Moses Benjamin Wulff

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Moses Benjamin Wulff (* 1661 in Halberstadt ; died August 29, 1729 in Dessau ) was a German-Jewish court factor in Berlin and Dessau.

Origin and life

The family, which was derived from Moses Isserles from Krakow, had fled Lithuania to Germany due to persecution . The grandfather Simon Wolf von Wilna came to Hamburg in the 1650s. A son Bernd (Baruch) went to Berlin, where he became court factor of the Brandenburg elector in 1672, and later to Halberstadt and Minden . His brother was Benjamin's father, the economically less successful Simha Bonem Benjamin Wulff, who headed the young Berlin community , and his mother was Deborah Wulff. Benjamin's wife was Zipora Wulff (1661–1714).

In Berlin, Wulff competed for a while with Jost Liebmann , the court factor and jeweler of the Great Elector . He knew how to have him deported to Dessau , leaving behind his property. In this royal seat he first became court factor of Prince Johann Georg II , but especially with Leopold I , who was later called the old Dessauer and with whom he found a close relationship. There he took on duties in the tax administration, built up the post office and a large cloth manufacture, and was entrusted with diplomatic missions by Leopold. So he achieved the elevation of his wife Anna Luise Föhse to the rank of prince at the Viennese imperial court . In 1696 he founded a Hebrew printing company and ran a Talmudic school at home . From Dessau he also promoted the Jewish community in Halle . A well-known son was the later Anhalt court factor Elias Wulff .

literature

  • Max Freudenthal : From the home of Mendelssohn: Moses Benjamin Wulff and his family. The descendants of Moses Isserles , Berlin 1900 ND 2006, ISBN 978-3-00-019835-9 .
  • Selma Stern / Marina Sassenberg: The court Jew in the age of absolutism: a contribution to European history in the 17th and 18th centuries , series of scientific papers by the Leo Baeck Institute 64, Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2001 ISBN 978-3-16-147662-4
  • Marvin J. Heller: Moses Benjamin Wulff , Vol. 33, No. 2, NEW JEWS IN A NEW GERMANY (Autumn 2000), pp. 61-71.

Web links

Single receipts

  1. ↑ Guido Kisch: Legal and Social History of the Jews in Halle 1686-1730 . Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG, 2018, ISBN 978-3-11-084004-9 ( google.de [accessed on March 19, 2020]).
  2. ↑ The Court Jew in the Age of Absolutism, Ed. Sassenberg, 2001 in the Google book search
personal data
SURNAME Wulff, Moses Benjamin
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Jewish merchant and court factor
DATE OF BIRTH 1661
PLACE OF BIRTH Halberstadt
DATE OF DEATH August 29, 1729
Place of death Dessau