Issachar Berend Lehmann
Encyclopedia
Issachar Berend Lehmann, Berend Lehmann, Yissakhar Bermann Segal, Yissakhar ben Yehuda haLevi, Berman Halberstadt * Essen (Westphalia, Germany) Apr. 23, 1661, † Halberstadt
(Prussia, Germany) July 9, 1730, was a Jewish-German banker, merchant, diplomatic agent as well as army and mint contractor working as a court Jew
for Elector
Augustus II the Strong
of Saxony, King of Poland, and other German princes. He was privileged as a Court Jew and as a Resident. Thanks to his wealth, privileges as well as social and cultural commitment he was a Jewish dignitary famous in his day in Central and Eastern Europe.
of Bochum, later established in Hannover.
From him, older biographers assume, Berend Lehmann received some business training and then traded in Behrends’ commission
of 1687, where subsequently he was a regular visitor at both the annual seasons.
He resided in Halberstadt, where, from 1688, he is listed as married to Miriam, daughter of the deceased protected Jew
, Joel Alexander. From him he derived his protected status.
Two years later his first son, Lehmann Behrend, was born and he built his first, modest abode in the Jewish quarter of Halberstadt (Bakenstraße 37, partly existent in the building complex of Little Venice).
. In 1697 he was commissioned by the young Elector, Augustus the Strong, to procure money needed for the acquisition of the Polish throne. He received authority to sell or pawn lands situated outside the main territory of Saxony and collected loans worth millions of guilders
from Christian and Jewish banking partners, with the help of which the Saxon field marshal Heino Heinrich Graf von Flemming
persuaded the majority of the Polish nobility into electing Augustus the Strong King "in" Poland.
In recognition of such services, Augustus made Berend Lehmann "Resident
of the King of Poland in the Lower Saxon Circle
". This was some sort of a consul’s privilege on which Lehmann repeatedly based his demands, more or less successfully.
(a Torah
-/Talmud
academy) as the nucleus of a community campus which was also to accommodate a large new synagogue, he was forbidden to carry on. Before he was able to buy two adjacent houses in addition, the property was confiscated for the newly received French Reformed
refugees. The protest of his protector, Augustus the Strong, against the confiscation proved in vain.
. A large part of the work went - free of charge - to poor Jewish communities.
against Sweden. Letters from him to an influential courtier at Dresden show him busy acquiring new loans, and anxious over their repayment.
At this time he built a whole complex of buildings as an extension of his first modest home in Halberstadt. In his building ambitions he was permanently hindered by the Prussian local administration, but promoted by the Berlin Hofcammer, an institution geared to the levying of money for the King. On the new premises, apart from offices and private space for a growing family and team of servants, he kept a warehouse and a wine cellar, and "for mercy , so they can perform their divine service", sheltered six poor Jewish families.
As one of the three parnassim (superiors) of the Halberstadt community of around 1,000 Jews (more than in Berlin), he had the task of "repartitioning" the extra contributions which King Frederic William I of Prussia (the Soldiers’ King) repeatedly drew from the Jews. He himself shouldered the lion’s share.
. In 1708, such activities led to the foundation of a Dresden branch of his Halberstadt business, in which his then 18-year-old eldest son, Lehmann Behrend, worked alongside himself and his brother-in-law, Jonas Meyer. Strictly speaking, outside the Leipzig trade fairs the Lehmanns and Meyer were the only protected Jews in all of Saxony. But the large enterprise (proudly residing in the Altes Posthaus at Landhausstraße 13) employed and housed up to 70 Jewish employees who were themselves not protected .
This above all provoked the anti-Jewish protest of the Saxon estates
(among whom the clergy and traders were particularly active), which Augustus the Strong fended off for a long time but eventually gave in to. In the mid-1720s the sale of merchandise had to stop, while the banking branch continued in a smaller fashion.
, but failed for Christian censorship reasons.
. Lehmann had outstanding debts there and hoped to be able to cash them in in the future Prussian part of the country. The Habsburg Emperor Charles VI
and Czar Peter the Great were also to profit from the partition. Lehmann sought to address the Emperor through the latter’s son-in-law, the Blankenburg prince, Louis Rudolph. The Czar, let in on the plan by Prussia, reacted angrily and demanded strict inquiry and punishment of the Jew. Lehmann was spared the worst by Augustus the Strong; he was only granted back the grace of his patron after sacrificing a precious stone to him.
Early in 1730, the margrave of Bayreuth
confronted him with a debt claim of 6,000 talers dating back to 1699. It took him some time to borrow the sum in order to have the "execution" of house arrest lifted. After his death on July 9, 1730, claims of several hundred thousand talers could only partly be satisfied through the auction of most of his real estate. Subsequently, his eldest son, Lehmann Behrend of Dresden, also failed.
Lehmann’s gravestone, in the oldest Halberstadt Israelitic cemetery, is preserved, and it praises his generosity as a community benefactor and his high reputation in the Christian "palaces" which enabled him to act as a shtadlan
(an advocate) of his correligionists.
and Oppenheimer
Vienna, Joseph Süss Oppenheimer
of Stuttgart, Leffmann Behrends
of Hannover, the Rothschilds
of Frankfurt on the Main - as one of the most highly respected Jewish personalities in Central and Eastern Europe. His ambition to make an impact on the life of his times made him a baroque figure not unlike his noble Christian comtemporaries and it put him in frequent conflict with the Christian authorities trying to curb his efforts.
In his charitable and religious generosity he is the model of a wealthy Jew also being a pious leader of his community.
of Mainz, who in his Jüd. Volksbibliothek (Jewish People’s Library) painted Berend Lehmann’s life in episodes (largely invented) as a patriarch and active participant in German and Jewish political life. He stressed Lehmann’s support of the Polish Jews in their misery.
This 19th century picture of the Royal Resident as a saint and hero has recently been characterized as "not necessarily having to do with reality but being an identification offer […] invented at the writing desks of Auerbach and Marcus Lehmann".
At the turn of the 20th century the Dessau rabbi, Max Freudenthal, researched into Lehmann’s merits with respect to Hebrew printing. He cleared up the business circumstances of the Talmud edition of 1697 to 1699, especially Lehmann’s stressful relationship with the Christian printer, Michael Gottschalk. For the first time he showed Lehmann’s tough business acumen.
He also described Lehmann’s connection with the printer Israel Abraham of Köthen and Jeßnitz with whom he published several of the works of his Halberstadt yeshiva scholars.
In her court Jew book she ranked him with the Wertheimers and Oppenheimers of Vienna and even with the Rothschilds of Frankfurt. She contrasted him as the "genuine" court Jew with the less well-reputed Joseph Süß Oppenheimer of Stuttgart, and thus idealised him.
(1938) , being a caricature of him as the stereotyped "usurer", the second one, by Heinrich Schnee (1953), a one-sided portrait of him as a profiteer and a clever augmenter of Jewish influence.
(which in its day flowed openly among the houses of the Jewish quarter) testify to his public spirit. He had it built for "the benefit of the general public".
There remains a doorway of a richly decorated baroque building near the museum dating from about 1730 which was taken down in 1986 (although it might have been saved), and is locally taken to have been Berend Lehmann’s Palace, although there is no evidence that it was connected with him.
. It survived Kristallnacht
and the 1945 air raid and is now the seat of the Moses Mendelssohn Akademie. The academy offers information on Jewish life in the form of conferences, exhibitions and lectures. Its lecture hall is the former synagogue of the yeshiva.
who have settled in Halberstadt http://www.sachsen-anhalt.de/index.php?id=27004.
Halberstadt
Halberstadt is a town in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt and the capital of the district of Harz. It is located on the German Half-Timbered House Road and the Magdeburg–Thale railway....
(Prussia, Germany) July 9, 1730, was a Jewish-German banker, merchant, diplomatic agent as well as army and mint contractor working as a court Jew
Court Jew
Court Jew is a term, typically applied to the Early Modern period, for historical Jewish bankers who handled the finances of, or lent money to, European royalty and nobility....
for Elector
Prince-elector
The Prince-electors of the Holy Roman Empire were the members of the electoral college of the Holy Roman Empire, having the function of electing the Roman king or, from the middle of the 16th century onwards, directly the Holy Roman Emperor.The heir-apparent to a prince-elector was known as an...
Augustus II the Strong
Augustus II the Strong
Frederick Augustus I or Augustus II the Strong was Elector of Saxony and King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania ....
of Saxony, King of Poland, and other German princes. He was privileged as a Court Jew and as a Resident. Thanks to his wealth, privileges as well as social and cultural commitment he was a Jewish dignitary famous in his day in Central and Eastern Europe.
Ancestry and training
Lehmann’s Essen father belonged to the Jewish upper class of Westphalia, just like his brother-in-law, the court Jew Leffmann BehrendsLeffmann Behrends
Leffmann Behrends was the German financial agent of the dukes and princes of Hanover....
of Bochum, later established in Hannover.
From him, older biographers assume, Berend Lehmann received some business training and then traded in Behrends’ commission
Young family and own business in Halberstadt
His activity is first documented, as, at age 26, he did business at the Leipzig Trade FairLeipzig Trade Fair
The Leipzig Trade Fair was a major fair for trade across Central Europe for nearly a millennium. After the Second World War, its location happened to lie within the borders of East Germany, whereupon it became one of the most important trade fairs of Comecon and was traditionally a meeting place...
of 1687, where subsequently he was a regular visitor at both the annual seasons.
He resided in Halberstadt, where, from 1688, he is listed as married to Miriam, daughter of the deceased protected Jew
Schutzjude
Schutzjude was a status for German Jews granted by the imperial, princely or royal courts.Within the Holy Roman Empire, except of some eastern territories gained to the Empire in the 11th and 12th c. , Jews usually had the status as Servi camerae regis...
, Joel Alexander. From him he derived his protected status.
Two years later his first son, Lehmann Behrend, was born and he built his first, modest abode in the Jewish quarter of Halberstadt (Bakenstraße 37, partly existent in the building complex of Little Venice).
Banker to Saxon Elector
In 1694 he became a mint and general business agent to his own sovereign, the Elector of Brandenburg; a year later he was in a banking connection with the Saxon Electoral court at DresdenDresden
Dresden is the capital city of the Free State of Saxony in Germany. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe, near the Czech border. The Dresden conurbation is part of the Saxon Triangle metropolitan area....
. In 1697 he was commissioned by the young Elector, Augustus the Strong, to procure money needed for the acquisition of the Polish throne. He received authority to sell or pawn lands situated outside the main territory of Saxony and collected loans worth millions of guilders
Guilder
Guilder is the English translation of the Dutch gulden — from Old Dutch for 'golden'. The guilder originated as a gold coin but has been a common name for a silver or base metal coin for some centuries...
from Christian and Jewish banking partners, with the help of which the Saxon field marshal Heino Heinrich Graf von Flemming
Heino Heinrich Graf von Flemming
Heino Heinrich Reichsgraf von Flemming was a Saxon, later Brandenburger army leader and Field Marshal and Governor of Berlin....
persuaded the majority of the Polish nobility into electing Augustus the Strong King "in" Poland.
In recognition of such services, Augustus made Berend Lehmann "Resident
Resident (title)
A Resident, or in full Resident Minister, is a government official required to take up permanent residence in another country. A representative of his government, he officially has diplomatic functions which are often seen as a form of indirect rule....
of the King of Poland in the Lower Saxon Circle
Lower Saxon Circle
The Lower Saxon Circle was an Imperial Circle of the Holy Roman Empire. Covering much of the territory of the mediæval Duchy of Saxony , firstly the circle used to be called the Saxon Circle , only to be later better differentiated from the Upper Saxon Circle the more specific name prevailed.An...
". This was some sort of a consul’s privilege on which Lehmann repeatedly based his demands, more or less successfully.
Building activities in Halberstadt
So, from Elector Frederic William III of Brandenburg he received the right to buy for himself in Halberstadt, in addition to the modest house he already possessed, a sizable building he thought fitting of his rank. This was an exception, as having a second house was normally forbidden to Jews. When in the extensive garden grounds he had a new building erected for a yeshivaYeshiva
Yeshiva is a Jewish educational institution that focuses on the study of traditional religious texts, primarily the Talmud and Torah study. Study is usually done through daily shiurim and in study pairs called chavrutas...
(a Torah
Torah
Torah- A scroll containing the first five books of the BibleThe Torah , is name given by Jews to the first five books of the bible—Genesis , Exodus , Leviticus , Numbers and Deuteronomy Torah- A scroll containing the first five books of the BibleThe Torah , is name given by Jews to the first five...
-/Talmud
Talmud
The Talmud is a central text of mainstream Judaism. It takes the form of a record of rabbinic discussions pertaining to Jewish law, ethics, philosophy, customs and history....
academy) as the nucleus of a community campus which was also to accommodate a large new synagogue, he was forbidden to carry on. Before he was able to buy two adjacent houses in addition, the property was confiscated for the newly received French Reformed
Huguenot
The Huguenots were members of the Protestant Reformed Church of France during the 16th and 17th centuries. Since the 17th century, people who formerly would have been called Huguenots have instead simply been called French Protestants, a title suggested by their German co-religionists, the...
refugees. The protest of his protector, Augustus the Strong, against the confiscation proved in vain.
Talmud printed
In the meantime he had achieved a considerable religious feat: When the Dessau court Jew Wulff, who was about to have the Babylonian Talmud printed, ran into financial difficulty, Lehmann took over the project and the printing licence. He "had gold flow from his pocket", so that within two years, from 1697 to 1699, 2,000 copies of a twelve volume edition could be produced in Frankfurt (Oder)Frankfurt (Oder)
Frankfurt is a town in Brandenburg, Germany, located on the Oder River, on the German-Polish border directly opposite the town of Słubice which was a part of Frankfurt until 1945. At the end of the 1980s it reached a population peak with more than 87,000 inhabitants...
. A large part of the work went - free of charge - to poor Jewish communities.
Army contractor
Between 1700 und 1704 Berend Lehmann supplied military equipment for Augustus the Strong in the Northern WarNorthern Wars
Northern Wars is a term used for a series of wars fought in northern and northeastern Europe in the 16th and 17th century. An internationally agreed nomenclature for these wars has not yet been devised...
against Sweden. Letters from him to an influential courtier at Dresden show him busy acquiring new loans, and anxious over their repayment.
Community benefactor in Halberstadt
In 1707 his wife, Miriam, died and soon after he remarried, namely Hannle, daughter of a Frankfurt (Main) community superior by the name of Mendel Beer.At this time he built a whole complex of buildings as an extension of his first modest home in Halberstadt. In his building ambitions he was permanently hindered by the Prussian local administration, but promoted by the Berlin Hofcammer, an institution geared to the levying of money for the King. On the new premises, apart from offices and private space for a growing family and team of servants, he kept a warehouse and a wine cellar, and "for mercy , so they can perform their divine service", sheltered six poor Jewish families.
As one of the three parnassim (superiors) of the Halberstadt community of around 1,000 Jews (more than in Berlin), he had the task of "repartitioning" the extra contributions which King Frederic William I of Prussia (the Soldiers’ King) repeatedly drew from the Jews. He himself shouldered the lion’s share.
Dresden branch
Back in Dresden, he also worked as a mint agent for the Saxon-and-Polish state. Likewise he procured jewels for Augustus the Strong’s show collection Grünes GewölbeGrünes Gewölbe
The Grünes Gewölbe in Dresden is a unique historic museum that contains the largest collection of treasures in Europe. Founded by Augustus the Strong in 1723, it features a rich variety of exhibits from the Baroque to Classicism...
. In 1708, such activities led to the foundation of a Dresden branch of his Halberstadt business, in which his then 18-year-old eldest son, Lehmann Behrend, worked alongside himself and his brother-in-law, Jonas Meyer. Strictly speaking, outside the Leipzig trade fairs the Lehmanns and Meyer were the only protected Jews in all of Saxony. But the large enterprise (proudly residing in the Altes Posthaus at Landhausstraße 13) employed and housed up to 70 Jewish employees who were themselves not protected .
This above all provoked the anti-Jewish protest of the Saxon estates
Estates of the realm
The Estates of the realm were the broad social orders of the hierarchically conceived society, recognized in the Middle Ages and Early Modern period in Christian Europe; they are sometimes distinguished as the three estates: the clergy, the nobility, and commoners, and are often referred to by...
(among whom the clergy and traders were particularly active), which Augustus the Strong fended off for a long time but eventually gave in to. In the mid-1720s the sale of merchandise had to stop, while the banking branch continued in a smaller fashion.
Agricultural and Hebrew printing activities in Blankenburg
From Halberstadt he had a business connection with the sovereign of the nearby petty principality of Blankenburg (Harz). In 1717, Prince Louis Rudolph, Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel allowed him to buy landed property there, a privilege otherwise denied to Jews. Lehmann resided in a stately mansion and founded a Hebrew printing office, which was conducted by the printer Israel Abraham from JeßnitzJeßnitz
Jeßnitz is a town and a former municipality in the district of Anhalt-Bitterfeld, in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. It is situated on the river Mulde, north of Bitterfeld. Since 1 January 2010, it is part of the town Raguhn-Jeßnitz....
, but failed for Christian censorship reasons.
Foreign affairs adventure
In 1721 Lehmann went in for a precarious attempt at causing the sovereigns of Prussia and Saxony-Poland to undertake the partition of PolandPartitions of Poland
The Partitions of Poland or Partitions of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth took place in the second half of the 18th century and ended the existence of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, resulting in the elimination of sovereign Poland for 123 years...
. Lehmann had outstanding debts there and hoped to be able to cash them in in the future Prussian part of the country. The Habsburg Emperor Charles VI
Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor
Charles VI was the penultimate Habsburg sovereign of the Habsburg Empire. He succeeded his elder brother, Joseph I, as Holy Roman Emperor, King of Bohemia , Hungary and Croatia , Archduke of Austria, etc., in 1711...
and Czar Peter the Great were also to profit from the partition. Lehmann sought to address the Emperor through the latter’s son-in-law, the Blankenburg prince, Louis Rudolph. The Czar, let in on the plan by Prussia, reacted angrily and demanded strict inquiry and punishment of the Jew. Lehmann was spared the worst by Augustus the Strong; he was only granted back the grace of his patron after sacrificing a precious stone to him.
Financial decline and death
At the same time, he lost a great amount of capital, which was confiscated when his son-in-law, the Hanover court Jew Isaac Behrends, went bankrupt and Lehmann was accused of having illegally held back jewels and money from the estate for him (the allegation was never verified). There were further losses, so that, in 1727 Berend Lehmann’s own insolvency was declared. . The causes of his failure have not yet been researched. Neither is it clear how he, all the same, succeeded in setting up several foundations. One of them was to hold money to facilitate the marriages of poor orphan boys and girls in the Halberstadt community, another was to secure the livelihood of his yeshiva scholars. It served its purpose for the following two centuries.Early in 1730, the margrave of Bayreuth
Principality of Bayreuth
The Principality of Bayreuth or Brandenburg-Bayreuth was a reichsfrei principality in the Holy Roman Empire centered on the Bavarian city of Bayreuth. Until 1604 its capital city was Kulmbach; then the margraves used their palaces in Bayreuth as their residence...
confronted him with a debt claim of 6,000 talers dating back to 1699. It took him some time to borrow the sum in order to have the "execution" of house arrest lifted. After his death on July 9, 1730, claims of several hundred thousand talers could only partly be satisfied through the auction of most of his real estate. Subsequently, his eldest son, Lehmann Behrend of Dresden, also failed.
Lehmann’s gravestone, in the oldest Halberstadt Israelitic cemetery, is preserved, and it praises his generosity as a community benefactor and his high reputation in the Christian "palaces" which enabled him to act as a shtadlan
Shtadlan
A Shtadlan was an intercessor figure starting in Medieval Europe, who represented interests of the local Jewish community, especially those of a town's ghetto, and worked as a "lobbyist" negotiating for the safety and benefit of Jews with the authorities holding power...
(an advocate) of his correligionists.
Importance
Berend Lehmann ranks among the great court Jews - the WertheimersWertheimer
Wertheimer is an Ashkenazi Jewish surname:People with this surname include:* Alain & Gerard Wertheimer, French Jewish billionaires owners of Chanel...
and Oppenheimer
Oppenheimer
Oppenheimer as a surname may refer to:* Alan Oppenheimer , film actor* Andrés Oppenheimer , Argentine author and journalist known for his analysis of Latin American politics...
Vienna, Joseph Süss Oppenheimer
Jud Süß
Jud Süß is a novella by Wilhelm Hauff based on the historical Jewish banker and financial planner Joseph Süß Oppenheimer. In Hauff's novella Joseph Süß Oppenheimer believes he is a Jew. His unfair business practices result in the betrayal of an innocent girl. Consequently, he is arrested and...
of Stuttgart, Leffmann Behrends
Leffmann Behrends
Leffmann Behrends was the German financial agent of the dukes and princes of Hanover....
of Hannover, the Rothschilds
Rothschild
Rothschild is a common German surname. It is a habitational name from a house distinguished with a red shield , the earliest recorded example dating from the 13th century...
of Frankfurt on the Main - as one of the most highly respected Jewish personalities in Central and Eastern Europe. His ambition to make an impact on the life of his times made him a baroque figure not unlike his noble Christian comtemporaries and it put him in frequent conflict with the Christian authorities trying to curb his efforts.
In his charitable and religious generosity he is the model of a wealthy Jew also being a pious leader of his community.
Saint and hero
Berend Lehmann’s later image was first determined by eulogies and legends in the Hebrew and Yiddish chronicles of the community. 150 years later, in the Geschichte der israelitischen Gemeinde Halberstadt (History of the Israelitic Community of Halberstadt, 1866) the then rabbi of the city, Auerbach, passed the old stories on with some scepticism but still with great veneration. He was followed in this mood by another orthodox rabbi, Marcus LehmannMarcus Lehmann
Marcus or Meyer Lehmann was a rabbi in Germany who strove to preserve Orthodox Judaism against the growing influence of the Reform movement.-Rabbinical career:...
of Mainz, who in his Jüd. Volksbibliothek (Jewish People’s Library) painted Berend Lehmann’s life in episodes (largely invented) as a patriarch and active participant in German and Jewish political life. He stressed Lehmann’s support of the Polish Jews in their misery.
This 19th century picture of the Royal Resident as a saint and hero has recently been characterized as "not necessarily having to do with reality but being an identification offer […] invented at the writing desks of Auerbach and Marcus Lehmann".
More realism
Twenty years after the two rabbis, Emil Lehmann, a great-great-great-grandson of Berend Lehmann’s and a Dresden liberal lawyer and politician, wrote an essay about him, which for the first time used archival evidence. He pointed out the adroitness of his ancestor in the tactics of his fighting, also admiring the foresight with which the Resident had seen to the long-time functioning of his foundations. Though more realistic as a biographer than his predecessors, Emil Lehmann still had the bias of an admiring descendant.At the turn of the 20th century the Dessau rabbi, Max Freudenthal, researched into Lehmann’s merits with respect to Hebrew printing. He cleared up the business circumstances of the Talmud edition of 1697 to 1699, especially Lehmann’s stressful relationship with the Christian printer, Michael Gottschalk. For the first time he showed Lehmann’s tough business acumen.
He also described Lehmann’s connection with the printer Israel Abraham of Köthen and Jeßnitz with whom he published several of the works of his Halberstadt yeshiva scholars.
An unbiassed approach
A further step in the direction of a historically unbiassed evaluation of Berend Lehmann was taken by the Berlin archivist Josef Meisl, the later founder of the Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People. In 1924 he edited Lehmann's correspondence from the Baltic battlefields of the Northern War. They show Lehmann’s extensive activities as an army contractor and his aspiration to participate in political processes (which Meisl, however, regarded as amateurish).Selma Stern
A great push came into Lehmann’s biography through the historian Selma Stern, who between 1925 and 1962 first dealt with the conditions of Jews in 17th and 18th century Prussia and then with court Jews in particular In her collection of documents his activities for the Halberstadt Jews and the Jewish community in general became more concrete.In her court Jew book she ranked him with the Wertheimers and Oppenheimers of Vienna and even with the Rothschilds of Frankfurt. She contrasted him as the "genuine" court Jew with the less well-reputed Joseph Süß Oppenheimer of Stuttgart, and thus idealised him.
Anti-semitic setback
The anti-semitism of the National Socialists yielded two contributions about Berend Lehmann, the first, by Peter DeegPeter Deeg
Peter Deeg was a German lawyer, writer and politician. He was a member of the NSDAP and later the Christian Social Union of Bavaria.-Early politics:...
(1938) , being a caricature of him as the stereotyped "usurer", the second one, by Heinrich Schnee (1953), a one-sided portrait of him as a profiteer and a clever augmenter of Jewish influence.
New eulogies
In 1970, as a sort of response to these distortions, the French private scholar Pierre Saville published the first monography on the Résident Royal. With little new evidence, he strengthened the "identification offer" rôle of Berend Lehmann by painting another heroic picture of him. The American orthodox rabbi, Manfred R. Lehman, did the same in several contributions about his "possible ancestor".New Research
Studies from the sources regarding Berend Lehmann were resumed in the first decade of the 21st century by Lucia Raspe and Berndt Strobach.A building complex
In Halberstadt the building complex at Bakenstraße Nr. 37, which survived the air raid on the city in 1945 and the subsequent neglect of historic architecture in East Germany, is an impressive document of Lehmann’s building activity. In one of its outer walls the remnants of a pedestrian bridge across the river HoltemmeHoltemme
The Holtemme is a 47 km long tributary of the river Bode in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany.It rises in the Harz mountains at the eastern foot of the Brocken, descends during its upper course as the Steinerne Renne, a steep stream bed riddled with granite rocks, flows through Hasserode, Wernigerode and past...
(which in its day flowed openly among the houses of the Jewish quarter) testify to his public spirit. He had it built for "the benefit of the general public".
Museum and Academy
The Berend Lehmann Museum, founded in 2001 by the Halberstadt based Moses Mendelssohn Akademie in two picturesque half-timbered houses (one containing a former mikveh situated in the grounds of the synagogue destroyed in 1938, document the life of the court Jew and the heritage of colourful later Jewish life in the city.There remains a doorway of a richly decorated baroque building near the museum dating from about 1730 which was taken down in 1986 (although it might have been saved), and is locally taken to have been Berend Lehmann’s Palace, although there is no evidence that it was connected with him.
Former Teaching House
The Klaus (or yeshiva), Rosenwinkel 18, was founded by Lehmann in a house near the synagogue and moved to its present location in the late 18th century. In the 19th century, as a rabbinical academy it became one of the strongholds of neo-orthodox JudaismModern Orthodox Judaism
Modern Orthodox Judaism is a movement within Orthodox Judaism that attempts to synthesize Jewish values and the observance of Jewish law, with the secular, modern world....
. It survived Kristallnacht
Kristallnacht
Kristallnacht, also referred to as the Night of Broken Glass, and also Reichskristallnacht, Pogromnacht, and Novemberpogrome, was a pogrom or series of attacks against Jews throughout Nazi Germany and parts of Austria on 9–10 November 1938.Jewish homes were ransacked, as were shops, towns and...
and the 1945 air raid and is now the seat of the Moses Mendelssohn Akademie. The academy offers information on Jewish life in the form of conferences, exhibitions and lectures. Its lecture hall is the former synagogue of the yeshiva.
New religious community attempted
There has been no Jewish religious community in the city since the post-war years when, for a short time, survivors from the concentration camps gathered there. There is an initiative to establish a new community for a number of Jews from the CIS countriesCommonwealth of Independent States
The Commonwealth of Independent States is a regional organization whose participating countries are former Soviet Republics, formed during the breakup of the Soviet Union....
who have settled in Halberstadt http://www.sachsen-anhalt.de/index.php?id=27004.