Minna Kleeberg

Minna Kleeberg, née Cohen ( born July 21, 1841 in Elmshorn, † December 31 1878 in New Haven ) was a German poet.

Life

In the sixties and seventies of the 19th century, the rabbi 's wife acquired in Germany and in German- Jewish circles of the United States a reputation as a poet who lobbied committed to women's and civil rights.

My most famous work is the " Song of the salt," which was published in 1865 in Leipzig gazebo. In it, she spoke out against an enormous increase in the salt tax that should be collected in Prussia in favor of the military. Minna Kleeberg died - only 38 years old - in New Haven ( Connecticut ), where on the Mishkan Israel Cemetery today, a statue of the poet.

Minna Kleeberg came from a family of tough lone fighter for civil rights in a modern German society. Shortly before her death, wrote the immigrant in their new home the following lines: " ... We are of German oak sapling withered no more / We bloom in free realms, a proud and majestic oak tree / And true German manners and German. ! Humanities Federal / We German settlers crowds at large States reason ... "

Family History

Even the great-grandfather of Minna Kleeberg's had tried in the late 18th century by Elmshorn out to settle as a merchant in Meldorf, where he impressed bailiff Heinrich Christian Boie by his " liberal views ," but it was his son received in 1817 by the Danish king, the special permit to buy the first Jew in this inhabited only by Christians spots Süder Dithmarschens civil rights. His son, in turn, Mark Cohen, studied medicine in Kiel and returned with the family who had to fight in Meldorf in the thirties of the 19th century with great financial difficulties to Elmshorn back. There, the respected doctor was immediately elected to the board of the Jewish community. His daughter Minna let Dr. Mark Cohen bestowed an exceptionally broad and liberal education.

The Cohen family from Elmshorn belonged to the tiny Jewish minority in Schleswig- Holstein, which, as the legal emancipation of the Jews was initiated in 1814 in the Danish motherland, it was hoped that it would finally come in the duchies to relief. Until now, the Jews allowed to live only in a few places such as Altona, Elmshorn or Friedrichstadt and had in these places as peddlers or merchants - because other professions were not allowed to exercise - each made ​​competition and thus deprived of the opportunity to career success. It took a long time, namely, in the Duchy of Holstein until 1863, to freedom of movement and occupational mobility even for Jews, enshrined fundamental rights were.

Swell

• Minna Kleeberg: poems. Louisville, New York 1877
• Leopold Kleeberg: Eulogy in Commemoration of the deceased Poetess Minna Kleeberg Pronounced in the Temple of the Congregation " Mishkan Israel " in New Haven, on the 11th of January, 1879 as a tribute of his Love and Affection, by Her Husband. New Haven 1879