Jews in Leipzig - The University of Texas at Austin

of the Israelitische Wohltätigskeitverein [Jewish Charity League]. The Helds were not
just philanthropists, though. They were active and assertive in their business lives, too,
and when their store was hit by fire in 1926, and their insurance carrier balked at
payment, the brothers sued and were successful. 44
The most important Jewish department store owner, in civic terms, was probably
Samuel Hodes, whose longevity and devotion to the Gemeinde were responsible for his
being called the leading Orthodox personality in town. 45 Born in 1856 in Lithuania to a
religious bureaucratic family, Hodes came to Leipzig in 1887. His store, nicknamed the
“Große Feuerkugel” [the big fireball], in honor of the magnificent baroque building
(since destroyed) in the heart of the inner city where it stood, sold clothing. The store
was successful for many years, but the place of Hodes within the community—he was so
popular that he needed to take out an ad in the Community Newspaper to thank all the
well-wishers on his 80 th birthday 46 —was established by his activity within it. He was a
member of the emergency aid society and the charity union, and a director of Talmud-
Thora school, the Jewish hospital, and the B’nai B’rith Lodge. He took the lead in
providing for the establishment of the great Ez Chaim Orthodox synagogue, and would
continue to provide for the temple as long as he could. Hodes is an important symbolic
figure, too, as one of the first eight foreign-born and Orthodox members of the Gemeinde
board of directors, elected in 1923. 47
All of these businessmen were representative of different Jewish experiences.
They were natives and foreign-born, Orthodox and Reform, more or less active in their
44
Lorz, 70-74.
45
StAL PP-V 4438, Geheime Staatspolizei, Staatspolizei Leipzig: Israelitische Religionsgemeinde, 8 April,
1938. Report from Vorstand to Gestapo.
46
Gemeindeblatt der israelitischen Religionsgemeinde zu Leipzig, 8 November, 1935.
47
Lorz, 136-8, 146, 148.
27