Elias Spaniard

Elias Spanier (born January 6, 1782 , † March 25, 1857 in Hamm ) was a merchant of the Jewish faith in Hamm. He made a name for himself through generous donations to the Jewish community . In 1842, for example, he acted as one of the buyers of a property that was transferred to the municipality in 1865. This donation enabled the establishment of a Jewish school from 1846 and later the construction of the Hamm synagogue (1868).

family

The exact origin of Elias Spanier is unclear. Presumably he was the son of Heinemann Spanier and his wife Helena Hertz . He had a brother named Nathan Spanier. He was born around 1784 and died on October 8, 1865 in Hamm. The two brothers were merchants and jointly ran a manufacturing and clothing store on Oststrasse, presumably in what was then Nro 64 (today No. 6). However, Nathan Spanier is also documented as the owner of the building at Oststrasse 17, which is now the GoA piercing studio head shop. Like his brother Elias, Nathan Spanier is buried in the Jewish part of the Ostenfriedhof in Hamm . The grave can still be visited there today.

Life

Together with Seligmann Bacharach , Israel Gerson , Elias Marks and Levi Stern , Elias Spanier bought a plot of land and a house at Martin-Luther-Straße 5 in 1842. The attempt to make this plot of land available to the Jewish community for the construction of a synagogue initially failed the lack of corporate rights of the municipality. At that time, the Jews in Hamm were not granted full equality, this only happened through the Prussian constitution of 1850. However, since the Napoleonic campaigns and the temporary incorporation of the County of Mark into the Grand Duchy of Berg , the Jewish population was no longer completely entitled to civil rights cut off so that they could now operate more freely than in the centuries before. For this reason, the Arnsberg district government at least allowed the community to use the building as a Jewish school from 1846.

However, the transfer to the property of the community only succeeded in 1866. Only then did the authorities sufficiently familiarize themselves with the new provisions of the Prussian constitution, which now granted the Jewish community full right to corporation. The donation was confirmed on September 12, 1866. The congregation was finally able to begin planning the new construction of their synagogue, which had already been decided in 1855 and which was put into practice in 1868. Spanier himself never experienced this most visible result of his efforts.

Elias Spanier, who died in 1857, is buried in the Ostenfriedhof in Hamm , where his grave can still be found.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Proven for the year 1833.

literature

• Elke Hilscher: "... love cannot perish ..." Jewish cemetery in Hamm. Documentation in pictures . Photography: Heinz Feussner. Chief City Director of Hamm, Hamm 1994, ISBN 3-929314-01-0 .
• Andreas Skopnik: "Open the gates of justice". Construction and demolition of the New Synagogue in Hamm 1868–1939 . Westfälischer Anzeiger Verlags-Gesellschaft, Hamm 1995, ISBN 3-924966-07-9 , p. 8.

Web links

Hamm Wiki: "Elias Spanier"