Behrens – Cohen

Leffmann (Liepmann) Behrens-Cohen Hebrew: לאפמן באראנדס לאפמן כהן also known as: “Behrends-Cohen”. Birthdate: circa 1630. Birthplace: Bochum, Arnsberg, Westfalen. Death: October 01, 1714 at Hanover, Lower Saxony. Place of Burial: Hanover.

The descent from Leffmann down to the Reis family is as follows, where == is a marriage and >> a product of that marriage. Most of the information on this page comes from other sources such as Wikipedia and GENI.

Isaac Cohen == ? >> Isachar Behrmann / Issachar Behrens Baermann Cohen (haKohen) Behrens-Cohen (ca. 1600 – 1675) == Leah Lippmann / Lea Liebmann (1616 – 1675) >> Leffmann (Liepmann) Behrens-Cohen (1630 – 1714) == Jenté Sara Miriam Goldschmidt-Hameln (ca. 1633 – 1695) >> Gnendel Behrens-Cohen (ca. 1658 – 1712) == Rabbi David Oppenheim (1664 – 1736) >> Sara Oppenheim[er] (ca. 1695 – 1713) == Chaim Jonah Frankel-Teomim >> Magdelene Genendel Frankel-Teomim (1713 – 1778) == Simon Isaac Bondi (1711 – 1773) >> Jonas Bondi (1732 – 1765) == Bella / Belle Schifra >> Clara / Caroline Bondi (1760-1829) == Koppel Loeb of Bamberg Moises Loeb >> Moritz Reis (1782 – 1855) == Émilie Bickartt (1784 ) >> Jonas Reis (1809 – 1877) == Marian Samuel (1825 – 1900) >> REIS FAMILY.

It is said that of all the families forming the core of the old Hanoverian Jewish community none have surpassed in glory the house founded by Elieser Leffmann Behrens who was called Lippmann Cohen and who also went under the name of Leffmann Behrens.  Here we will refer to him as Leffmann. Not much is known about Leffmann’s parents, except their names and the fact that they lived in Hanover.

His father was Isachar Behrmann / Bärmann and his mother Leah Lippmann / Liebmann.

Leffmann’s father, Isachar, died on 23rd August 1675 and his name was often called the pious – Hechasid. Isachar’s wife, Leah, died in Hanover on 2nd September 1675 and her gravestone is the third oldest in the cemetery there, her husband Isachar’s grave has not been found.

Leffmann’s paternal grandfather was Isaac Cohen from Bockum who must have been a Talmud scholar judging from the title (Morenu harav rabi) which often precedes his name.

Leffmann’s mother’s father [his maternal grandfather] was Jacob Lippmann / Liebmann.

Leffmann’s mother’s brother (his maternal uncle), Elieser Liebmann/ Lipmann Aschkenasi of Gottingen (ca. 1598 – 1694), was the father of:

1. Jost Liebmann of Berlin, Jehuda Jost “Judah Berlin” Berlin (Liebmann), (ca. 1640 – 1702) Court Jeweller. [picture]. He married Malké Hameln (Goldschmidt) of Hildesheim, the daughter of Samuel Hildesheim Hameln (Goldschmidt).

2. Rabbi Isac Benjamin Wolff / Isaac Benjamin Wolf Ben Eliezer Lipman of Berlin

Leffmann married Jenté Sara Miriam Gans Goldschmidt-Hameln (ca. 1633 – 1695). She was the daughter of Joseph Goldschmidt-Hameln (1597 – 1677) and Freude Spanier (1600 – 1681). Jente’s sister-in-law was Glückei von Hameln (born Pinkerle) who was married to Jente’s brother, Chajim Hameln (Goldschmidt).

Before Jenté’s marriage to Leffmann, she had been married to the rich Salman Gans and by this marriage she is both on the father’s and the mother’s side the great-great-great-great grandmother of the poet Heinrich Heine.

After the death of her first husband, she was a widow for two years, before marrying Leffmann.

She died on 25th July 1695 in Hanover where she is buried.

In the remembrance book she is described as a very pious and charitable wife who kept her sons at the study of Jewish law, richly supported the poor, and even sent a considerable sum of money to Jerusalem every year for the support of the poor Jews there. In her will she generously remembered these as well as other destitute people.

In his first marriage with Jente, Leffmann had two sons (Naphtali) Herz and Moses Jacob and one daughter Gnendel, who married David Abraham Oppenheim, Chief Rabbi of Prague.  It is from this marriage that Moritz Reis is descended.

Herz married Serchen Wertheimer, a daughter of Chief Court Factor Samson Wertheimer in Vienna, and died on 23rd February 1709; his wife Serchen died on 9th March 1739.

Moses Jacob was married to Siese, a daughter of Elias Gumpertz of Cleve. Moses died in his 40th year on 19th January 1697 during the New Year fair in Leipzig whilst returning from Nikolsburg where his brother-in-law, Reb. David Oppenheimer, lived. His body was transferred to Dessau. He pre-deceased his father.

After Jente’s death Leffmann married Elkele, a daughter of Reb. Jacob. She is described as a benevolent and pious woman who died on 2nd November 1710 and was buried next to Leffmann’s first wife Jente.

When Leffmann married for the third time he was already an old man. His third wife was called Fejle. She was a daughter of Jehuda Selke Dilmann. She survived her husband, and she died on 17th March 1727 and was buried in Hamburg.

To his grief all three of his children died while Leffmann was still alive. He himself died on 30th January 1714 at the age of eighty. Below, a series of Behrens-Cohen gravestones including: Gnendel Oppenheimer née Behrens, deceased 1712; Jenté Behrens née Hameln, deceased 1695; Isak Behrens deceased 1765; and Leffmann Behrens deceased 1714.

The business Leffmann established was first called Leffmann Behrens and later, when he took on his sons as partners, the firm became Leffmann Behrens and Sons.

At first, Leffmann supplied luxury goods to the Hanoverian court, but he gradually established himself as moneylender, diplomatic mediator, and coin minter.

His position was strengthened under Duke Ernest Augustus (1679–1698), as well as his son the Elector of Hanover, the future George I of England.

One of the Duke Ernest Augustus’ main ambitions was to become an Elector of the Holy Roman Empire; but his wish was met with strong resistance. As a Protestant, he only had two co-religionists who were already Electors as opposed to six Catholic Electors in the Convocation who, along with the Pope, brought their influence to bear against him on this matter. He was however supported by the emperor Leopold I.

Ernest Augustus managed to fulfil his electoral ambition in part by paying 1.1 million Taler into various princes’ coffers, but to achieve this, he had to call upon Leffmann to find the money, which he did. In 1692 Ernest Augustus became prince elector of Hanover and thus when his son George became King of Great Britain he did so as the Elector of Hanover, thanks in great part to Leffmann.

Leffmann came from humble but respected origins and his rise to the position of a court Jew was entirely by dint of his own work. In her memoirs, Glückei von Hameln writes of him: “When he married my sister-in-law Jente he was certainly not the man he now is.”

In 1673 he acquired the right to open a cemetery, and in 1703 he built a synagogue and presented it to the community. In 1687, at his request, the duke agreed to permit the Jews of Hanover to appoint a Landesrabbiner. He even permitted Leffmann to build his own house (below) with a synagogue behind it.

On 29^th November 1683 Duke Rudolph August appointed him chief supervisor of the lead and litharge (bleacheries) works in Harz.

The Duke also granted him and his people safe conduct everywhere in his principality, ordering all his officers, municipal employees and other officials as well as all his subjects, especially the clerks and border watchmen employed at the frontiers and passport offices, to let not only Leffmann Behrens personally, but also his sons and other Jews, whom he may send into the country concerning the lead and litharge trade with a certificate to this effect, pass freely, safely and unimpeded everywhere in the principality, in so far as the persons in question were duly provided with bills of health and certificates from the authorities.

Leffmann’s interest in and care of the Jews who came to Hanover without protection even occasioned an official written complaint dated 31st January 1668 from his brother-in-law Levin Goldschmidt (Löb Hannover) as he feared that these unfamiliar new arrivals, could cause trouble for the privileged Jews who were already residents of Hanover, such as Leffmann and Goldschmidt, leading innocent people to suffer with the guilty.

An outrage had several times been committed against the Jews by malicious people who had desecrated the Jewish cemetery, and this had been so scurrilous that several of the bodies had become uncovered and had to be buried again. In 1670 Leffmann applied to the Duke on the Jews’ behalf that these acts be prohibited and to this end the Duke’s brother, Georg Wilhelm, ordered the Town Clerk to have carved in stone a prohibition against all acts of desecration against the Jewish cemetery which included a reminder to the townspeople that the Jewish cemetery had existed there for several centuries.

Leffmann and his son Herz had to intervene in 1697 in Osnabrück with the Bishops of Olmütz and with the Duke of Lothringen for the benefit of the Jews who were threatened with banishment from Kremsier. The banishment failed to materialize.

Leffmann had also taken part in the financial transactions which secured August the Strong the Polish crown; and he had been the leading figure among a group of Jews who ,in the period 1672-79 alone, had arranged for the transfer and subsequent exchange or melting down of 2 million daler of French subsidies for the use of the House of Hanover.

Another German duke, Johann Friedrich of Braunschweig-Lüneburg, also employed Leffmann as a banker and he provided Johann Friedrich with the funds he needed for his great passion – shooting – as well as with the money for his frequent journeys to Italy where the Duke happily converted to Catholicism.

One evening in 1695 Leffmann had forgotten a bag with 1,000 Taler at the entrance to his house where Heinrich, a young strapping musketeer, found it and was honest enough to deliver it to the office. The cashier introduced the scrupulous finder to the owner, Leffmann, who rewarded him with a large sum of money, purchased his freedom from the regiment and took him on as his coachman. Heinrich, who, as was customary due to his employment, passed by the name of “Juden- Heinrich”, had his board and lodging at Leffmann’s house till the end of his days.

Leffmann’s son-in-law, David Oppenheimer, had built a very large library but fearing for its safety, Leffmann arranged for its removal from Prague to Hanover, thus enabling the pastor Johann Christoph Wolf of Hamburg to avail himself of it in preparing the Bibliotheca Hebræa.

Unfortunately, at one-point Leffmann let his passions get the better of him and he arranged for the murder of a relative who had become an apostate. However, this failed and he was able to use his influence to evade being brought to trial.

Leffmann’s daughter Gnendel, who married David Abraham Oppenheim, had died as early as 1712 and her daughter, Sara Oppenheimer, who married Chajim Jona Teomin Fränkel, died at the age of 18, on 22nd October 1713.

On Leffmann’s death in 1714 the inheritance he had left his daughter (Gnendel Oppenheim) went straight to her granddaughter Gnendel Fränkel-Teomim. The value of this inheritance was said to have been one sixth of his property which was estimated at 18,000 Florins.

On the early death of Leffmann’s son Moses Jacob, his two sons Isak and Gumpel were taken into the firm by their grandfather.

1. Isak married Lea daughter of Behrend Lehmann in Hanover

2. Gumpel married Sprinze Kann

Unfortunately, the company founded by Behrens ran into trouble under his grandsons Isak and Grumpel. In 1721, the electoral judiciary accused them of fraudulent bankruptcy. Isak wrote a family Megilia in 1738 describing the horrors of his and Gumpel’s arrest, imprisonment, and torture. The original version that was published in Jahrbuch für die Geschichte der Juden can be read here in German.

What led to the financial collapse of the House of Behrens was in part the result of King George I of England avoiding paying back a massive loan that the company Behrens had made to Great Britain. Without this repayment, the foundations of the house began to crack. For details of the negotiations between the Benhrenses and King George I see below section La Perfide Albion.

Apart from his two sons, Moses Jacob left three daughters.  

The daughter Fradel married Simon Wolf Oppenheimer, a son of Chief Court Factor Samuel Oppenheimer in Vienna. He later moved to Hanover where he died on 10th November 1726. Fradel died on 2nd

A second daughter Simelie was married to a nephew of her sister’s husband, Löb Oppenheimer, son of Samuel Oppenheimer’s eldest son, Moses. Simelie died on 14th December 1739.

The third daughter Hannele (Hale) married Mordechai Gumpel Beer, a son of Mendel Beer Oppenheim, whose father is the founder of the family Meyerbeer. She died on 6th November 1749.

La Perfide Albion / The Perfidious Albion

Like a number of wealthy Jews who were able to lend money to princes, dukes and kings, Leffmann found himself in the unenviable position of trying to get his money back. This time it was the King of England.

King William III of Orange had, as King of England, fought against Louis XIV and had for this purpose been provided with troops by various German princes, including the Archbishop of Münster.

Thus William III owed the Archbishop but he was not paid punctually and King William finally owed him £149,997 from the years 1696 and 1697.

On 11th February 1698 this was recognised as a national debt by the House of Commons and entered in the Parliamentary records.

The Archbishop of Münster died in 1704, still unpaid, and the election of a new Archbishop caused disputes.

In particular, The Imperial Court in Vienna was in favour of a Prince of the house of Lothringen whilst England and Holland wanted Frantz Arnold, Count of Metternich.

George I, who in the meantime had come to the throne, persuaded Leffmann Behrens in Hanover to accept the debt owed the Archbishopric and to give the Count the necessary money that had been owed the previous Archbishop and hence to wipe out the debt. This Leffmann and did and as a result, the Count won his election handily and Frantz Arnold became the Archbishop of Munster – even against the Pope’s wishes.

On 1st January 1717 Behrens’ heirs approached the King directly to have their payment of the loan that they had paid repaid to them.

On 15th March 1717 King George I declared in a memorandum to the ministry in Hanover:

“The parliamentary register and records for 1697 have been searched and it has thus been established that the House of Commons has accepted the mentioned Münster claim of £149,997 as true and valid. We shall presently receive a certificate to this effect verified by the signature of a clerk of the House of Commons and we will send the certificate to the interested parties. In the meantime you must indicate to the Family Behrens that they should not hesitate to let the specified Münster debt cede to them.”

On 9th April 1717 George I wrote in another memorandum to his Hanoverian ministry:

“You shall give them (the family Behrens) our assurance that we, through the Parliament, will grant them the best possible help and support in order that they shall soon have their money paid back.”

The same day the King wrote to the Bishop of Münster:

“ – furthermore there is no doubt that, given time, Parliament will not evade the obligation which it has assumed and acknowledged. I will moreover contribute all I can in order that the heirs of Leffmann Behrens, may be satisfied as soon as possible.”

On 23rd May 1718 George I wrote to the Hanoverian ministry:

“ – it is known to him that the late Leffmann Herz Behrens at his (the King’s) persuasion has paid the money in order to secure the election of the Archbishop and that the heirs (of Leffmann), also at the persuasion of the King, have ceded the Münster claim on England.” In other words he is acknowledging that Leffmann and his heirs paid the debt owed by England to the Archbishop.

As the claim, however, remained unpaid the great business concern, Leffmann Behrens und Söhne, started to suffer. Also, at this time in 1720 between June and September the South Sea Bubble took place which caused a widespread financial collapse.

The family Behrens applied once more to the King who on 14th February 1721 replied:

“The payment does not depend on the King, but on a Parliamentary appropriation. But the supplicants should not doubt that payment will be taken care of – as far as possible next year.”

At the end of 1721, hearing nothing from England they once again directed urgent requests to the King who replied on 6th January 1722:

“His Majesty will do his utmost as soon as possible – without further reminders – in the new Parliament in order that the payment of the frequently mentioned claim is not forgotten and that the necessary funds will be forthcoming.”