2024-03-19T06:47:51Z
https://keydocuments.net/oai
oai:jgo:source-43.en
2017-10-19T00:00:00Z
en
Abraham de Lemos, Petition to the Prussian King, Hamburg 1735
https://dx.doi.org/10.23691/jgo:source-43.en.v1
Abraham de Lemos
Institute for the History of the German Jews
Online Ressource
On January 24, 1735, the Sephardic Hamburg merchant Abraham de Lemos
sent the petition presented here to the Prussian King Frederick
William I. In this document Abraham de Lemos petitions the King for
the abrogation of the marriage between his son, Benjamin de Lemos, a
student of medicine at the University of Halle in Prussia, and the
sister of his Jewish landlord. After a four year stay in Halle, the
son, without the permission of his father, married an Ashkenazic
woman. The father’s arguments against the marriage form the
substance of the petition. The hand-written letter, particularly in
the introduction and conclusion, comply with the contemporary petition
formula. The king had the petition sent to the University of Halle in
order to have its opinion; however, this has not been preserved. Yet
according to later sources from the family’s history, it is evident
that the king did not dissolve the marriage of Benjamin de Lemos. The
three page petition resides in the Secret State Archives Prussian
Cultural Heritage Foundation Geheimes Staatsarchiv, Preußischer
Kulturbesitz in Berlin.
2017-10-19