Michael bar Ruben Hinrichs

Michael Hinrichs bar Ruben (also Hinrichsen * 1634 , † 1710 in Schwerin ) was a German-Jewish court factor at the Schwerin court of Duke Christian Ludwig I .

The Portuguese Sephardic Jew Ruben Henriques (1607–1690) immigrated to northern Germany and in 1646 became a citizen of Glückstadt . His son Michael received Glückstadt citizenship in 1671 , first went to Altona and moved to Schwerin in 1675 as an assistant to Abraham Hagen . Levin Salomon (Saalmann) had received a first privilege for the tobacco trade here on May 8, 1671. His successors were from Hamburg in 1673 Nathan Benedix , also called Bendit Goldschmidt , and Simon Salomon Fürst , whose successor in 1675 was Abraham Hagen († 1689) with the function of court factor. On his recommendation, Michael Hinrichs followed with the privilege of August 14, 1688 as court factor of Duke Christian Ludwig I together with Moses Israel Prince .

Hinrich's later nicknames Meister Michel or Michel Tabacksspinner attest to his success in this branch valued by the Duke. Hinrichs lived in a house on Burgstrasse near the palace . He maintained a rabbi, his son-in-law Jeremias Israel, and had set up a synagogue in his house , for which the ritually necessary at least ten Jews must have been available for the worship service. Hinrichs is considered to be the founder of the Schwerin community. The successor, Duke Friedrich Wilhelm I, also renewed Hinrichs' privileges in 1692. In addition, there was a privilege to trade in jewelery in the Duchy of Güstrow . In 1694 or 1696, the Duke assigned the Jewish community a piece of land as a cemetery. In 1701 the abolition of the Jewish body duty was achieved for the leading families Hinrichsen and Goldschmidt .

The Hinrichsen (-Ahronheim) family stayed in this position for several decades and worked as state bankers, court jewelers, holders of the tobacco monopoly (until 1708) and leaseholders of the state lottery. The first successor was the son Ruben (bar) Michel (s) Hinrichs (en) (1682–1757), who repeatedly had to fight for his privileges with competitors. The family monopoly was finally broken in May 1727.

Ruben Hinrichsen brought more Jews to Schwerin, some of them without the Duke's permission, but also had peddling “ Eastern Jews” expelled from the city. How insecure their position was is shown by the expulsion of all Jews by the Duke in 1741, with an exception only made for the Hinrichsen family. Soon new court factors were sought in Schwerin, the brothers Philipp and Nathan Aaron , who were born in Frankfurt (Oder) , took over the task in 1749 and are considered to be the new founders of the soon-to-be-growing community.

literature

• Leopold Donath : History of the Jews in Mecklenburg from the oldest times (1266) to the present (1874) , Verlag Oskar Leiner, Leipzig 1874
• Sabine Kruse / Bernt Engelmann (ed.): My father was a Portuguese Jew. The Sephardic immigration to northern Germany around 1600 and its effects on our culture, exhibition Jewish Museum Rendsburg, Göttingen 1992 ISBN 978-3-929076110 (esp. Pp. 115–120)
• Norbert Francke / Bärbel Krieger: The family names of the Jews in Mecklenburg: More than 2000 Jewish families from 53 places in the duchies of Mecklenburg-Schwerin and Mecklenburg-Strelitz in the 18th and 19th centuries . Writings of the Association for Jewish History and Culture in Mecklenburg and Western Pomerania e. V., Association for Jewish History and Culture in Mecklenburg and Western Pomerania eV, Schwerin 2001

Web links

• http://www.juden-in-mecklenburg.de/Orte/Schwerin

Single receipts

1. ↑ Irene Diekmann (ed.): Guide through the Jewish Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania , Potsdam 1998, p. 224 ff
2. ↑ Erika Bucholtz: Henri Hinrichsen and the music publisher CF Peters: German-Jewish bourgeoisie in Leipzig from 1891 to 1938 . Mohr Siebeck, 2001, ISBN 978-3-16-147638-9 ( google.de [accessed on March 21, 2020]).
3. ↑ see Donath, p. 103 ff