Joseph Mendelssohn (11 August 1770 – 24 November 1848) was a

German Jewish The history of the Jews in Germany goes back at least to the year 321 CE, and continued through the Early Middle Ages (5th to 10th centuries CE) and High Middle Ages (c. 1000–1299 CE) when Jewish immigrants founded the Ashkenazi Jewish commu ...

banker. He was the eldest son of the influential philosopher

Moses Mendelssohn Moses Mendelssohn (6 September 1729 – 4 January 1786) was a German-Jewish philosopher and theologian. His writings and ideas on Jews and the Jewish religion and identity were a central element in the development of the ''Haskalah'', or 'J ...

. In 1795, he founded his own banking house. In 1804, his younger brother,

Abraham Mendelssohn Bartholdy Abraham Ernst Mendelssohn Bartholdy (born Abraham Mendelssohn; 10 December 1776 – 19 November 1835) was a German Jewish banker and philanthropist. He was the father of Fanny Mendelssohn, Felix Mendelssohn, Rebecka Mendelssohn, and Paul Mendels ...

, the father of the composers Fanny and

Felix Mendelssohn Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy (3 February 18094 November 1847), widely known as Felix Mendelssohn, was a German composer, pianist, organist and conductor of the early Romantic music, Romantic period. Mendelssohn's compositions inc ...

, joined the company. The bank Mendelssohn & Co. continued under the control of the

Mendelssohn family The Mendelssohn family are the descendants of Mendel of Dessau. The German Jewish philosopher Moses Mendelssohn and his brother Saul were the first to adopt the surname Mendelssohn. The family includes his grandchildren, the composers Fanny Mende ...

and would rise to prominence during the 19th century, becoming one of the most important and influential German banks during the early 20th century.

Descendants

Joseph's descendants include the

neurologist Neurology (from , "string, nerve" and the suffix -logia, "study of") is the branch of medicine dealing with the diagnosis and treatment of all categories of conditions and disease involving the nervous system, which comprises the brain, the ...

Alexander Carl Otto Westphal Alexander Carl Otto Westphal (18 May 1863, Berlin – 9 January 1941, Bonn) was a German neurologist and psychiatrist. He was the son of the psychiatrist Karl Friedrich Otto Westphal (1833–1890) and Clara Mendelssohn and the grandson of Ot ...

(1863–1941) and the

musician A musician is someone who Composer, composes, Conducting, conducts, or Performing arts#Performers, performs music. According to the United States Employment Service, "musician" is a general Terminology, term used to designate a person who fol ...

Ben Parry (b.1965).

External links

*Sebastian Panwitz
''Joseph Mendelssohn''
i
Mendelssohn-Enzyklopädie
* 1770 births 1848 deaths Burials at Schönhauser Allee Cemetery, Berlin German bankers German company founders 18th-century German Jews

Joseph Joseph is a common male name, derived from the Hebrew (). "Joseph" is used, along with " Josef", mostly in English, French and partially German languages. This spelling is also found as a variant in the languages of the modern-day Nordic count ...

Businesspeople from Berlin People from Mitte Bankers from the Kingdom of Prussia {{Germany-business-bio-stub

Descendants

See also

External links