Samuel Oppenheimer, the court Jew

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In Spheres of Justice (1983), Michael Walzer observes that the temperament of the Diaspora Jew is difficult to reconcile with a "whiny" reading of the history of the people of the Covenant. For it is also a story of courageous innovation, intellectual creativity, mercantile enterprise, individual and collective survival against all odds. For his part, almost two and a half centuries earlier, Montesquieu, in The Spirit of the Laws (1748), had explained the decisive contribution of the Jews in the transformation of commerce from a despised activity, associated with usury and pawnbroking, to a worthy and esteemed profession. In this sense, the biography of Samuel Oppenheimer (1630-1703) could have been written by either the American political philosopher or the great French jurist.

No "whiny" readings of the diaspora, which is also a history of innovation, intellectual creativity, commercial enterprise

There is an episode from the final part of his life that ideally sums up its full significance. Vienna, October 1700: his sumptuous residence overlooking the Bauernmarkt, the Austrian capital's farmers' market, was razed to the ground . A mob of enraged artisans, led by a swordsmith and a chimney sweep, had decided to rid themselves of the deicide who was cornering them. Moreover, the first copies of Johann Eisenmenger's treatise "Entdecktes Judenthum" ("Disguised Judaism") had already appeared. A harsh indictment against infanticide Jews, children of the devil, walking infections, bipedal parasites, with whom there was no way to live.

Born in Heidelberg, the “Hofjuden,” the court Jew, was accused of seizing control of the empire. He rode in a four-horse carriage with his coat of arms painted on the doors, while honest Christians starved. And, worse still, it was rumored that he was in league with the Turks. So his home, rising above the greengrocers' stalls, was ransacked, stripped of its offensive gold plates and silver candlesticks. Carpets and tapestries, “too bulky even for the waiting carts, were torn and torn to shreds, trampled under muddy boots; porcelain landed shattered among the turnips. Wine flowed down the throats of the rioters […]” (Simon Schama, The History of the Jews, vol. I, Mondadori, 2019).

Oppenheimer managed to escape through a tunnel specially built for such eventualities . When the rebellion was put down, the client and protector of his “Oberkriegsfaktor” (military supplier), Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I, had its leaders hanged. Not that he cared much about the Jews, but unrest had a bad habit of spreading. Just the year before, there had been a serious peasant uprising against the Jews of rural Franconia. But Oppenheimer was no fool. He knew that those now pretending to administer justice had been part of the plot to eliminate him. He owed him a huge sum, two hundred thousand florins, for the purchase of rye, wheat and flour, muskets and rifles, grenades and bullets, greatcoats and footwear. If the emperor wanted to wage war on Louis XIV, someone had to provide him with the necessary equipment, and he had provided it. So he appealed to the Hofkammer, the supreme fiscal authority of the Habsburg Monarchy, to obtain the contractually agreed-upon refunds. The "Finance Minister" shrugged his shoulders, showed him his empty hands, and apologized, but there were still soldiers on the battlefield, and he didn't have a single "groschen" (coin) to return.

This was nothing new. Ten years earlier, they had owed him a whopping five million florins and had gotten rid of him. So Oppenheimer wrote directly to the sovereign, who replied that he was indebted to the kingdom, and not vice versa. Besides, Samuel's enemies were everywhere. Cardinal Kollonitsch, who hated the Jews, had not forgiven him for the collapse of his consortium of Catholic bankers. The devastation of his home served to remind the presumptuous Jew that, unless he renounced his arrogant pretensions, life would have some very bitter surprises in store for him . More bitter even than the Austrian prisons he had experienced with his son Emanuel in 1697, when they had been arrested on false charges of plotting to kill a business rival.

The downfall of Samuel O, as he was known in chancelleries across Europe, is an old Jewish story, characterized by an indomitable resistance to misfortune. The court Jews of the Baroque era were only the latest version of a story that had begun in the medieval centuries. Thanks to solid personal relationships with their coreligionists on the Old Continent, they had managed to secure small and valuable goods, such as gems and spices, and market them at considerable profits, thus amassing considerable capital. Both the high interest rates charged by Christian moneylenders and the Church's official disapproval of lending at interest had helped give them a competitive advantage over their competitors, and they were also able to offer advance loans in exchange for lucrative contracts for the collection of taxes and customs duties. The risks, however, were enormous. They knew from experience that at any moment their debts could be repudiated, their property confiscated, they or their heirs stripped of everything or imprisoned by the reigning ruler . Yet they continued to offer their services, because for every Jew hanged there were many success stories of bankers and mintmasters who survived the dangers and became extraordinarily wealthy.

The needs of the princes—armies, citadels, and palaces—had not changed from the Gothic to the Baroque age. However, their hierarchy had. By the mid-17th century, the Habsburgs, in Austria as in Spain, had abandoned the campaign launched a century earlier by Charles V to crush Protestant heresy and reunite Christendom in a crusade against the Turks. Fifty years later, no one imagined a confessional reunification. However, the war between Christians had barely ended before it was replaced by armed mercantilism . Between 1650 and 1780, it was vital to have a wealth guaranteed by the treasury, and woe betide any kingdom that did not resort, if necessary, to force to increase it. In reality, wealth could also be calculated as population, lands, slaves, gold, ships, mines, and factories. Some predatory dynasties – the Swabians, the Hohenzollerns of Prussia, the Bourbons – constantly kept an eye on their rivals, ready to take advantage of their moments of weakness or their missteps.

For these reasons, a very costly arms race began. Vauban, Louis XIV's great military engineer, had revolutionized defensive strategies, but the arrowhead bastions, with the thickest and most impenetrable walls ever seen, came at an exorbitant price. And they, in turn, required monstrous siege artillery. The size of armies tripled. Warships and their cannons competed to outdo each other in the range of their broadsides. All this occurred at a time when the economic crisis resulting from decades of bloody conflicts, the reduction of territories to scorched deserts and half-ruined cities, meant that those who usually paid the price—the subjugated peasants and landowners—were unable to provide the necessary tax revenue. Further aggravating the situation was the refusal of the noble classes to cede even a small portion of their property to the king or margrave to finance a convoy of heavy artillery or a regiment of grenadiers. Here Samuel O. enters the scene. But he is not the only one. The firm of Machado and Pereyra of Amsterdam also enters the scene, financing William of Orange's invasion of England in 1688, and the subsequent campaign against the Franco-Irish Catholic army of his father-in-law, James II. Other wealthy figures from the Jewish communities also enter the scene: Solomon Medina, who subsidizes the Duke of Marlborough's campaigns in the War of the Spanish Succession against Louis XIV (1701-1714); the Gumpertz family of Cleves, court Jews and mintmasters of the Hohenzollerns of Brandenburg; the two successive husbands of Esther of Prague, Israel Aaron and Jost Liebmann, who satisfy Frederick of Prussia's passion for the most sophisticated jewels; and Berend Lehmann, who bled himself dry to pay for Augustus the Strong's astonishing Zwinger palace in Dresden. The hard-pressed finance ministers of the German states had good reason to prefer Jews to Swiss or Huguenots . Their interest rates could not exceed six percent, and in any case they could be forced—by fair means or foul—to lower them further. Repayment of the principal, moreover, could be paid in installments at the debtor's discretion. Finally, thanks to their connections with Ashkenazi families far and wide, from Ukraine to Denmark, they were able to rapidly supply armies with Dutch cloth, Bohemian saltpeter, and Polish grain.

Until his fall from grace, Samuel O had repeatedly come to the aid of the Habsburg emperor. In 1683, with Kara Mustafa's Ottoman troops at the gates of Vienna, his money prevented catastrophe. Although publicly vilified and dismissed in favor of a consortium of Catholic bankers, he intervened when the funds consecrated by the clergy began to run dry. In this sense, his virtuosic portrait by the engraver Johann Andreas Pfeffel (1674–1748) is a case of self-promotion unprecedented in Jewish iconography. The man who broke the siege is depicted as a cross between a rabbi and a field marshal, pointing to all his possessions: gunpowder and mortars, muskets, the helmet usually associated with royalty, and a document stamped with the double-headed Habsburg eagle .

In 1683, with Ottoman troops at the gates of Vienna, Samuel O's money prevented catastrophe. Although he had been publicly vilified,

But the bragging was matched by action. Samuel O. mobilized fleets of rafts and river barges to transport soldiers, draft animals, and artillery up the Danube to the besieged fortresses of Hungary. Floating pens of cattle, sheep, and poultry floated down the river to their rendezvous with the soldiers' spits and pans. Camps and barracks were stocked with bread, ammunition, and bandages. Sabres, muskets, cannons and pistols, gunpowder and ball, slow- and fast-burning fuses, materialized as if by magic. Oppenheimer's fleet plied the northern and southern seas tirelessly until it found what it needed. First, until it found the most precious commodity of all, the one that determined the outcome of a battle: oats. No oats, no cavalry. No oats, no artillery wagons. No oats, nothing left but surrender.

He mobilized fleets of rafts and barges to transport soldiers and artillery. The most valuable commodity? Oats. No oats, no cavalry.

After Oppenheimer's death in 1703, his junior partner, Samson Wertheimer (1658–1724), stepped forward to take his place. His letter of appointment described him as "industrious, tireless, efficient, loyal, and generous." This meant he could be counted on to secure an advance of one million florins while the empire was at war. As personal banker to the Hungarian Esterhazy dynasty, Wertheimer had earned a reputation for administrative integrity and, more importantly, as a generous supporter of the powerful. The fact that he was esteemed as "Grandrabbiner" (chief rabbi) of Hungary, Moravia, and Bohemia, known for his trenchant sermons, also attested to his moral integrity. His interests were innumerable. Owner of the Siebenbürgen salt mines, he held a tobacco monopoly in the Balkans. Wertheimer could be counted on to maintain embassies abroad, free the empress from her debts, and pay for the fireworks at the imperial coronation of Charles VI, who succeeded his brother Joseph in 1711. In Vienna, Prague, and Frankfurt, he came to be considered a treasure trove of wisdom and coin, so much so that Leopold gave him his own portrait as a sign of gratitude.

Wertheimer, Oppenheimer's successor, continued to believe in a future for Jews in the Habsburg Empire despite abuses.

Despite the periodic expulsions, episodes of violence, abuse, and attacks to which they were subjected, Wertheimer continued to believe in a future for the Jews in the Habsburg Empire. He had become, in fact, the heir to the long tradition of the "resh galuta" (leaders of the exile), a protector of the Jews in very turbulent years. So much so that, after they were expelled from Eisenstadt during the Hungarian uprising of 1708, he persuaded them to return to the city and build a private synagogue, making his home available. Damaged by fire in 1795, it was rebuilt in the 1830s in a sober classical style that is still visible today. In November 1938, when fires set during the "Night of Broken Glass" ("Kristallnacht"), instigated by many Austrians enthusiastic about the Anschluss to the Third Reich, destroyed the city's main synagogue, his "shul" (synagogue in Yiddish) was spared, perhaps because it was on the first floor of his home. His congregation was not so fortunate. Today it is a place of ghostly devotion: the Austrian Jewish Museum .

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