Ruben Elias Gomperz

Ruben Elias Gomperz (* 1655 in Emmerich am Rhein , † June 20, 1705 in Wesel ), also Ruben Wesel , was a war supplier and court Jew of German princes.

His father was the wealthy court Jew Elias Gomperz , who had 10 children with his wife. Ruben Gomperz moved the center from his place of business Kleve to Wesel and had a private synagogue built there in 1694 . He was a friend and patron of the Prague rabbi David Oppenheimer (1664–1736) and the rabbi Judah Mehler (1660–1751). His customers for war supplies, especially in the Spanish-Dutch battles, were u. a. Kurbrandenburg , Electoral Saxony and Kurköln .

On August 11, 1697, Ruben was imprisoned in the Wesel Citadel on suspicion of having devised a murder plan against the court factor Samson Wertheimer at the instigation of his uncle Samuel Oppenheimer , who was also arrested a little later with his son. The scandal sparked a short-term credit crisis, reported by Glückel von Hameln . Following the intercession of the Klevian estates, other relatives and court Jews, he was released a few months later, then arrested again and taken into custody in the Spandau Fortress because his extradition was a demand in the negotiations between Berlin and Vienna. This was operated in particular by the anti-Semitic Cardinal Leopold Kollonitsch in Vienna, albeit without success in Berlin. Then Ruben moved to Berlin and in 1700 was appointed not only as head but also tax collector (senior receptor) of the Jews in Kleve and Mark . In 1702 he was arrested again for an allegedly seditious pamphlet. He was only released after paying bail and imprisonment for almost a year. His brother Jakob replaced him as head of department in Kleve, his other brother Bendix Lippstadt as head of department in the county of Mark. His trial was not over when he died in 1705.

His wife was Hitzel Helene Zaudic, also Helene Herz, with whom he had the following children: Rabbi Baruch Bendit Wesel (* around 1690; † 1754, also called Benedix Ruben Gumpertz) settled in Breslau to study around 1715 , and also became a coin supplier there of the Imperial Silesian Chamber in Breslau. From 1744 he was a regional rabbi in what is now Prussian Silesia and continued to run businesses, and a. Sara Hale Hirschel Poesing (married in Breslau); Elias Ruben Gomperz († 1737 in Halle).

literature

David Kaufmann , Max Freudenthal : The Gomperz Family , Kauffmann, Frankfurt am Main 1907
Peter Rauscher: The Fall of the Oppenheimer and Gomperz 1697. Court Jews and the financing of the German princely state in the 17th and 18th centuries. In: Key events in German banking history , Stuttgart 2013, p. 51 ff. ( Online )

Single receipts

↑ Publications of the Historical Commission in Berlin at the Friedrich Meinecke Institute of the Free University of Berlin, vol. 28. Walter de Gruyter 1968, p. 37
^ Synagogue in Rheinstrasse. LVR, accessed March 19, 2020 .
↑ Digital Edition - Jewish Cemetery Bonn-Schwarzrheindorf (1623–1956): Inv.-No. 4055 (November 29, 2010)
↑ Memories of the Glückel von Hameln. Translated from the Jewish-German, provided with explanations and edited. by Alfred Feilchenfeld, Jüdischer Verlag Berlin, Graefenhainichen 1920, V. Buch, p. 243ff.
^ Cilli Kasper-Holtkotte: New in the West: Migration and its Consequences: German Jews as Pioneers of Jewish Life in Belgium, 18./19. Century . BRILL, 2003, ISBN 978-90-04-13109-5 ( google.de [accessed on March 20, 2020]).
↑ 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 20, 2020]).
^ New York Public Library: The Gomperz Family . In: On the history of Jewish families . tape III . Kauffmann, 1907 ( archive.org [accessed March 20, 2020]).

personal data
SURNAME	Gomperz, Ruben Elias
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Gomperz-Wesel, Ruben Elias
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Jewish merchant and banker
DATE OF BIRTH	1655
PLACE OF BIRTH	Emmerich
DATE OF DEATH	June 20, 1705
Place of death	Wesel

[1] Publications of the Historical Commission in Berlin at the Friedrich Meinecke Institute of the Free University of Berlin, vol. 28. Walter de Gruyter 1968, p. 37

[2] Synagogue in Rheinstrasse. LVR, accessed March 19, 2020 .

[3] Digital Edition - Jewish Cemetery Bonn-Schwarzrheindorf (1623–1956): Inv.-No. 4055 (November 29, 2010)

[4] Memories of the Glückel von Hameln. Translated from the Jewish-German, provided with explanations and edited. by Alfred Feilchenfeld, Jüdischer Verlag Berlin, Graefenhainichen 1920, V. Buch, p. 243ff.

[5] Cilli Kasper-Holtkotte: New in the West: Migration and its Consequences: German Jews as Pioneers of Jewish Life in Belgium, 18./19. Century . BRILL, 2003, ISBN 978-90-04-13109-5 ( google.de [accessed on March 20, 2020]).

[6] 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 20, 2020]).

[7] New York Public Library: The Gomperz Family . In: On the history of Jewish families . tape III . Kauffmann, 1907 ( archive.org [accessed March 20, 2020]).