Leffmann Behrends

Leffmann Behrens, Jewish name Eliezer ( Ezekiel ) Lippmann Cohen ( * 1634 in Bochum, † January 1, 1714 in Hanover, Germany ), a German court factor, court and chamber agent was ( banker ) of the Hanoverian Guelph dukes of the late 17th and early 18th century.

Leffmann achieved within 30 years the rise of protected Jews (with the right for himself, his family members and house staff to live in the Calenberger Neustadt ) for " court and chamber Agents". For this purpose, appointed him Elector Georg Ludwig 1698th

Life

Leffmann Behrens was the son of Brandenburg Jewry superintendent Issachar b. Yitzhak Hakohen alias Berndt Isaac, which is from 1633 to 1661 is in Bochum. Leffmann and other family members emigrated to Hanover from Westphalia.

After his marriage to Jente Hameln (1629-1695), the sister of the famous memoir writer Glikl bas Judah body (also Glückel of Hamelin ) ( 1645-1724 ), widow of businessman Salomon goose and daughter of the wealthy merchant Jobst Goldschmidt, succeeded Leffmann Behrens successfully build a company whose profits were first made ​​with the mediation of luxury products for Duke Johann Frederick's court.

The company continued to grow - even under the reign of Frederick's successors Johann Ernst August and Georg Ludwig - by their services as purveyor (eg coaches ), Army supplier ( materials), in the transmission of the so-called subsidies, the funding for rental of own troops to other powers, such as on Catholic France ( 1672-80 and 1690/91 ), the emperor in Vienna or the Netherlands and the United Kingdom (from 1702), in the granting of loans to the Chamber office or the ducal family, court officials to and government officials.

Large exposures of a few hundred thousand crowns mediated Leffmann Behrens in financing the Elector Ernst August 1692 and the Polish crown for Augustus the Strong in 1697 (which was in turn connected with the acquisition of the Duchy of Lauenburg by Hannover). Useful there were his foreign business to Hamburg ( Manoel Texeira to the Mussaphias ), Frankfurt, Vienna ( Oppenheimer, Wertheimer ), Lippe-Detmold, Schaumburg -Lippe, Brunswick -Lüneburg, the Diocese of Münster, Mecklenburg -Strelitz, Eichstätt, Saxe-Gotha and Goslar.

Leffmann Behrens remained a devout Jew, without any desire to assimilate in its Christian environment. The social advancement would be left to him at this time anyway denied. He entered actively for his persecuted co-religionists, as in the case of its use for the backup of the Jewish cemetery on the upper road ( 1671/73 ), as the initiator of Landrabbinats ( 1687 ) and as the founder of the first synagogue in the mountain road (1704), financed by his son heart Behrens ( 1657-1709 ).

He intervened with his sovereign against anti-Jewish writings ( of Gulich, 1690, and Eisenmenger, 1700 ) and was co-founder of the famous religious conversation ( see references ) with a baptized Jew in Hanover in 1704. Participants of this great dispute were the Stadthagener Rabbi Joseph Samson, the Elector Georg Ludwig, Duke George William of Celle, the Electress Sophia, the youngest son Ernst August of this year, the Loccumer Abbot Gerhard Wolter Molanus, Leffmann Behrens itself as a listener numerous court officials and scholars. It lasted three and a half hours and took place in the apartments of the Elector mother Sophie at the Palais in Leinstraße instead.

Ever since the death of Leffmann Behrens ' son heart 1709, the company ran into financial difficulties. Also you made ​​the competition of the Court Jew Michael David († 1758), a former employee, to create the 1714, according to Behrens ' death, was appointed court and chamber agents. On January 30, Leffmann Behrens, died in June, the Electress Sophia, and in August climbed her son Georg Ludwig as King George I. the British throne. The continuation of the company by Behrens Leffmanns grandson Gumpert and Isaac Behrens ( † 1765 ) was only to 1721 in which the company went bankrupt. The bankruptcy losses amounted to 400,000 dollars. Gumpert and Isaac had for five years in prison, after which they were expelled from the electorate.

Leffmann Behrens ' House, in which he offered several scholars free accommodation, was in the Long Road 8 in Calenberger Neustadt. It was a half-timbered house dating from 1674, was the Hebrew inscriptions " Much good " and "Through this door kick no hardship! " And was destroyed by bombs only in 1943.

Henning Rischbieter has in Hanover reading book rightly points out that Leffmann Behrens in contrast to his temporary competitors and business partners, the Hanoverian early capitalists Johann Duve (1611-1697), the Hanover knit the false legend of a benevolent entrepreneur to the 20th century was, is completely undervalued. Behrens, Jewish as court factor to a certain extent Duve's counterpart is, however, very well be regarded as a benefactor, especially its discriminated Jewish faith. However: no street naming, no table, no monument commemorates this important Jewish personality of the early modern period in Hanover. After all, his grave is preserved: in the Old Jewish cemetery on the upper road. The only portrait Leffmann Behrens ' by Andreas Scheidt found colored reproduced in Louis and Henry Fraenkel Genealogical tables of Jewish families.

Family

Leffmann was married to

Children

• Naphtali b. Eliezer Lipmann Hakohen aka Heart Behrens ( * Bochum 1657, † Hannover February 23, 1709 ) was head of the Jewish community in Hanover- Neustadt, ∞ Serchen Wertheimer († March 9, 1739 ), daughter of Samson Wertheimer
• Genendel (* Hannover 1658, Hannover † June 13, 1712 ) ∞ David Oppenheim ( * Worms 1664 † Prague September 12, 1736 ), chief rabbi in Prague and wine merchants
• Moses Jacob (* 1662 Hanover, Leipzig † January 19, 1697 ) Talmud scholar ∞ Siese Cleveland - Gomperzes (* 1658, † December 17, 1725 ), daughter of Elias Joseph Gomperzes and Sara Miriam Jacob

Grandchildren:

• Isaac ( Izzy ) Behrens (* 1683, September 11, 1765 ) ∞ Lea Lehmann, daughter of Issachar Behrend Lehmann, Oberhof factor. He was the son of Jacob Moses, so grandson of Leffmann Behrens
• Gumpert Behrens ( † 1726), 1703 Can ∞ with Sprinze, Oberhof factor in Hannover. He was the son of Jacob Moses, so grandson of Leffmann Behrens