Samuel Lewisohn

Samuel Lewisohn (born July 16, 1809 in Hamburg ; † December 27, 1872 there ) was a German businessman .

Live and act

Samuel Lewisohn's parents were Leonard (also: Léon, Lion, Lyon) Lewisohn and his wife Fanny, née Haarbleicher. Samuel Lewisohn and his brother Sally (born December 3, 1812) took over the trading company founded by his father, which was first recorded in the Hamburg address book in 1810 . The successful company traded in bristles, floats, horse and human hair, bed feathers, eiderdown and ostrich feathers. The brothers, who were considered to be devout Jews, did not light a fire on the Sabbath even at the lowest temperatures, as this would have been illegal work. Sally Lewisohn was one of the earliest founders of the Talmud Torah School .

family

Samuel Lewisohn married Julie Nathan from Braunschweig on September 7, 1836 . The wedding was carried out by Rabbi Isaak Bernays . The couple had three sons named Julius, Leonard and Adolph and four daughters named Friederike, Louise, Selly and Henriette. After his wife Julie Lewisohn died on January 16, 1856, Samuel Lewisohn married Pauline Jessel on March 27, 1860, who at 22 was significantly younger than him. The couple had several children, including Philipp (* February 27, 1861) and Albert (* August 4, 1872).

At the time of his death, Samuel Lewisohn's children from his second marriage were not yet of legal age. He left each of the children from his first marriage 32,000 marks and an additional 80,000 marks each from the estate of Julie Lewisohn. He had also planned donations for charitable foundations. Samuel Lewisohn left behind a house at Rothenbaumchaussee No. 72 and a piece of land on Admiralitätsstrasse that he owned with his brother Sally.

All four sons later emigrated to New York City , where they achieved great esteem and wealth. In addition to trading lead and copper, they also worked as bankers. They also donated a German library for the City College of New York , but also for various institutions in Hamburg , for many purposes, including the Lewisohn Stadium for 20,000 spectators .

estate

The fact that research was carried out on Samuel Lewisohn is due to a foundation that Lewisohn's sons Leonard, Adolph, Philipp and Albert established in his honor in 1890. The Samuel Lewisohn Foundation , based at Kleine Schäferkamp No. 32, comprised eight free apartments for Israelites who lived in Hamburg, especially those who had “lived in better conditions”. The apartments each had four rooms, a kitchen and a room for girls. In the basement there were two shops with living spaces behind them that could be rented.

During the National Socialist era , the Reich Association of Jews in Germany took over the foundation in 1942. The facility was declared a Jewish house and the previous residents were deported. During the Second World War , the building remained undamaged. Today it is used as a tenement house.

literature

• Renate Hauschild-Thiessen: Lewisohn, Samuel . In: Franklin Kopitzsch, Dirk Brietzke (Hrsg.): Hamburgische Biographie . tape 4 . Wallstein, Göttingen 2008, ISBN 978-3-8353-0229-7 , pp. 213-214 .