in 2010.

literature

personal data
SURNAME Reinganum, Lemle Moses
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Electoral Palatinate court Jew
DATE OF BIRTH 1666
PLACE OF BIRTH Rheingönheim
DATE OF DEATH March 25, 1724
Place of death Mannheim