Michel Ruben Hinrichsen

From 'Jewish Virtual Library':

From 1679 Jewish merchants from Hamburg, often of Sephardi extraction, were granted letters of protection and commercial privileges, and some became Court Jews. One of them, Michael Hinrichsen (Portugies) of *Glueckstadt (d. 1710), court jeweler and tobacco agent, settled in Schwerin, where he rapidly gained ascendancy. He employed a rabbi so that he might study Talmud with him, and opened a synagogue in his home. He was the first Jew in Germany to be freed (in 1701) from payment of the *Leibzoll ("body tax") for his lifetime. His descendants continued to hold leading positions in Mecklenburg economic and public life for five generations. The first Landesrabbiner, Jeremias Israel, appointed in 1763, was a member of his family. A growing number of communities were established by privileged Jews and their households despite a 1755 enactment making illegal all forms of landholdings. Tax records of 1760 show 141 taxpaying Jews residing legally in the duchy. In this period the history of Mecklenburg Jewry is linked with that of O.G. Tychsen (1734–1816), Orientalist, professor, and unsuccessful missionary, who meticulously recorded the history of the local Jews as well as supporting their emancipation. A ducal order (May 30, 1772), that burials be postponed for three days in order to eliminate the possibility of "false" deaths, induced the Jews of Mecklenburg to apply to Moses *Mendelssohn, who advised them to erect burial halls, a decision which was contested by more Orthodox rabbis.