SCHLESINGER

SCHLESINGER , family of Austrian *Court Jews. marx (mordecai) schlesinger, son of Moses Margulies (*Margelioth), was active as military purveyor to the Austrian court before the 1670 expulsion of Vienna Jews, as well as financier to the court and supplier of precious metals for the royal mint. A leader of the Vienna community, he participated in the negotiations for the return of the expellees and was murdered in 1683 in Klosterneuburg. His son, benjamin wolf (d. 1727), settled in Eisenstadt in 1679 and was a large-scale military and coin supplier, particularly in Hungary, where he served the noble Esterhazy family. His business activity was conducted, however, from Vienna.

Another son, israel, was an ancestor of the renowned *Eger family. marx (markus) schlesinger (d. 1754) figured prominently in the numerous wars of the period as a large-scale military purveyor, as well as financier to the Austrian court in millions of florins. In 1731 he was nominated imperial court purveyor (Hoffaktor) by Emperor Charles VI; he was already purveyor to the courts of electoral Palatinate, electoral Mainz, and ducal Brunswick, as well as court jeweler and purveyor to Charles Alexander of Wuerttemberg as of 1736. Although his forefathers had belonged to the *Oppenheimer and *Wertheimer circles, Marx was himself patron of Isaac *Leidesdorfer and L. *Gomperz. His far-flung activities eventually embroiled him in lawsuits with the government, and he died in extreme poverty, as did most of his children.

bibliography:

M. Grunwald, Samuel Oppenheimer und sein Kreis (1913), index; Magyar Zsidó Oklevéltár, 3 (1937); 5 (1960); 9 (1966); 10 (1967); 12 (1969), index s.v.; A.F. Pribram, Urkunden und Akten zur Geschichte der Juden in Wien (1918), index; B. Wachstein, Die Inschriften des alten Judenfriedhofes in Wien, 1 (1912), index; S. Stern, The Court Jew (1950), index.