Israel Jacobson

[1] The only son of wealthy businessman and philanthropist Israel Jacob, Jacobson's parents lived modestly yet contributed considerably to reducing the community debt.

Through the Samson family, Jacobson became friends with Charles William Ferdinand, Duke of Brunswick and Lunenburg, Prince of Wolfenbüttel, favorite nephew of Frederick II of Prussia.

It was through Jacobson's influence and persuasion that in 1803 the so-called "Leibzoll" (poll-tax), then levied from Jews in many German states, was abolished in the ducal Brunswick-Lunenburgian Principality of Wolfenbüttel.

Though not unheard of in synagogues before, its subsequent association with the new movement would later anathemize the organ in the eyes of the Orthodox in Central Europe (albeit it was introduced, without controversy, in France and Italy).

[1] While his associates, mainly Eduard Kley, would later publish the first unequivocal Reform liturgy in 1818, effecting a concerted Orthodox backlash,[4] the Westphalian Consistory's aroused little ire at their time.

In 1816 he swore his oath of fealty to Frederick Francis I, Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, thus becoming the first Jew with a permanent seat and vote in the Estates of the Realm of a German state.

His life and work, especially this part, is commemorated—among other things—in the permanent exhibition on Mecklenburg's Jewish history in the museum Engelscher Hof and the half-timbered former synagogue in Röbel, 66 km south of Jördenstorf.

(German: Konsistorialpräsident a.D.), aroused some unrest among Protestant clergy in Berlin, who considered that title to be exclusive for the retired consistorial presidents of the Evangelical Church in Prussia.