The financier Berend Lehmann ranks among the grandest and most controversial personalities in early modern Jewish history. As Augustus the Strong’s “court Jew,” he had a major role in Augustus’ acquisition of the Polish crown. Lehmann was admired by Jews as a saintly patriarch and benefactor while being defamed by anti-Semites as a usurer. Strobach presents the first critical biography of Lehmann, based on extensive source materials.
