Mendelssohn from Jever

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The Mendelssohn family is a German-Jewish family of merchants, scholars and artists from Friesland that goes back to Moses Mendelssohn (* July 17, 1778 in Horb near Redwitz an der Rodach ; † August 10, 1848 in Jever ). She is not directly related to the Mendelssohn family from Berlin, whose founder is the philosopher of the same name Moses Mendelssohn .

Moses Mendelssohn from Horb

Grave site of Moses Mendelssohn in the old Jewish cemetery in Jever

Moses Mendel (ssohn) (not identical with the philosopher Moses Mendelssohn from Dessau) was born on July 17, 1778 in Horb, today a district of Marktzeuln in the Lichtenfels district, as the son of the second-hand dealer Levi Mendel and his wife Betta / Beila.

Towards the end of the 18th century, the economic upswing in northern Germany led to an influx of young Jews from southern Germany, especially from the Franconian area, which was relatively densely populated by Jews .

Levi Mendel, the older brother of Moses, was also one of the immigrants. Levi Mendel worked as a servant to the protective Jew Moses Heidemann in Berne from around 1794 and as a servant to the Schwabe family in Ovelgönne from 1796 to 1807 . Moses followed him there around 1809 and found a job with Salomon Abraham Nordheimer. He met Gola Schwabe (1785–1826), the daughter of the protective Jew Levi Salomon Schwabe and Frauntje von Emden, from Jever and married her in 1804.

In the following years the couple applied for the transfer of their father's letter of protection several times. The Jever merchants turned against the couple's establishment out of concern about the loss of sales due to the Jewish peddling. The Jever government officials pleaded for the admission of one of the native Jewish sons in the event that another Protective Jew should be admitted. In addition, they referred to the bad experiences one would have had with the "famous" Schwabe family in property matters and questioned whether Moses Mendel (ssohn) had been able to come along in the eight years of his stay in Övelgönne To save assets of 600 Reichstalers.

As a security deposit, the young couple was asked, among other things, to purchase a house worth at least 500 Reichstalers before being granted protection. Moses Mendel (ssohn) tried to meet this requirement quickly, but initially there was no house for sale. Since his wife was already heavily pregnant, he tried unsuccessfully to obtain protection against depositing 500 Reichstalers with the government. When a sales contract was finally ready to be signed, Gola Schwabe was unable to sign it; a few days before her confinement, she had fallen into a "madness degenerating into formal frenzy". At first there was no purchase and Moses Mendel (ssohn) was not yet allowed to do business in Jever. It was only when Gola Schwabe had recovered from health that the couple were able to purchase a house in April 1807 and, as a precaution, have 500 Reichstaler built on this property “for the good of the state”. On July 22nd, 1807, the last Jever letter of protection was issued before the rule was annexed to the Kingdom of Holland . However, the protection was restricted in two main points: In contrast to the usual practice, the letter was not made out to the husband and “breadwinner” of the family, but to his wife, who came from Jever. As a result, Moses Mendel (ssohn) had his right of residence only as long as he was married to his wife and was only allowed to do business in her name. Since the couple was also forbidden from keeping a peddler, Moses Mendel (ssohn) had to do the peddling alone, unlike the longer resident protective Jews.

After Jever's annexation to the Kingdom of Holland, the Jews of the East -Vriesland department, newly formed from East Friesland and Jeverland , were officially given equal status to their fellow believers in Holland on February 23, 1808, and thus citizens with equal rights. Nevertheless, in the summer of 1808, the Jever government was reluctant to delete the security mortgage registered in the previous year on Gola Schwabe's house due to the new legal situation and at the same time to allow the employment of a peddler. For pointing out the continuing harmfulness of the Jewish peddling and the necessary protection against these “strangers”, however, the Jeversian officials were reprimanded by their new superiors and instructed to comply with the requests of Moses Mendel (ssohn).

The Mendels (ssohn) had a total of 17 children, of which only five were still alive in 1826. The eldest son Mendel (later Melchior) applied for a letter of protection in vain in 1836 and was baptized in 1846 shortly before he married a Christian. Descendants with the name Merck still live in Bremen today . Gola and Moses Mendelssohn's other children included Salomon Mendelssohn (1813-1892), who became known as a gymnastics teacher, and the Hamburg writer Joseph Mendelssohn (1817-1856).

The Mendelssohns' marriage was obviously not a happy one, Moses left his wife and moved to Hamburg around 1823 . This fact it owed his sons Salomon and Joseph, that they obtained there Israelite Free School of Eduard Kley could visit. In 1830, after the death of his wife, Moses Mendelssohn acquired the letter of protection granted to her family until then and worked as a merchant in Jever. He died on August 10, 1848. His grave is in the old Jewish cemetery in Jever.

Discrimination and Persecution

The descendants of Moses Mendelssohn were baptized, but were still discriminated against. For this reason, Menno Mendelssohn (1848-1901), print shop owner in Duisburg and one of Salomon Mendelssohn's sons , along with his five children, including Max Budde , adopted the family name of his wife Elisabeth Clementine Budde in 1898. But even this step did not save them from discrimination and persecution in the Third Reich .

The descendants of his brother Ludwig Mendelssohn (1852–1896), on the other hand, almost all emigrated when the Nazis came to power. For example, the publicist Peter de Mendelssohn took British citizenship after fleeing to England in 1941, his father Georg emigrated to France, his sister Margot went to the USA, his brother Thomas to Turkey and his brother Felix first to Austria and then to the Switzerland.

The descendants of the Mendelssohns from Jever live today a. a. in Munich, Vienna, Berlin, Nuremberg and London.

Personalities (selection)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Reinhard Bein : You lived in Braunschweig. Biographical notes on the Jews buried in Braunschweig (1797 to 1983). In: Messages from the Braunschweig City Archives. , No. 1, Döring Druck, Braunschweig 2009, ISBN 978-3-925268-30-4 , page 293
  2. ↑ a b c Werner Meiners: Northwest German Jews between upheaval and persistence. Jewish policy and Jewish life in the Oldenburger Land until 1827 , page 174
  3. ↑ Werner Meiners, Hartmut Peters: Jever , p. 912f. in Herbert Obenaus, David Bankier, Daniel Fraenkel (eds.): Historical manual of the Jewish communities in Lower Saxony and Bremen. Volume 2, 2005
  4. ↑ Werner Meiners: Northwest German Jews between upheaval and persistence. Jewish policy and Jewish life in the Oldenburger Land until 1827 , page 172
  5. ↑ Werner Meiners: Northwest German Jews between upheaval and persistence. Jewish policy and Jewish life in the Oldenburger Land until 1827 , page 273f.
  6. ↑ Werner Meiners: Northwest German Jews between upheaval and persistence. Jewish policy and Jewish life in the Oldenburger Land until 1827 , page 274f.
  7. ↑ Werner Meiners: Northwest German Jews between upheaval and persistence. Jewish policy and Jewish life in the Oldenburger Land until 1827 , page 64
  8. ↑ Peter de Mendelssohn: Marianne. The Novel of a Movie and the Movie of a Novel , 1955, page 40
  9. ↑ Andrea Niewerth: Gelsenkirchen Jews in National Socialism , 2002, page 90ff.
  10. ↑ Marcus M. Payk: Der Geist der Demokratie , 2008, p. 67, p. 73