Simon von Lämel

Simon von Lämel

Simon Lämel , from 1811 Edler von Lämel , also Lämmel (born August 28, 1766 in Tuschkau , Bohemia , † April 18, 1845 in Vienna ) was a Jewish-Austrian wholesaler and banker .

Life

After the early death of his father, he became a merchant in Kolín and founded a wholesale and banking business in Prague in 1787, initially as a general store, which became important for the sheep's wool industry in Bohemia. During the Napoleonic Wars, he granted the Austrian state extensive loans.

In recognition of his achievement, he asked (on May 1, 1801?) To be allowed to buy a house in Vienna, which the Emperor refused on March 17, 1811. However, on December 5, 1811, he was raised to the hereditary nobility as a nobleman of Lämel because of "promotion of the Commerzes" and was allowed to live with his children in Vienna. In 1813 Field Marshal Prince Schwarzenberg appointed him army commissioner and released him from billeting.

Name of the Lämel School in Jerusalem

In May 1812 he met Johann Wolfgang von Goethe in the spa town of Karlsbad .

Lämel campaigned for the betterment of the Jews, among other things in 1813 for the abolition of the Leibzoll in Saxony and in 1817 for the lowering of the Bohemian Jewish tax . In 1826 he donated cult devices for the recently inaugurated Vienna City Temple . A few years before his death, he tried to abolish the medieval Jewish oath.

His daughter, Elise Herz , founded the Lämelschule founded by Ludwig August Frankl in Jerusalem in 1856 in his memory . The strictly Orthodox community in Jerusalem protested unsuccessfully against the new institute, in which not only religious but also secular classes were to be held. His son and heir to the wholesale company was Leopold von Lämel .

literature

• Constantin von Wurzbach : Lämmel, Simon Edler von . In: Biographisches Lexikon des Kaiserthums Oesterreich . 13th part. Imperial-Royal Court and State Printing Office, Vienna 1865, p. 477 f. ( Digitized version ).
• Large:  Laemel Simon von. In: Austrian Biographical Lexicon 1815–1950 (ÖBL). Volume 4, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 1969, p. 401.
• Gustav Otruba :  Lämel, Simon Edler. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 13, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1982, ISBN 3-428-00194-X , p. 400 f. ( Digitized version ).

Web links

• Ritter von Lämel from Tuschkau in Bohemia (Lemmel archive)
• Objects tell stories ( Memento from November 2, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
• Jewish Encyclopedia (English)
• Pictures of the Lämel School (English / Hebrew) ( Memento from January 26, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
• Goethe and Lämel