Sephardic Jews in the German States
Today, German-Jewish relations are defined by twelve catastrophic years between 1933 and 1945. We need to remember the positive history too. Protestant states in Germany offered a place of refuge to the Spanish and Portuguese Jewish diaspora, as well as substantial business opportunities. Altona/Hamburg, for example, was a major centre of Sephardic settlement and trade. My impression is that it was more important than London (for the Sephardim) during the 17th Century. Remember that it was a Danish-controlled city. The Danes controlled the access to the grain and timber supplies of the Baltic (largely carried in Dutch ships), also had a global empire, and seem to have been less involved in conflict with Spain than the Dutch and English. Jews were banned from Copenhagen, so Altona/Hamburg was the obvious place to set up shop.
Outside Altona/Hamburg there was some small-scale settlement in other cities, but these populations seem to have been absorbed into the larger surrounding Ashkenazi population. My impression is that Portuguese merchants were more interested in trading than residing in these locations. It is reported that many German Jews believe themselves to have some Sephardi ancestry.
The Hanseatic League – a grouping of north German ports – was a powerful trading power in Medieval times. By the Early Modern period they had declined, partly due to cheaper Dutch shipping and the Dutch development of overland routes through Germany. I think the Hanse ports first sided with the Dutch against the Danes, a local threat. In time, many of them tried to exclude the Netherlands from the Baltic trade. Danzig (today Gdansk in Poland) was an exception to this, and possibly became the main port of Sephardic trade in the Baltic. The Thirty Years War had devastated the German economy.
Bremen
See Sweden
Emden
Emden is a Protestant port city in East Frisia. West Frisia, including the city of Groningen, is part of the Netherlands. Emden is believed to have been on the route to Amsterdam for some Sephardic Jews. Also it was outside the Spanish blockade of the Netherlands. According to the Jewish Virtual Library:
“Moses Uri ha-Levy (1594–1620), a former rabbi of Emden who settled in Amsterdam, officiated there as the first ḥakham of the Portuguese community. The city council of Emden discriminated between the local Jews and the Portuguese, encouraging the latter to settle in the city, while attempting to expel the former. Their attempts, however, were unsuccessful, since the duke intervened in their favor. The judicial rights of the Portuguese Jews were defined in a grant of privilege issued by the city council in 1649, and renewed in 1703. In 1744, when Emden was annexed to Prussia, the Jews there came under Prussian law.”
Alfonso Cassuto wrote a short paper Über portugiesische Juden in Emden. In: Mitteilungen der Gesellschaft für jüdische Familienforschung. 5 (1929), Nr. 19, S. 173-175. Apparently it details five Portuguese Jewish burials between 1705 and 1708.
Frankfurt
In 1614 the Jewish people of Frankfurt were attacked by a mob during the so-called Fettmilch Rebellion.
I am not sure if there was ever a permanent New Christian presence in Frankfurt, but have seen several references to Portuguese merchants travelling their to sell jewels, for example Henrico Alvarez travelled there on behalf of his father, Gaspar Nunez, as agent for Gregorio Correa. Gaspar was born in Beja in Portugal and lived in Antwerp.
There may be useful information in Jüdische Merckwürdigkeiten (“Jewish Notabilia”) published by Johann Jakob Schudt in 1714.
Gdansk / Danzig
Notarial records from Amsterdam show substantial trade by Sephardic merchants with Danzig (now Gdansk in Poland). I don’t know whether this translated into Sephardi settlement in the city. It is claimed [219] that the Boss family were of Sephardi origin.
David de Lima got into trouble with Danzig merchants in 1644. In Life and Culture of Poland as Reflected in Polish Literature by Wacław Lednicki, a David de Lima (possibly the same person) is described as an Amsterdam merchant who sold six hundred thousand zlotys worth of jewels in Jarosław, more than 600km from Danzig/Gdansk.
See: Maria Bogucka, “Kupcy żydowscy w Gdańsku w pierwszej połowie XVII wieku, ” Przegląd Historyczny 80.4 (1989): 791–799, in English as “Jewish Merchants in Gdansk in the First Half of the 17th Century,” Acta Poloniae Historica 65 (1992)
In Inquisition records, Ton Tielen has discovered a report of Amsterdam Sephardim living in Danzig.
Hanau-Münzenberg
There may have been some Portuguese Jews living in Hanau. It is reported that having been refused permission to build a synagogue in Frankfurt, some Portuguese Jewish financiers turned their attention to Hanau. There seems to have been a Jewish printing press in Hanau. Possibly Stadtarchiv Hanau has information.
Mannheim / The Palatinate
The Palatinate was an independent state in southwestern Germany.
The Elector Charles Louis (Karl Ludwig) of the Palatinate was the younger brother of Prince Rupert who fought for Charles I in the English Civil War. He tried to persuade Spinoza to move to the University of Heidelberg, and is reported to have welcomed people of various denominations – including Portuguese Jews – to settle in Mannheim. On 1 September 1660, thirteen families, eleven of German and two of Portuguese origin, obtained permission from the Elector to settle in Mannheim. Possibly Stadtarchiv Mannheim has information
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