Frankfurt Judengasse Jews

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The Judengasse quarter was the Jewish quarter of Frankfurt. With a long history, widely known Jewish families have been associated with it (Oppenheimer, Lamm, Schiff and Rothschild, to name a few). They were heavily involved in trade, Frankfurt being a major commercial centre. Frankfurt is also located in the area where Ashkenazi Jews sprung from.

Mayer Amschel Rothschild:

Mayer Amschel Rothschild was the start of the legendary rise of the Rothschild family to become the world's greatest private bank. Mayer Amschel himself was born in 1744 in very modest circumstances in the rear building of the Pfanne (in the Judengasse). His parents died when he was 12, forcing him to become independent at an early age. He went to Hanover to learn the business at the Oppenheimer bank, and on his return to Frankfurt he founded a moneylending and banking business, which he combined with dealing in antiques and medals. He established contacts with a number of German royal courts, for example as a moneychanger, and particularly the court of the Elector of HessenKassel, who later appointed him court factor. This was the foundation for the family's commercial rise.

http://www.judengasse.de/ehtml/P027.htm



Gutle Rothschild, the wife of Mayer Amschel Rothschild:

Gutle Rothschild was the wife of Mayer Amschel Rothschild, the famous founder of the Rothschild banking house. Gutle was born on 23 August 1753, the daughter of Wolf Salomon Schnapper, probably at the Eule. Her father ran a small banking business, but was not very wealthy. Her husband, who she married on 29 August 1770, also came from a modest background. Together, they witnessed the rise of the Rothschild bank. Gutle survived her husband by 37 years to see the bank achieve international importance and power under the management of their five sons. She died on 7 May 1849.

For almost all her life Gutle lived at the Grünes Schild in the Judengasse, where she had moved with her husband in 1780. Some of the five sons and several daughters were born there. When the ghetto restrictions were gradually lifted in the course of the emancipation from the end of the 18th century, members of the family who stayed in Frankfurt quickly moved to imposing houses outside the Judengasse. However, Gutle refused to move to any of the new houses and stay at the Grünes Schild until her death in 1849. After her death the house was converted into a museum and has subsequently been regarded as the Rothschild family home.

http://www.judengasse.de/ehtml/P026.htm



Sara Stern (member of the Stern family):

There were two important Stern families in the Judengasse, both named after their family home, the Stern. One of the families was a branch of the Worms family and had their main home in the Storch next door to the Stern. Their descendants included wealthy brokers and famous rabbis. The other and more important Stern family was a branch of the famous HaasKann family. They formed a separate branch in the 17th century when Samuel Beer Haas's descendants named themselves after their homes, Beer, Kann, and Stern.This Stern family was descended from Süsskind Stern, the brother of Isaak zur Kanne. Its members were among the wealthiest and most respected Frankfurt Jews. When the ban on Jewish wine merchants could no longer be upheld at the end of the 18th century, Samuel Heyum Stern opened a wine merchant's shop at the Kaltes Bad, which became the first great Jewish wine merchant's in Frankfurt. By the mid19th century this had developed into one of the leading Frankfurt banks. Other members of the extensive Stern family dealt in jewellery and metals, and were suppliers to the army.

http://www.judengasse.de/ehtml/F079.htm



Süßkind Stern:

Süsskind Stern (d. 1686) was descended from one of the richest and most powerful 17th century families in the Judengasse. He was the founder of the Stern branch of the family, whilst his brother Isaak zur Kann founded the Kann branch. He took his family name from the family house at the sign of the Bunte Kanne, originally called Stern.

Stern dealt in jewellery and was a moneychanger, and in 1660 was listed as one of the most highlytaxed individuals in the Jewish community.
His sons, Isaac Süsskind and Samuel Stern, took over the family business on his death and continued to run it as partners. They also provided commissary services to the emperor's troops, supplying flour etc.

http://www.judengasse.de/ehtml/P032.htm



Juda Samuel Adler (1794 1866), member of the Adler family

The Adler family is apparently largely identical with the Schwarzadler family, and is documented in the Frankfurt Jewish community as early as the late 16th century. Little is known for certain about their origins. Alexander Dietz believes that they may be an offshoot of the extensive Cahn family. Among other houses the family lived at the Schwarzadler, which is the origin of their name. At first the Adler/Schwarzadler family did not rank as one of the wealthy Frankfurt Jewish families. However, during the 18th century the widow of Feist Adler made a substantial bequest to a charitable cause: although no details are now known the amount was 15,000 guilders, a considerable sum at the time. During the 18th and early 19th century the family produced several prominent rabbis who were active in Hanover and England, where they won considerable respect.

Josef Bamberger, member of the Bamberger family, 19th century

The Bamberger family first migrated to Frankfurt in 1762 when the banker Löb Bamberger moved from Fürth. They accordingly only played a significant role during the last decades of the Ghetto era. Bamberger carried on a substantial moneychanging business at that period. The Bamberg family was also active in Frankfurt during the 19th century in both the drapery and silk trades.

http://www.judengasse.de/ehtml/F004.htm



Heinrich Schwarzschild (1803 1878), member of the Schwarzschild family

The Schwarzschild family is an old established Frankfurt Jewish family. It is a branch of the older Wohl family, and took its name from one of its homes, the Schwarzes Schild. Initially the family worked particularly as butchers. It had many branches in the Judengasse, and it is striking how its members over the years took up very different occupations. Some of them, for example, had prominent functions in the Jewish community as community notaries, rabbis and dayanim, or worked as silk merchants, money lenders or cloth merchants.

http://www.judengasse.de/ehtml/F075.htm

[Hubal]

Those are the kind of Jews i like, ugly and very smart

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Dr Friedrich Salomon Stiebel:

The Stiebel family was a branch of the Swabian family Günzburg, who lived in Frankfurt from around 1560. Their name derived from their family home, the Stiefel. For nearly 200 years after 1590, members of the family lived in the Grüne Tür. The family had two main branches, and retained the old Günzburg family name until 1700.

Family members dealt in hides and textiles, but were mainly involved in the Hanau Public Treasury Lottery. Seligmann Abraham (1756 to 1796), both his sons, and six of his grandsons were lottery collectors.

The doctor Friedrich Stiebel was a descendant of this family.

http://www.judengasse.de/ehtml/F080.htm

Salomon Friedrich Stiebel wurde als Nachkomme der Familie Stiebel 1792 in armen Verhältnissen in der Judengasse geboren.

http://www.judengasse.de/ehtml/P031.htm



Rabbi Naftali Herz Kohen (a great grandson of the Maharal):

Naphtali Herz Kohen was chief rabbi in Frankfurt from 1704 to 1711. Fire broke out at his home, the house Eichel, in 1711, and destroyed the entire Judengasse. He was a greatgrandson of "High Rabbi" Löw, chief rabbi of Prague, who according to legend had created an artificial human being, the "Golem".

http://www.judengasse.de/ehtml/P120.htm

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Joseph Hahn

Joseph Hahn has become famous as the chronicler of the Frankfurt Jewish Community at the time of the Fettmilch Uprising (1612 1616). He left a contemporary account of events in his work "Josef Ometz".

Josef, known as Juspa, lived from the end of the 16th century until 1637, and was descended from the respected Hahn family of Frankfurt.

His work, "Josef Ometz", deals not just with every detail of the Fettmilch Uprising, but also with liturgy, religious life, the problems of raising children, and particularly the education of the young. It became a standard work on local Frankfurt Jewish customs and a source work on the history of the Frankfurt Jews.

http://www.judengasse.de/ehtml/P110.htm

Joseph Süß Oppenheimer, famous controversial financier and court factor, he belonged to the Oppenheimer family of Frankfurt:

Joseph Süss Oppenheimer is known under the name "Jew Süss" and has entered the pages of history as the most famous and controversial financier and court factor.

He was born around 1690 in Heidelberg, the son of Süsskind Oppenheimer, Tax Collector for the Palatinate Jews, and belonged to the famous Frankfurt Oppenheimer family. He started his business career in the Palatinate, Hesse and Cologne, where he made a name for himself not only as an agent for promissory notes, master of the mint and court factor, but also as a jeweller and moneylender. In 1732 Prince Karl Alexander of Württemberg made him court factor.

When Karl Alexander became ruler of Württemberg one year later, war broke out, and he entrusted Joseph Süss Oppenheimer with the commissariat for the entire Swabian army, and appointed him MinisterResident in Frankfurt. He was allowed to maintain a residence there outside the Judengasse, and had a permanent representative in the person of Court Counsellor Leining. His mother lived in Frankfurt's Judengasse.

Oppenheimer became the prince's political adviser and started implementing radical economic reforms on his behalf. He established monopolies for the sale of salt, leather, wine and tobacco, and rapidly extended the existing ducal monopoly on manufacturing. The free trade in salt which had been guaranteed to communities for centuries was taken under state ownership. Against the bitter opposition of the wealthy classes, he sought to emulate the French model by introducing an absolute state with a mercantilist, protocapitalist economic system, which was nevertheless subject to state guidance and regulation. He had porcelain and silk factories built, founded the first bank in south Germany, and set industrialisation in motion.

After the prince's death, he was immediately arrested by his successor and and after a long trial which attracted a great deal of notice was condemned to death by a criminal court in Stuttgart. He was hanged in February 1738.

The writer Lion Feuchtwanger (1884 1958) portrayed his fate in the novel "Jud Süss". The director Veit Harlan made an inflammatory antisemitic film of the same title during the Nazi era.

http://www.judengasse.de/ehtml/P023.htm

Another descendant of this family was the famous Josef Süss Oppenheimer (1690-1738) who held the office of court factor to Prince Karl Alexander von Württemberg in Stuttgart. His mother was also a Frankfurt resident, and Jud Süss Oppenheimer often spent months in Frankfurt, where he owned a commodious house outside the Judengasse. Lion Feuchtwanger based the historical novel "Jud Süss" on Oppenheimer.

http://www.judengasse.de/ehtml/F057.htm

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Jewish community administration in Frankfurt, 1716



Beer Dann, Schutz-Jude, 1774, by J. A. B. Nothnagel:



Joseph Rütten, publisher (Verleger)

Joseph Rütten (bis 1. September 1842 Jacob Beer Rindskopf) (* 22. Dezember 1805 in Frankfurt am Main; † 19. Juni 1878 in Frankfurt am Main) war ein deutscher Verleger. Jacob Beer Rindskopf war der Sohn des Bankiers Jekel (Jacob) Beer Rindskopf (* 1770; † 1842) und der Jette, geb. Wohl, und wurde im Haus Rindskopf in der Frankfurter Judengasse geboren.

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_R%C3%BCtten

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Frankfurt Fair flyer c. 1516. The ring on the coat is the Jewish sign.



Frankfurt Jewish couple in typical dress 1703



Ludwig Börne (1786 1837)

Carl Ludwig Börne (* 6. Mai 1786 im jüdischen Ghetto von Frankfurt am Main als Juda Löb Baruch; † 12. Februar 1837 in Paris) war ein deutscher Journalist, Literatur- und Theaterkritiker. Börne, der zuweilen mit Jean Paul verglichen wird, gilt aufgrund seiner pointiert-witzigen anschaulichen Schreibweise als Wegbereiter der literarischen Kritik in Deutschland, insbesondere des Feuilletons.

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_B%C3%B6rne

Karl Ludwig Börne (born "Loeb Baruch"; 6 May 1786 – 12 February 1837) was a German political writer and satirist. Karl Ludwig Börne was born Loeb Baruch on 6 May 1786, at Frankfurt am Main, son of Jakob Baruch, a banker.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_B%C3%B6rne

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Samuel Hayum Stern (1760 - 1819), Weinhändler, member of the Stern family:

http://www.judengasse.de/ehtml/Z008.htm

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A XIX century depiction of it, near the Synagogue:




A XIX picture of the Judengasse:

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The yDNA haplogroup of the most famous family from the Frankfurt Judengasse, that of Mayer Amschel Rothschild, is J2a1a2b3b:

https://www.familytreedna.com/public...ction=yresults

The Rothschild family /ˈrɒθs.tʃaɪld/,is a family descending from Mayer Amschel Rothschild, a court Jew to the Landgraves of Hesse-Kassel, in the Free City of Frankfurt, who established his banking business in the 1760s. Unlike most previous court Jews, Rothschild managed to bequeath his wealth, and established an international banking family through his five sons.

During the 19th century, when it was at its height, the Rothschild family is believed by some to have possessed the largest private fortune in the world as well as the largest fortune in modern world history.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rothschild_family

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The plundering of the Judengasse in 1614 (Plünderung der Judengasse in Frankfurt 1614):

After the election of Matthias as emperor in May 1612 the tensions which had been simmering for years in Frankfurt between the patricians and the guilds erupted in open rebellion. The citizenry demanded that the city council publish their privileges, set up a public corn market to determine grain prices, and limit the number of Jews living in the city. In addition they demanded that the interest Jews were permitted to charge in their moneylending should be cut by half retroactively.
The ringleader of the rebellion was Vincenz Fettmilch, a grocer and gingerbread baker who settled in Frankfurt in 1602. His social position in the city was controversial before he became the leader of the rebellion. He was also supported by a number of merchants from the Netherlands and particularly by the Frankfurt lawyers Weitz and Brenner, who hoped that the expulsion of the Jews would free of them of their debts to Jewish moneylenders.
For two years the struggle swung back and forth between city council and guilds, accompanied by increasingly violent attacks on the Jews. At times the city opposition took power in the council, but a new constitution involving broad sectors of the citizenry was again rejected by the guilds at the start of 1614. The emperor as the ultimate civil protector of the Jews at first remained neutral but then increasingly supported the old patrician council.
On 22 August 1614 elements of the citizenry stormed the Judengasse, crying "Loot the Judengasse!" The Jewish men defended the Judengasse for several hours, building barricades of barrels, benches and stones behind the three gates, while the women and children fled to the cemetery. After a battle lasting several hours the attakkers overpowered the Jews and forced their way into the Judengasse. While the Jews fled to the cemetery the attakkers plundered the houses, destroying or removing possessions and burning books.
When the riot threatened to spread to the rest of the city, the looting was stopped after 13 hours by armed citizens. The members of the Jewish community, numbering 1,380, were driven together in the Jewish cemetery and forced to leave the city next day. With the rest of their possessions they moved to surrounding areas such as Hanau, Offenbach or Hoechst.
The storming of the Judengasse led to decisive intervention by the emperor and princes acting for him. In September 1614 Fettmilch was outlawed, the rebellion collapsed, and in spring 1616 he was publicly executed with other rebels after a long trial.
While several Jewish families were allowed to return to the Judengasse in August 1615 and start rebuilding, the rest of the community was only able to return in February 1616 as a result of direct intervention by the emperor. A new residence code was issued, which formed the subsequent basis for residence by Jews in the city. After long negotiations the Jews were forced to abandon any compensation for their plundered belongings.
Rabbi Juspa Hahn, a contemporary witness, has left an exact description of these events in his work "Josif Ometz".
To commemorate their salvation from destruction Frankfurt's Jews celebrate a special feast, the "Purim Vinz".

http://www.judengasse.de/ehtml/E005.htm