Important Missions and Daily Struggles - the Realities of Being a Jewish Deputee

• In Event: Informal Governance and Jewish Advocacy in 18th Century Frankfurt and Vienna

Abstract

Throughout the 18th century, the Frankfurt community appointed permanent representatives for their legal cases at the Imperial Court (Reichshofrat) in Vienna. The choice of individuals was by no means random. Emanuel Drach (d. 1744), one of the first two representatives of the community, came from an old and wealthy Frankfurt family that had shaped the community's fate for generations and maintained close business connections to Vienna and the Emperor. The family was also closely related to the Viennese Jewish elite, in particular Samuel Oppenheimer and Samson Wertheimer, probably the best-known Jewish court factors of their time.
The paper will examine the criteria for the selection of Emanuel (Mendele) Drach as a representative of the community in Vienna, focusing primarily on the history of the Drach family and their contacts to Vienna. Furthermore, it discusses the conditions of Drach's activities, his "employment contracts," and the difficulties Drach encountered in everyday life (housing, food, repression, support) until he begged to be removed from his post in Vienna.
The example of Emanuel Drach and his family history show how opportunities for advocacy and communication changed for Frankfurt's Jews from the 17th to the 18th century and how structures of Jewish advocacy had to be constantly adapted to an ever changing set of living conditions.

Author

• Rahel Blum, Johann Wolfgang Goethe University