The Jewish Economic Elite

Cornelia Aust

Description

In this rich transnational history, Cornelia Aust traces Jewish Ashkenazi families as they moved across Europe and established new commercial and entrepreneurial networks as they went. Aust balances economic history with elaborate discussions of Jewish marriage patterns, women's economic activity, and intimate family life. Following their travels from Amsterdam to Warsaw, Aust opens a multifaceted window into the lives, relationships, and changing conditions of Jewish economic activity of a new Jewish mercantile elite.

Acknowledgments
Note on Spelling, Transcription, and Translation

Introduction
1. Amsterdam: A Center of Credit
2. Frankfurt an der Oder: Central European Middlemen
3. Border Lands: Legal Restrictions, Army Supplying, and Economic Success
4. Praga: A Stepping Stone
5. Warsaw: The Rise of a Jewish Economic Elite
Conclusion

Abbreviations
Bibliography
Index

Sujets

• 18th Century
• Modern
• HISTORY
• Histoire
• Modern history
• History of Europe
• Obermodern-Zutzendorf
• Western
• Europe

Informations

• Publié par: Indiana University Press
• Date de parution: 27 février 2018
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780253035448
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 5 Mo

Extrait

THE JEWISH ECONOMIC ELITE
G ERMAN J EWISH C ULTURES
EDITORIAL BOARD:
Matthew Handelman, Michigan State University
Iris Idelson, Goethe Universit t Frankfurt am Main
Samuel Spinner, Johns Hopkins University
Joshua Teplitsky, Stony Brook University
Kerry Wallach, Gettysburg College
Sponsored by the Leo Baeck Institute London
THE JEWISH ECONOMIC ELITE
MAKING MODERN EUROPE
CORNELIA AUST
Indiana University Press
This book is a publication of
Indiana University Press
Office of Scholarly Publishing
Herman B Wells Library 350
1320 East 10th Street
Bloomington, Indiana 47405 USA
iupress.indiana.edu
2018 by Cornelia Aust
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The Association of American University Presses Resolution on Permissions constitutes the only exception to this prohibition.
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992.
Manufactured in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Aust, Cornelia, author.
Title: The Jewish economic elite : making modern Europe / Cornelia Aust.
Description: First edition. | Bloomington, Indiana : Indiana University Press, [2017] | Series: German Jewish cultures | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017042564 (print) | LCCN 2017043345 (ebook) | ISBN 9780253032171 (E-book) | ISBN 9780253032157 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780253032164 (pbk. : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Europe-Commerce-History-19th century. | Jews-Europe-Economic conditions-19th century. | Jews-Commerce-Europe-History-19th century. | Jews-Social networks-Europe-History-19th century. | Jewish capitalists and financiers-Europe-History-19th century. | Jewish businesspeople-Europe-History-19th century. | Jewish merchants-Europe-History-19th century.
Classification: LCC HF3495 (ebook) | LCC HF3495 .A97 2018 (print) | DDC 381.089/92404-dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017042564
1 2 3 4 5 23 22 21 20 19 18
For my parents-f r meine Eltern mit gro er Dankbarkeit
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
Note on Spelling, Transcription, and Translation
Introduction
1. Amsterdam: A Center of Credit
2. Frankfurt an der Oder: Central European Middlemen
3. Borderlands: Legal Restrictions, Army Supplying, and Economic Success
4. Praga: A Stepping Stone
5. Warsaw: The Rise of a Jewish Economic Elite
Conclusion
Abbreviations
Bibliography
Index
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
It has been a long journey to complete this book. It is a great pleasure to thank those individuals and institutions that have supported me at different stages of my research. Without their help, I could not have written this book.
At the initial stage of my research, I received generous support from numerous institutions: a Benjamin Franklin Fellowship from the University of Pennsylvania; an International Dissertation Research Fellowship from the Social Science Research Council and a doctoral fellowship from the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture (both 2006-2007) supported my archival research, as did multiple Goldfein Research Awards from Jewish Studies at the University of Pennsylvania and a Pew Summer Fellowship from the University of Pennsylvania. The Louis Apfelbaum and Hortense Braunstein Apfelbaum Fellowship at the Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies in Philadelphia in 2008-2009 provided me not only with time to write but also with the opportunity to meet and engage with an amazing group of scholars interested in various aspects of Jewish economic history and its cultural implications. I also wish to express my gratitude to the staff of the Van Pelt Library and especially the Interlibrary Loan department, which found even the most obscure books and articles. Moreover, I am grateful to the staff at the Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies and its library for making the Center a place to read and write.
In revising my thesis into a book, my gratitude extends to the Martin Buber Society of Fellows at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and the Leibniz Institute of European History in Mainz. In Mainz, I am especially grateful to the library staff for providing me with some hard-to-find titles, to my student assistant Alessa Schummer for proofreading the complete manuscript, and to Vanessa Weber, who helped me to find my way through the art submission guidelines. My colleagues at both institutions offered constant advice and support.
My very special gratitude goes to Fran ois Guesnet, who introduced me to the study of Jewish history twenty years ago and has remained a mentor and friend ever since. I wish to thank my advisor, Benjamin Nathans, who not only read patiently through multiple chapter drafts, but his questions and suggestions stimulated me to conceptualize my topic within a wider framework. Similarly, I thank David Ruderman, Adam Teller, and Francesca Trivellato.
I wish to acknowledge the help and support that I experienced in the multiple archives I visited throughout Europe and their staff. Most time I spent in the Secret State Archives (Geheimes Preu isches Staatsarchiv) in Berlin, the Central Archives of Historical Records (Archiwum G wne Akt Dawnych) in Warsaw, and the Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People in Jerusalem. Shorter visits to the city archives in Warsaw, Gda sk, Wroc aw, Frankfurt an der Oder, and Leipzig; the Main State Archives of Saxony in Dresden, the Main Archives of the State of Brandenburg in Potsdam, and the Amsterdam City Archives were equally fruitful. In Warsaw, I am grateful to the late Krzysztof Teodor Toeplitz for providing me with access to material concerning the history of his family; in Jerusalem, Moshe Mossel shared his knowledge about the genealogy of Ashkenazic families in eighteenth-century Amsterdam.
I would like to thank Glenn Dynner, Fran ois Guesnet, Debra Kaplan, Jonathan Karp, Adam Mendelsohn, Shaul Stampfer, and Francesca Trivellato for reading and commenting on parts of the manuscript. My thanks also go to the participants of the conference on Jewish Commercial Cultures in Global Perspective in 2015, whose comments on the final part of the manuscript were extremely helpful. Adam Teller and an anonymous reviewer read through the complete manuscript and supplied thoughtful feedback. Marc Friede (Marburg) helped with maps, Oliver Ihlow with the family graphics, and Ruth Ebenstein did a first round of copy-editing the manuscript. Any remaining errors are, of course, mine.
I am grateful to Brill for allowing me to publish chapters 4 and 5 of this book, a much shorter version of which appeared as an article titled Merchants, Army Suppliers, Bankers: Transnational Connections and the Rise of Warsaw s Jewish Mercantile Elite in the volume The Jewish Metropolis , edited by Glenn Dynner and Fran ois Guesnet (2015). A German version of chapter 3, Von Itzig Jacob zu Izaak Flatau. Transregionaler Handel im preu isch-polnischen Teilungsgebiet, appeared in the Jahrbuch f r Regionalgeschichte in 2016; Franz Steiner Verlag kindly gave permission for its publication here.
For insights and support at various stages of the book coming into being, I also want to thank Karen Auerbach, Israel Bartal, Maria Cie la, Bernard Cooperman, Jonathan Dekel-Chen, J rgen Hensel, Manfred Jehle, Judith Kalik, Rebecca Kobrin, Stefan Litt, Evelyne Oliel-Grausz, Derek Penslar, Andreas Reinke, Gideon Reuveni, Rotraud Ries, Jessica Roitman, Moshe Rosman, Veronica Santarosa, David Sorkin, Rolf Straubel, Claudia Ulbrich, Veerle Vanden Daelen, Hanna W grzynek, and Marcin Wodzi ski.
I extend my gratitude to the editors of the German Jewish Cultures Series, and especially Iris Idelson-Shein, for including my book in their series, and Dee Mortensen and Paige Rasmussen at Indiana University Press for their advice and enthusiasm in bringing this book to publication. I thank Irina Burns, copyeditor, and Deborah Grahame-Smith, production editor.
Finally, and most important, I want to thank my friends and family, who have supported me in every possible way. There are many friends and fellow researchers, spread across the United States, Israel, Germany, and Poland, who have supported me along the way: Rainer Barzen, Elisheva Baumgarten, Ruth von Bernuth, Sarah van Beurden, Rebecca Cutler, Saskia D nitz, Sharon Gordon, Claudia Jarzebowski, Denise Klein, Karolin Machtans, Daniel Mahla, Vanessa Mongey, Anna Novikov, Michal Pagis, Rami Regavim, Yael Rice, Merav Shohet, Manfred Sing, Mirjam Thulin, Rebekka Vo , and Kerry Wallach. You have helped me with getting through the emotional strains of writing a book, diverted my thoughts to more important things in life when necessary, housed and nourished me in many ways.
My greatest gratitude goes to my family. I wish to express my love and gratitude to my parents, Ursula and Bodo, who gave me all the love and support I could have wished for on a journey that took me far from home. If they ever had doubts about my choosing the path of becoming a historian, they hid it well and believed in me with all their hearts. They supported me in every possible way as parents and, later on, as grandparents, for which they traveled near and far. My parents-in-law, Hans, who left us too soon, and Inge, were equally supportive in all ways possible. My deepest gratitude goes to Johannes for his support, patience, and, most