Page:Jewish Encyclopedia Volume 2.pdf/655

605 605

THE JEWISH ENCYCLOPEDIA

Bavaria

Jews, who were still looked upon as merely a tolerated private religious society. It was not until the federal law of July 3, 1869, enacted in Bavaria, April 22, 1872, that the legal enactment of equal rights for all took place. It is true the realization of such rights in state and social life still leaves much to be desired, in spite of the energetic stand taken by King Ludwig II. against anti-Semitism, and in spite of the fact that, during all this long period of struggle, the Jews of Bavaria have attained eminent positions in society and in the various departments of mental and material activity. In 1812 the court banker A. E. Seligmann of Munich, in consideration of services to the crown extending over a period of forty years, Jewish. was raised to the hereditary barony Services to under the title of " Von Eichthal." In Bavaria. 1819 the court banker and landowner Jacob Hirsch of Konigshofen, near Wiirzburg, who in the revolutionary war had raised and armed a battalion at his own expense, was also raised to the barony, as was later his son and successor, Joseph von Hirsch of Gereuth (1805-85), father of the celebrated philanthropist of that name. In 1820 the banker Westheimer of Munich placed

years a member of the Reichstag. Other members of the Bavarian Diet were Maison, a manufacturer of Munich, and Judge Gunzenhauser of Flirth. Among Bavarian scholars are the following: David Ottensosser of Flirth, well known as exegete and Bible translator; Aaron Wolfsohn (1754-1835) of Flirth, belonged to the school of Jewish the " Measselim, " and was a founder of Scholarthe institution known as "Society of ship. Friends" in Berlin; Jacob Herz (181671), who was for twenty-nine years privat-docent at the University of Erlangen before he received his appointment as the first Jewish professor in Bavaria, was a celebrated surgeon. Pie so distinguished himself in two great wars by his

300,000 florins at the disposal of the city to improve the water-supply. The first Jewish attorney in Bavaria, Dr. Grlinsfeld of Pilrth, was appointed by King Ludwig I. in 1834 by mere accident; but in 1849 Dr. Karl Feust and Counselor Berlin of Flirth were regularly appointed, and both of them later received the Order of St. Michael. nephew of the last-mentioned, Dr. Max Berlin, in Nuremberg, was the first Jewappointed a judge(1872). In the army were Major Marx and Captain Henle while a banker, Obermaier of Augsburg, lias become majorgeneral of the "Landwehr" (reserve); and a notary, Dr. Ortcnau of Flirth, is auditor of a reserve regiment. Non-hereditary nobility has been conferred upon the two brothers Henle, who occupy high positions in railroad administration, and also upon Consul von Wilmersdorfer and on "Justizrath"

M. Lilienthal, H. Hochbeimer, Von Schwabacher in Odessa, Loewi in Flirth, Stein in Burgkundstadt and Frankfort-on-the-Main, Gutmann in Redwitz, Joseph Aub in Berlin, Adler in Kissingen and Cassel, L6wenmeyer in Frankfort-on-the-Oder, Griinebaum, author of the "Ethics of Judaism." in Landau, and others. From the same circle proceeded likewise a pillar of Orthodoxy, Seligman Beer Bamberger, successor of Abraham Bing and founder of the Teachers' Seminary in Wiirzburg. Outside of it stood Max Gi'linbaum (died 1898 in Munich), at one time in the Hebrew Orphan Asylum in New York, and author of a Jewish-German and a Jewish-Spanish chrestomathy; also Raphael N. Rabbinowicz, author of the monumental " Dikduke Soferim." The latter can not be mentioned without grateful reference to his In quite recent Maecenas, Abraham Merzbacher. times Perles in Munich, and H. Gross in Augsburg, author of " Gallia Judaica, " have distinguished themThe brothers Emil and Philip selves by scholarship. Feust, prominent as journalists, may also be menIn art, Hermann Levi of Munich has labored tioned.

affairs of the

A



Jacob Haussmann of Munich. Among the more eminent Bavarian Jewish families mention may be made of the philanthropic house of the banker Konigswarter of Flirth, and of Dr. William Konigswarter (1809-87), honorary citizen of that town, who constituted it, on his death, sole heir Among parliamentarians were the to his fortune. manufacturer Dr. Morgenstern (1814-82) of Flirth, who was the first Jew in Bavaria to be elected to the Diet in 1849 singularly enough, from a district in which no Jews resided. In the Diet he successfully defended Jewish rights, with the result that a prop-

—

withdraw the suffrage from them was by a large majority. Fischel Arnheim (1812-04), a lawyer of Bayreuth, was another repreosition

to

rejected

who valiantly defended his coreligionists in debate, and also succeeded in securing the passage Wolff Fraukenof many laws of general utility. burger (1827-89) of Nuremberg, for twenty years a member of the Bavarian Diet, and leader of the Liberal party, was distinguished as an orator and as an sentative

authority upon railroad and military affairs. It was through him that the Jewish poll-tax, formerly paid He was also for four to the Church, was abolished.

humanity, unselfishness, and skill, that to him was accorded the honor of a statue erected by public subscription,

the

first

statue to a

Jew

in all Ger-

many. It is a remarkable fact that from the celebrated yeshibah of the strictly Orthodox rabbi Wolf Hamburger in Flirth (1770-1850), a number of distinguished scholars have proceeded, who have become celebrated as eloquent representatives of Reform. Of these may be mentioned David Einhorn,

Wagnerian and Toby Rosenthal and Israel, as painters of Oriental subjects, occupy acknowledged positions among Bavarian artists. It is, however, especially in industries that the Jews of Bavaria have earned recognition. Flirth, sometimes called "Little Jerusalem," owes its prosHere Gosdorfer perity to its Jewish inhabitants. founded his mirror-factory, George Beuda his bronzefoundry, both of which export largely to the United States.' Ullmann (died 1898) founded a large busiThe royal lumber inness in toys and hardware. dustry of the Bavarian and Alpine forests was also organized by a Regensburg Jew of successfully for the popularization of

music



The Jews of the name of Loewi. Jewish Industries. Nuremberg, Flirth, and Bamberg conthe hop business: in the firsttrade has in reality only existed since the, Jewish settlement there. trol

named town, indeed, general export