Simon Veit (25 May 1754,

Brandenburg Brandenburg (; nds, Brannenborg; dsb, Bramborska ) is a state in the northeast of Germany bordering the states of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, and Saxony, as well as the country of Poland. With an area of 29,480 square ...

? - 1 October 1819,

Berlin Berlin is Capital of Germany, the capital and largest city of Germany, both by area and List of cities in Germany by population, by population. Its more than 3.85 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European U ...

?) was a German merchant and banker of Jewish ancestry.

Life and work

His father, Juda Veit (1716-1786), was a wool merchant and founder of a bank. He was descended from one of the fifty Jewish families that had been expelled from Vienna and settled in

, at the invitation of Elector Friedrich Wilhelm. They were from the upper classes and possessed a "letter of protection" (), allowing them and their descendants the right of residence. He is best known as the first husband of Brendel Mendelssohn, who is better known as

Dorothea von Schlegel Dorothea Friederike von Schlegel (; 24 October 1764 – 3 August 1839) was a German novelist and translator. Life She was born as Brendel Mendelssohn in 1764 in Berlin.In older literature and on her gravestone one finds the date 1763, but this is ...

, and as father of the artists,

Jonas Jonas may refer to: Geography * Jonas, Netherlands, Netherlands * Jonas, Pennsylvania, United States * Jonas Ridge, North Carolina, United States People with the name * Jonas (name), people with the given name or surname Jonas * Jonas, one of ...

and

Philipp Veit Philipp Veit (13 February 179318 December 1877) was a German Romantic painter and one of the main exponents of the Nazarene movement. It is to Veit that the credit of having been the first to revive the nearly forgotten technique of fresco ...

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 ' ...

had chosen Veit from among his acquaintances to be his daughter's husband, because Veit's letter of protection offered her a degree of security that could not otherwise be obtained. They were betrothed in 1778, married in 1783, and h