The minute book

The minute book is bound in an old mortgage book, probably of municipal origin, as can still be seen on the back cover. It comprises around 173 double pages, each page numbered in Hebrew. The entries are written by various hands almost entirely in Hebrew letters, although, as in the excerpt chosen here, it involves mostly German in Hebrew letters, interspersed with Hebrew terms and phrases. Sometimes later additions supplement earlier entries on the same page. Only two pages (backs of leaves 53 and 68) feature short transcripts in Fraktur from the years 1781 and 1783.

The pinkas is part of the R. Ahron (Armand) Kaminka Collection of the Maimonides Library within Tel Aviv’s Bait Ariella Library. Rabbi Ahron Kaminka (1866-1950) was originally from Berdychiv (Ukraine), studied in Berlin and Paris before being ordained in 1893 and taking up his first post as rabbi in Frankfurt (Oder). For some reason, he must have taken the old pinkas with him when he left the Congregation and apparently brought it with him to Palestine when he fled from the National Socialists in 1938. There must have been at least one other pinkas in the Congregation, as one is mentioned repeatedly in this minute book.

The situation of the Jewish congregations in Prussia and Hamburg

In the course of the Brandenburg-Prussian settlement policy, after 1671 a Jewish Congregation also re-emerged in Frankfurt (Oder), where initially Jews who had been expelled from Vienna settled. The Congregation grew rapidly and in 1718, a further 40 families were admitted. With the Revised General Privileges and Laws of Jewry [Revidiertes Generalprivilegium und Reglement] dating from 1750, the rights of the Frankfurt (Oder) and all Prussian Jews were significantly restricted. This included the creation of six categories, of which only general privileged Jews, who did not exist in Frankfurt (Oder), and “ordinary protected Jews” [Schutzjuden] were granted full settlement rights. Above all, the requirement that one’s own settlement privileges could only be passed on to one child posed major problems for numerous families and forced many to leave the city. Added to this was the Prussian government’s attempt, especially after the end of the Seven Years’ War, to impose ever greater fiscal burdens on the Jewish congregations. In addition to the increasing protection money, taxes were levied for travel, the purchase of land, and other instances. The Prussian government also called on the Jewish congregations to finance manufacturing enterprises that were intended to increase the production of consumer goods in Prussia. This burden is clearly evident from the entry in the statute book. The need to take out a loan is justified by the forced acquisition of shares in a Blonden and Beuteltuch factory. Blonden is a type of bobbin lace; Beuteltuch is a coarse, woolen fabric used for sifting flour, for example, but also for sewing patterns for cloths. After the proposal of the Berlin Congregation elders in 1766 to set up weaving looms and the corresponding industry in Pomeranian towns failed, the Prussian Jews were obliged to set up a Blonden and a Beuteltuch factory. In addition, they had to take over the Templin stocking and cap factory, which was intended to halt the decline of the Prussian hosiery industry. In return, “protected Jews” [Schutzjuden] were to be allowed to settle a second child. For the Jewish congregations, this undertaking remained a heavy financial burden without much economic success.

At the same time, it is clear that these costs had to be raised jointly by the Prussian congregations and then distributed among the individual congregations. The Prussian state left the distribution of costs to the Jewish congregations, with the Berlin Congregation, in fact relatively strong financially, at the center. At the same time, a few years after the end of the Seven Years’ War, the Jewish Congregation in Frankfurt (Oder) began its slow economic decline, which made it increasingly difficult to raise the required funds. As a result, the Congregation resorted to family and economic networks outside Prussia. Hamburg played a central role as a financial center. Sephardic and then Ashkenazi Jews had been settling in the city since the late sixteenth century. The latter also settled in Altona and Wandsbek under the rule of the Danish crown, and starting in 1671, the Ashkenazi Jews of the three cities formed a Congregation. Despite hostility and legal restrictions, the economic activities at least of the wealthier Jewish residents and their networks were in demand.

The Schlesinger family and supra-regional family networks

The Schlesinger family, one of the economically leading families and active in Congregation leadership, played a central role in arranging the loan. In the document itself, as in most internal Jewish documents, with one exception, only the name of Katz (abbreviation for Cohen Tzadek) is given; in the non-Jewish documents, the family name of Schlesinger is used. Moses Jacob Schlesinger (1683-1757), a textiles and silk merchant, had settled in Frankfurt (Oder) in 1718. Two of his sons, Pincus Moses Schlesinger (1711-1795, in the document Pinchas Cohen) and Marcus Moses Schlesinger (1719-1783, in the document Moriah Katz / Cohen) were active as exchange traders and merchants in Frankfurt (Oder). They each owned a house on one of the city’s main streets, employed servants and maids, and served as heads of the Congregation. The third brother, Jacob Moses Schlesinger (died in 1791, in the document called Yaakov Katz), was a successful merchant and banker in Hamburg and acted as a lender here. He had been a member of the Hamburg Congregation leadership since the 1760s. All three had extensive trading connections, stretching from London and Amsterdam in the west, via Hamburg, Leipzig, Gdańsk, and Königsberg, to Warsaw in the east. After the death of Marcus Moses Schlesinger, two of his sons entered into a business partnership with their uncle in Hamburg. The three brothers and at least some of the sons also met regularly at the Leipzig trade fairs. One of the sons, Herz Marcus Schlesinger (1744-1824), later active as a physician, spent several years in Hamburg after 1764, where he continued his yeshiva studies, probably under the supervision of his uncle. His cousin, Isaac Jacob Schlesinger, came to Frankfurt (Oder) in 1780, where he received his medical doctorate after studying medicine in Padua. The exchange of family members between Hamburg and Frankfurt (Oder) thus encompassed both the economic and family sphere, especially the education of family members, as well as close contacts between the Congregation heads. In this context, the private connections explain the origins of the loan, which was also handed over by Marcus Moses Schlesinger.

Exchange transactions and the role of Hamburg

Even if we do not know exactly when and why Jacob Moses Schlesinger moved to Hamburg, the choice of city was certainly not accidental. Hamburg was one of the central locations through which loans were regularly arranged and bills of exchange were drawn; the city served as a link between Frankfurt (Oder) and Amsterdam, which was still central to the granting of loans throughout Europe well into the second half of the eighteenth century and was also one of the most important centers for the trade in bills of exchange. Since their creation in late medieval Italy, bills of exchange were used to facilitate payment at trade fairs, for example, as there was no need to carry cash. At the same time, they were also an instrument for granting credit. The introduction of the endorsement, i.e., the possibility of passing on a bill of exchange via written transfer notes on its reverse, which became established in large parts of Europe in the course of the seventeenth century (in Prussia only in 1724), allowed bills of exchange to be passed on over long geographical distances and across political borders with a relatively high level of legal security. Hamburg played a central role in this context. Many of the bills of exchange issued by the various members of the Schlesinger family in Frankfurt (Oder) or Leipzig were drawn on Amsterdam via Hamburg.

However, the bill of exchange issued here by the Jewish Congregation in Frankfurt (Oder) was a sola bill of exchange, which means that only one copy of the bill of exchange was issued. It was not drawn, but in principle traded like a promissory bill; a first and second of exchange, i.e. copies of the original, were not necessary. The Frankfurt (Oder) Congregation was jointly liable – in solidum – for this bill of exchange. The entry in the statute book also specified how the money for the repayment and the interest of four percent was to be raised: with a levy on all tax-paying Congregation members in accordance with the head tax and a potentially higher sum depending on the assets of the Congregation members. The first resolution on taking out a loan was apparently drawn up with the involvement of the extended Congregation leadership, as it contains 38 signatures. The quorum of the 32, which was consulted on important decisions, was added to the narrower Congregation leadership. The entries were dated according to the Jewish calendar.

The issue of the bill of exchange apparently also required some coordination. Jacob Moses Schlesinger was not prepared to accept the bill of exchange issued over four years for 2,200 Reichstaler in Louis d’Or, a French gold coin, as the value of the coins was increasingly depreciating. For this reason, he finally received a bill of exchange for 5,000 marks banco, a silver-based currency issued by the Hamburger Bank founded in 1619. This currency, which was intended exclusively for giro transactions, guaranteed greater security due to its stable value.

After just two years, in 1769, the Congregation repaid Jacob Moses Schlesinger the sum of 2,700 marks banco and issued a new bill of exchange for two years for the remaining 2,300 marks banco. The bills of exchange served purely as a credit instrument. When this became due in 1771, however, the Congregation had to issue another bill of exchange for two years, which was not unusual. However, the partial repayment also documents the increasing economic difficulties of the Congregation and its members. Parallel to the loan from Jacob Moses Schlesinger, the Congregation took out a further loan of 3,200 marks banco from the Hamburg Jewish merchant Herz Rintel, which was also arranged by Marcus Moses Schlesinger. In the 1770s, however, the Congregation also began to take out loans from Christian lenders, a further indication of the deteriorating financial situation.

Summary

Overall, the short excerpt from the minute book shows the central importance of supra-regional credit and exchange transactions, in this case between a Jewish Congregation in Prussia and Hamburg. While many bills of exchange, both for commercial and credit transactions, were drawn on Amsterdam, Hamburg played a central role in monetary transactions with the Hamburger Bank, which had been founded on 1619 on the model of the Amsterdam Exchange Bank. Jewish merchants in Hamburg thus took on an important role as intermediaries for loans and trade in goods. As in this case, family networks often played an important role in the conclusion of such exchange transactions.

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