ABSTRACT
The Jewish community of Berlin, for example, was from the very beginning systematically encouraged because the Great Elector believed that their activity was useful and promising for the commercial and economic development of his capital. The community of Frankfort on the Oder was supported by the government in the interest of the trade on the Oder and the important Frankfort fairs. The Jewish community of the newly-founded residence city of Karlsruhe owed its existence to the fact that the Margrave Karl Ludwig of Baden-Durlach was forced to populate his almost empty city with as many economically active inhabitants as possible. In Koenigsberg at the beginning of the eighteenth century, the Court Jew Bendix Jeremias of Berlin attempted to mediate between the conflicting interests of the city magistrate and those of the Prussian officials.
