the world of private banking

JEwISH PRIVAtE BANKS 225
At this stage, intermarriage and the role of women in networking need to be
considered. In the merchant banking world, strict endogamy aimed at consolidating
the family’s wealth by preventing inheritance partition. The Rothschilds attained an
extreme degree of intermarriage in this respect, with fourteen marriages between
members of the family among eighteen marriages celebrated from 1824 to 1870.
However, intermarriage was not specific to the Jewish bankers’ community. In
the City of London, the old banking aristocracy and the Quaker families who
founded Barclays were also used to it. In France, the Protestant families of the
haute banque adopted the same behaviour. What was specific to wealthy Jewish
bankers was having numerous relatives abroad and building wide international
networks through their social and business connections. Most of them followed
the Rothschilds’ model, some of them being settled both in Europe and North
America, like the Seligmans and the Warburgs. By marrying Eva Philippson,
whose Jewish father managed Svenska Handelsbank, Siegmund Warburg became
allied to the main rival bank of the Wallenbergs in Sweden. That specific feature
undoubtedly inspired the image and the myth of the powerful Jewish cosmopolitan
banker which became so popular during the nineteenth century.
There is perhaps another feature specific to the Jewish bankers’ community.
For most bankers, marriage was less a means of upward mobility than a means of
conserving or increasing their wealth. Thus, contrary to other bankers, who were
anxious to contract alliances with aristocracy by marrying their children, business
connections and money prevailed over social relations. One may object that a long
past of discrimination and struggle for survival influenced their behaviour. Perhaps
the woman’s role in the Jewish family should also be kept in mind. Despite the lack
of systematic studies, existing monographs about bankers’ dynasties reveal the
authority of Jewish women inside the family and their major role in the banker’s
social life. From the second or third generation, education and culture became
essential for women who had charge of the organizational work of networking and
cultivating useful contacts. Thus they complemented their husband’s economic
position by cultural habits and an aristocratic way of life.
The longevity of private bankers’ dynasties has been related to their membership
of a religious minority. During the early nineteenth century emancipation and
social mobility meant for many bankers in Central Europe the necessity to convert.
But many others followed Jewish custom strictly during several generations. In
Britain and France they adhered earlier to Reform, which introduced a more secular
Judaism. As in the Rothschilds’ case, loyalty to Judaism was less a question of
religiosity than a clannish attitude, the family considering that religion was part of
the cement which held it together and that remaining Jewish was an integral part
of their good fortune. Men belonging to the financial elite like Gerson Bleichröder
and his friend Moritz von Goldschmidt, the Rothschilds’ main partner in Vienna,
were both faithful Jews who considered their Jewishness as a special bond between
them. In consequence, most of the wealthy Jewish bankers participated fully in
communal and philanthropic activities and felt it was their duty to help their poor
co-religionists.