Ber Sonnenberg

Dow Ber Sonnenberg, właściwie Berek Szmulowicz Sonnenberg (1764-1822) – bankier i filantrop żydowskiego pochodzenia, protoplasta rodu Bergsonów (pierwotne nazwisko Bereksohn). Wikipedia PL

With his inherited fortune and personal connections, Berek Sonnenberg and his siblings built the family’s financial power on state franchises and monopolies, including the Wieliczka salt mines. In the banking sector, 20 percent of banks in the Polish Kingdom were established by Shmul’s descendants or their spouses. Berek supplied the armies of the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, Napoleonic France, Austria, and Russia. Sonnenberg and his family were the only traditional Jews granted the right of residence outside the city’s Jewish neighborhoods and the right to purchase landed property. He was a member of the Jewish community council and conducted extensive charitable work: in 1807 he built and donated a synagogue to the Jews of Praga, a suburb of Warsaw. He used his extensive influence in government circles to protect Jews both in economic matters and against accusations of ritual murder. With his wife, Temerl, he supported the Hasidic movement and acted as patron to various tsadikim. Berek left a great fortune (about 5 million zlotys), of which 10 percent went to charities, both Jewish and Christian (the latter forced by the Polish government). He was born in Warsaw in a Jewish family, as the son of a well-known Warsaw merchant and entrepreneur Szmul Zbytkower (1727–1801), who thanks to King Stanisław August Poniatowski in 1798 obtained the privilege of free settling and conducting business activities, including founder of Szmulowizna in Warsaw's Praga .

He began his career during the Duchy of Warsaw , when in 1807 he began renting salt in Wieliczka with his brother-in-law Samuel Fraenkel and the Kraków merchant Zeman Bernstein . In 1812, together with Lazar Sugar, he founded the Kompania Handlowa Sola Warziona , already a shareholder in Kompania Lease Kosher founded with the buyers Wohlberg, Kronenberg and Fürstenberg. Like his father, he dealt with deliveries to the army ( liverant ), becoming a monopolist in the supply of meat . These supplies flowed in despite the arrears in payments by the Ministry of Revenues and the Treasury. in Warsaw, Gdańsk , Płock , Ciechanów and Mława . In connection with this activity, in 1806, together with Aron Fürstenberg, he founded an ox trading company.

During the Kingdom of Poland, he became one of the main tenants of the salt monopoly, and in 1816-1821 with Samuel Fraenkel, and from 1818 with his son Gabriel Bergson and Samuel Markus Pozner, he leased the entire salt monopoly in the Kingdom. However, the lease was not extended due to the dispute with Fraenkel, which was replaced by Ignacy Neumark .

Revenue derived from salt allowed Sonnenberg to grant large loans and cash loans, which won him the protection of many influential people, such as Senator Nikolai Novosilcow and Governor of the Kingdom of Poland, General Józef Zajączek . These influences allowed him to obtain privileges inaccessible to Jews - in 1810 , by virtue of the decree of the King of Saxony and Warsaw Prince Frederick August Wettin, he obtained the citizenship of the city of Warsaw, the right to live on streets inaccessible to Jews while maintaining the privilege of wearing traditional dress and not shaving the beard, as well as the privilege of acquiring real estate and possessions of land estates (thanks to which in 1821 it acquires granges Suchowola and Łychnowo near Czersk ). Five years later, Tsar Alexander I confirmed these privileges.

He also took part in a delegation to Tsar Alexander I to protest against the accusation of Jews for ritual murders. He rented fees for kosher meat, which he later transferred to the Jewish community. After rebuilding, he arranged a synagogue and Beth Midrash in one of his houses in Prague, furnishing both generously. He also participated in the life of the Warsaw Jewish community - he was active in the Council of the Old Jewish Hospital , the board of the Home for the Shelter of Old People and Orphans and in the Superintendent of Elementary Schools for Jewish Youth.

In 1818 he made a will in which he allocated a tenth of his fortune, estimated at PLN 5 million , to charity. This sum was not accepted by the heirs and, as a result, half of the sum was donated to charity, of which 22.5 thousand went to Christian institutions, including 2.5 thousand to the Deaf Institute . As the protector of Hasidism in Poland and the founder of the Prague synagogue, most likely Sonnenberg wanted to transfer money only to the poor of the Order, another chapter was related to the attitude of the authorities of the Kingdom of Poland, including Minister of the Government Commission of Religious Denominations and Public Enlightenment, Stanisław Grabowski .

He is buried in the Jewish cemetery at Okopowa Street (quarter 1, row 13) [1] [2] . It rests in the mausoleum of David Frydlander , considered one of the most valuable Jewish gravestones in the world. Family

From a marriage with Temerl nee Rosenkrantz (1758-1830), he had four sons: Gabriel (1790–1844), Jakub (1794–1856) [3] , Leopold (1796–1834) [4] and Michał Józef (1800–1864) [5] and daughter Perlairla (1792-1897) [6] .

His descendants took the name Bergson. His best known descendants include: grandson Michał Bergson and great-grandson Henri Bergson , Nobel laureate in 1927 . Footnotes

Tomb of Ber Sonnenberg in the database of the Jewish Cemetery at ul. Okopowa in Warsaw Cemeteries of the Capital City of Warsaw. Jewish cemeteries . Warsaw: Rokart, 2003. ISBN 83-916419-3-7 . Married to Anna Horowitz, with whom he had ten children. He was the owner of the property in Warsaw Married to Fanny Herzfeld, with whom he had one son. He was a merchant himself, a citizen of the city of Warsaw and a co-owner of the department store "L. Bergson and Ollendorf " Married to Ernestyna Horowitz, with whom he had four children and with Tekla Goldbaum, with whom he had six children. He was a land citizen himself, heir to the Łochów estate