Tag Archives: Sephardic Jews

Jews of the Week: Siegfried Marcus, Emil & Mercedes Jellinek

Car Inventors

Siegfried Marcus - Car Inventor

Siegfried Marcus – Car Inventor

In 1870, German-Austrian Jew Siegfried Marcus (1831-1898) had the bright idea of putting a combustion engine on a handcart, creating the first-ever self-propelling vehicle powered by gasoline. In 1883, Marcus received the patent for the ignition system, leading to the first official automobile as we know it, called the “Second Marcus Car”. Thus was born the automobile industry, the internet of its day that immeasurably revolutionized the world. Meanwhile, fellow (non-Jewish) Germans Daimler and Maybach created the first car for market.

Son of a rabbi, Emil Jellinek made it happen

However, they could not sell their version until Emil Jellinek (1853-1918), the son of Hungarian-Czech Rabbi Aaron Jellinek, took over the business. He convinced Maybach to build a new and improved car, to be called Mercedes, named after his daughter Mercedes Jellinek. (“Mercedes” is a Spanish name that was given to the girl by her French-Sephardic mother, whom Emil Jellinek married during his time in France.) The Mercedes quickly shattered all records, going 60 km/h and easily winning the competitive Nice races. It was branded “the car of tomorrow” and took the world by storm. In the 1930s, the Nazi Ministry for Propaganda attempted to rewrite history by expunging any evidence of Marcus being the inventor of the car and giving credit to Daimler and Benz.

This is Mercedes – Jellinek that is

First Marcus Car of 1870

 

Words of the Week

No two cities have counted more with mankind than Athens and Jerusalem. Their messages in religion, philosophy and art have been the main guiding light in modern faith and culture. Personally, I have always been on the side of both…
– Winston Churchill

Second Marcus Car of 1888

Jew of the Week: Benjamin Disraeli

Prime Minister of the U.K.

Benjamin Disraeli

Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881) A descendant of Sephardic Jews from Portugal – which came to Britain by way of Italy – Disraeli was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1874 until 1880. His Conversative Party made great strides for Britain, and it was said he did “more for the working classes in five years than the Liberals have in fifty.” Disraeli was a staunch imperialist, working hard to spread the borders of the British Empire. He purchased the Suez Canal, invaded Afghanistan, and made Queen Victoria the Empress of India. If that’s not impressive enough, he also wrote 18 novels and 8 non-fiction books. Despite being baptized by his father at a young age, Disraeli always identified as a Jew. On one occasion, while debating in Parliament, a fellow MP attacked him with an anti-Semitic remark, to which Disraeli replied: “Yes, I am a Jew, and when the ancestors of the Right Honourable Gentleman were brutal savages in an unknown island, mine were priests in the Temple of Solomon.”

Words of the Week

A little bit of light dispels a lot of darkness.
– Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi

Jew of the Week: Don Fernando de Aguilar

Shana Tova v’Metuka!

Don Fernando de Aguilar on the cover of a children’s book

Don Fernando de Aguilar (c. 1500) When Spain expelled its Jews in 1492, some chose to stay behind and convert superficially to Christianity, practicing their Judaism in secret. One of these Conversos (or Marranos) was Don Fernando de Aguilar, who also happened to be the conductor of the Royal Orchestra in Barcelona. Despite the fact that Judaism was outlawed in Spain (until 1967, in fact) de Aguilar organized secret prayer services in the basement of Don Manuel’s leather shop. But there was one mitzvah they could never keep: hearing the shofar. After many years of longing for the sounds of the shofar, Don Fernando came up with a clever idea. He wrote a concert featuring the “melodies of the world”, set to play in Barcelona over the High Holiday season. Fernando expertly weaved the shofar into his opus, with packed crowds of hidden Jews listening in, along with the fooled Inquisitors. Rabbi Eliyahu Kitov writes: “It was said that no one had ever been more successful in confusing Satan on Rosh HaShanah than was Don Aguilar.”

Words of the Week

Three books are opened on Rosh Hashanah: The righteous are inscribed in the book of life; the wicked are inscribed in the book of death, and the judgment of the intermediates hangs in balance until Yom Kippur…
– Talmud, Rosh HaShana 16b