JUDAICA - Wisdom In Torah

espinosa, edouard
GABRIEL b. JUDAH LOEW
ESKELES
d. 1718
chief rabbi of Moravia
ISSACHAR BERUSH
(BERNARD GABRIEL)
1692–1753
chief rabbi of Moravia 1718
chief rabbi of Hungary 1725
LEA
(ELEANORE)
Left Judaism
FLIESS
DENIS
(DANIEL)
1803–1876
SAMSON
*WERTHEIMER
1658–1724
ḤAVVAH
REBEKAH
d. 1749
BERNHARD
von ESKELES
1753 –1839
banker
WILHELMINA
(Baroness
BRENTANO-
CIMAROLLI)
DANIEL *ITZIG
1723–1799
CECILY
WULFF
1759–1818
MARIANNE
ESKELES FAMILY
Graf of
Wimptenn
tractate Berakḥot remain unpublished. Using his influence at
court, he supported Diego *d’Aguilar’s efforts to prevent the
expulsion of the Jews from Moravia in 1742, and from Prague
and Bohemia in 1744–45. Four days before his death, he established
the Eskeles-Stiftung (see below).
Issachar’s son Bernhard (1753–1839), born after his
father’s death, became one of the outstanding financiers
in Austria at the beginning of the 19th century. After an unsuccessful
start in Amsterdam, where he lost his father’s legacy
(over 400,000 florins), he returned in 1774 to Vienna, married
Cecily Wulff (née *Itzig), and went into partnership with
her brother-in-law Nathan von *Arnstein. Following the rise
of his banking house and his uncovering of a banking forgery
(1795), he was entrusted with government financial tasks
and his advice was sought by *Joseph II and *Francis I. He
founded the Austrian National Bank in 1816, and, competing
with Salomon Mayer *Rothschild, promoted railway construction.
Ennobled in 1797, he became a baron in 1822. It is
assumed that he was the author of an anonymous exposé of
the Jewish situation used by Joseph II for his Toleranzpatent.
In 1815, he was one of the signatories of a petition for Jewish
rights (see *Austria). The only Austrian Jew invited to the
Napoleonic *Sanhedrin in 1806, he informed the police out
of loyalty to Austria. In an obituary (AZJ, 1839, 518–9) he was
attacked for failing to make sufficient use of his influence
and wealth for the benefit of the Jews. Bernhard’s wife Cecily
(1759–1818), a daughter of Daniel Itzig, made their house
a meeting place for high society (see *Salons), mainly during
the Congress of *Vienna. Her parties rivaled those of her
sister Fanny von *Arnstein. *Goethe made her acquaintance
at Carlsbad. Bernhard and Cecily’s children were baptized in
1824. Denis (Daniel) inherited the firm, which went bankrupt
in 1859, as a result of his connection with the French
Crédit Mobilier. Issachar’s elder daughter Lea (Eleanore) was
involved in a Prussian spy scandal. Because of this Valentin
Guenther (with whom she had had two children), who had
played an important part in the formulation of the Toleranzpatent,
was banished from court. In later years Goethe corresponded
with her.
The Eskeles-Stiftung
Issachar established a foundation for Torah teaching to children
and providing dowries for poor brides. Endowed with
50,000 florins, the foundation was one of the largest in the
Hapsburg empire. When in 1782 the government ordered
that it should be used for the newly founded Normalschulen
(see *Austria, education) Bernhard sued the government, and
it was agreed that the foundation should be used for its
original aims as well as for the new ones. As its income had
decreased considerably, Bernhard doubled the capital in 1811.
In 1839 he altered the statute, adding a donation for five Moravian
university-trained rabbis and ten students. The latter
were required to be of Jewish faith when granted the scholarship,
but they were not to lose it if they were baptized. Of
the two trustees one was to be a member of the Eskeles family
of any religion, who was to propose the second, a Moravian
resident of Jewish religion, who could be replaced if he
were baptized. The foundation’s committee still existed in
Brno in the 1930s.
Bibliography: Wiener, in: Illustrierte Monatshefte fuer die
gesamten Interessen des Judenthums, 1 (1865), 387–94; W. Mueller,
Urkundliche Beitraege… (1903), 68–92; B. Wachstein, Die Inschriften
des alten Judenfriedhofes in Wien, 2 (1917), 350–70; H. Gold (ed.),
Die Juden und Judengemeinden Maehrens in Vergangenheit und Gegenwart
(1929), index; Michael, Or, no. 657; M. Grunwald, Vienna
(1936), index; H. Spiel, Fanny von Arnstein (1962), index; H. Schnee,
Die Hoffinanz und der moderne Staat, 4 (1963), 331; M. Friedman, in:
Sefunot, 10 (1966), 508, 532–5; K. Grunwald, in: YLBI, 12 (1967), 168;
L. Singer, in: jggjČ, 5 (1933), 295–7; T. Jakabovits, in JGGJč, 5 (1933),
79–136 passim.
[Meir Lamed]
ESPINOSA, EDOUARD (1872–1950), British ballet dancer
and teacher. Espinosa belonged to a renowned family of dancers
and teachers, originally of Sephardi extraction. His father
Léon E. (1825–1904) studied at the Paris Opera school,
danced at the Théâtre de la Porte-Saint-Martin, and toured the
U.S. before joining the Bolshoi Ballet in Moscow as premier
danseur de contrast. He settled in London in 1872, where he
opened a school. Edouard was born in London and trained
by his father. He danced under Henry Irving at Lyceum Theatre,
London (1891–96) and for a season (1893) under Charles
*Frohman, New York. From 1896 to 1939 he was ballet master
at Covent Garden and other London theaters, producing
dances for numerous shows, including Chu Chin Chow (1916),
Maid of the Mountains (1917), and The Last Waltz (1922). He
was one of the founders of the Royal Academy of Dancing
in 1920 and of the British Ballet Company in 1930. After his
death the latter was directed by his son Eduard Kelly Espinosa
(d. 1991) and daughter Ivette (d. 1992). He also wrote manuals
on dance technique.
[Amnon Shiloah (2nd ed.)]
508 ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 6