Johann Wolfgang Goethe-University Frankfurt

Post-Doc, Martin Buber Chair

Post-Doc

Johann Wolfgang Goethe University Frankfurt/Main

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Post-Doc Project

Between Authority and Jewish Autonomy.
The Court Jew and Chief Rabbi Samson Wertheimer (1658–1724)

In 1677 Samson Wertheimer (1658–1724) from Worms arrived in Vienna, back then one of the major cities in the Holy Roman Empire, together with Samuel Oppenheimer (1630–1703). Succeeding Oppenheimer in his position Wertheimer became one of the most important economical actors and most influential court Jews in the end of the 17th and beginning 18th centuries. He thus served three emperors: Leopold I. (reign: 1658–1705), Joseph I. (1705–1711) und Karl VI. (1711–1740) and took office as a commissary and court contractor, financial agent and resident, and commercial agent at the court of Vienna. Within the Jewish community he had the position as a shtadlan and intercessor, community founder and patron, rabbi and dayyan. Seven years after his arrival, Wertheimer was given permission to settle down in Vienna and this permit was shortly afterwards extended to twenty years, a reference to his position. Wertheimer’s business connections to the imperial court in Vienna and different German territories started mainly in the mid-1680ies. His career within the Jewish community started only little later: Before the emperor named him chief rabbi of Hungary in August 1717, Wertheimer had been called honorary rabbi of Eisenstadt in 1693 and in 1711 already the Jewish community had nominated him as chief rabbi and shtadlan of Hungarian Jewry. In his responsa and as av beit din respectively, Wertheimer interpreted and decided the Jewish law for the Viennese and Hungarian Jewry. Thus he spoke against the emerging coffeehouses (“Kafféhäusel”) for example, reprimanded moral misbehavior, but also gave encouraging sermons, supported printing the Talmud, funded Jewish scholars as well as yeshivot.
The records preserved in the Viennese as well as in other state archives will constitute the main sources to trace back Samson Wertheimer’s life and family history as well as his imperial and Jewish activities in the context of the 17th and 18th centuries. Moreover a collection of his sermons and responsa is saved as a manuscript in the National Library of Israel in Jerusalem. The central question with regard to Wertheimer’s life and activities will lie on the role of court Jews in general and Samson Wertheimer in particular in the secularization and gradual opening up of Jewish community to the outside world in the 17th and 18th centuries. Thus I want to focus on the ambivalent integration of court Jews in the process of modern statehood generally and Wertheimer’s close contacts with absolute rulers in particular, a fact which confronted him with the problems of acculturation long before Jewish emancipation. In conclusion I shall analyze and revisit perspectives on the historiography of Jews in economy generally and Samson Wertheimer in particular and give an outlook on its development until the pre-WWII time.

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