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LEOPOLD SULZBERGER
Leopold
Sulzberger was born on September 20, 1805 in Heidelsheim, Baden
(Germany). His wife, Zierle (Einstein), was from Jebenhausen, and when
a large company of Jewish emigrants set out from that village in June
1839, Sulzberger and his family of four joined them. In the French
seaport of Le Havre they embarked on the immigrant ship "Sylvie de
Grasse"
together with his brother-in-law, Abraham
Einstein. On August 22, 1839, they arrived at the port of New York.
Leopold Sulzberger established himself in Philadelphia, where for many
years he served the congregation Mikveh Israel as its kosher butcher (shochet). "He deservedly won the
esteem of all, for his purity of actions and religious zeal." A shofar
he had brought along from Germany, and the ritual instruments he
had used as a shochet were
the first Judaica collected for the Smithsonian's National Museum of
American History.
When the Benevolent Society was founded in September 1840 to administer
the Jewish cemetery of Chambersburg, Sulzberger joined. On December
17, 1843, he was elected president, a position he appears to have held
until 1845. He died in Philadelphia
on October 9, 1881.
The Sulzberger family played a most prominent part in American Jewish
history of the 19th and 20th centuries. Of Leopold's children, David,
Solomon and Cyrus L. Sulzberger held influential positions in various
Jewish educational and charitable organizations and institutions of
their time. His grandson, Cyrus Adler, was a prominent scholar and for
many years served as president of the Jewish Theological Seminary of
America. Another grandson, Arthur Hays Sulzberger, became publisher of
the New York Times in 1935,
and a son and a grandson have since succeeded him in this capacity.
Leopold's younger brother, Abraham Sulzberger, came to
Philadelphia from Germany with his family in 1849. His son, Mayer
Sulzberger, a highly respected lawyer and judge and, in his day, one of
the most influential figures in the Jewish and wider American
community, was the first Jew to hold judicial office in Pennsylvania.
An ardent bibliophile of sweeping erudition and a generous maecenas, he
was termed "the father of Jewish libraries in America". He was
instrumental in the founding and development of the Hebrew Education
Society of Philadelphia, the Young Men's Hebrew Association, and the
American Jewish Committee, of which he was the first president.
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Leopold Sulzberger (1805-1881)
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