Israel Jacobson

Israel Jacobson (October 17, 1768, Halberstadt – September 14, 1828, Berlin) was a German-Jewish philanthropist and communal organiser. While he lacked a systematic religious approach, he is considered one of the heralds of Reform Judaism.

The only son of wealthy businessman and philanthropist Israel Jacob, Jacobson's parents lived modestly yet contributed considerably to reducing the community debt. Owing to the very low level of efficiency of the Halberstadt public schools, Israel attended mainly the Jewish religious school, in his leisure hours studying German literature and the works of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing and Moses Mendelssohn on his own account. His level of understanding of rabbinic literature and Hebrew led professors at the University of Helmstedt, where he was eventually granted a degree, to declare that Jacobson was a Hebrew scholar.

At the age of eighteen, after having accumulated a small fortune, he married Mink Samson, the daughter of respected financier Herz Samson and granddaughter of Philip Samson, founder of the Samson-Schule at Wolfenbüttel, at which Leopold Zunz and Isaak Markus Jost were educated. Through the Samson family, Jacobson became friends with Charles William Ferdinand, Duke of Brunswick and Lunenburg, Prince of Wolfenbüttel, favorite nephew of Frederick II of Prussia. Jacobson took up his residence in Brunswick and, possessing great financial ability, rapidly increased his fortune. It was through Jacobson's influence and persuasion that in 1803 the so-called "Leibzoll" (poll-tax), then levied from Jews in many German states, was abolished in the ducal Brunswick-Lunenburgian Principality of Wolfenbüttel.

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