A Jewish money changer disappears one fine day in Hamburg, never to be heard of again. Three years later, another one vanishes. Only one woman connected the two events and dared to seek justice

The late Middle Ages weren’t easy for Germany’s Jews. Blood libels, persecution, and pogroms abounded. The 15th and 16th centuries were also marked by the rise of the merchant class and professional guilds, which saw the Jews as competitors. Pressured by these burghers, most of the larger German towns gradually expelled their Jews. Only the consolidation of absolute power in the hands of the dukes governing the many German principalities, and their reliance on Jewish financiers, created a climate in which Jews slowly returned.  

The Thirty Years’ War (1618–48), begun as a struggle between Catholics and Protestants, was hardly conducive to religious tolerance. The Jews’ welfare constantly hung in the balance between the hostility of the Church and the burghers and the monarch’s ever shifting interests. The Jewish community’s commercial acumen and connections were certainly among those considerations, especially as trade opened up between the Old World and the New, but weren’t generally an overriding priority.

By the end of the 16th century, a handful of Portuguese conversos were living in Hamburg under individual permits, soon to be joined by a few Ashkenazic Jews. With no legal standing in the city, the latter established an unofficial synagogue only in 1660. Gluckel daughter of Loeb, later known as the Yiddish diarist Gluckel Hamel, grew up in Hamburg as its Ashkenazic community regrouped. Her memoirs describe the uncertainties of the Jews’ return to German cities: 

Government taxes were light in those days, and everyone regulated his own settlement. But we had no synagogue and no right of residence; we dwelt in Hamburg purely at the mercy and favour of the Town Council.

Yet somehow the German Jews managed to come together and hold prayers in private houses, as best they could. If the Council got wind of it, at least they winked at the matter. But when the clergy discovered it, they became intolerant and drove us forth, and then like timid sheep we had to betake ourselves to the synagogue in Altona. This lasted a good while, ’til we crept back to our little Hamburg prayer rooms. So from time to time we enjoyed peace, and again were hunted forth; and so it has been to this day and, I fear, will continue in like fashion as long as the burghers rule Hamburg. May the Lord, in the abundance of His mercy and loving-kindness, have compassion upon us and send us His righteous Messiah, so that we may serve Him with all our heart and once more offer our prayers in the holy Temple in the holy city of Jerusalem. Amen. (Marvin Lowenthal, trans., The Memoirs of Gluckel of Hameln [New York: Schocken Books, 1987], p. 9)

Against this backdrop of Hamburg Jewry’s precarious existence, Gluckel’s memoirs recount two mysterious murders that rocked the Jewish community. Unusually, the puzzle was solved by women – chief among them Rebecca, wife of Lipmann Osterode. Her determination, bravery, and resourcefulness were instrumental in bringing the murderer to justice.

 

Disappearing Act

On October 1, 1684 (5605), the day after the Sukkot holiday, Gluckel’s cousin Sarah from Altona turned up in Hamburg, about a fifteen-minute walk away. Sarah was married to Reb Abraham Metz, a widower from the town of Herford who’d moved to Altona a few years previously and tried to establish himself in business in Hamburg. Metz was once extremely wealthy, but as an outsider in Hamburg, he’d quickly lost almost everything. Abraham then became a money changer, a dangerous profession requiring him to carry large amounts of cash.