Fränkel (Frankel)

A family of scholars and Talmudists, the earliest known member of which was Koppel Fränkel (1650), the richest Viennese Jew of his time. In 1670, when the Jews were banished from Vienna, Koppel Fränkel's children settled at Fürth; only one of his four daughters was married—Esther, to Benjamin Wolf b. Asher Anschel Spiro, preacher and head of the yeshibah of Prague, and a descendant of Jehiel Michael Spiro, who flourished about 1560. The children from this alliance, the first of whom was Simon, chief () of the community of Prague, bore the compound name of Fränkel-Spiro. A short time later another alliance was made between these two families: Jacob Benjamin Wolf Fränkel, of Fürth, a descendant of Koppel Fränkel on the male side, married Rebekah, daughter of Elijah Spiro, a cousin of Benjamin Wolf, the founder of the Fränkel-Spiro branch. This latter branch also subsequently married into the main Fränkel branch, and from this triple alliance descended the well-known scholar Zechariah Frankel, whose father adoptedthe name of "Frankel." The pedigree of Zechariah Frankel may therefore be constructed as on the preceding page.

Bibliography:

  * M. Brann, in Monatsschrift, xlv. 193-213; xlvi. 450-473, 556-560;
  * idem, in Kaufmann Gedenkbuch, p. 399.



J. M. Sel.