biography
| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (?1740–85)
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| biography:
| Revolutionary patriot and banker, born in Lissa, Prussia (now Leszno, Poland). University educated, he supported Polish independence and had to flee, ending up in New York City (1772) where he began a dry-goods business. When the American Revolution began, he undertook to supply the Continental troops and was twice arrested by the British as a spy, but he escaped to Philadelphia in 1778. There he aided Robert Morris by brokering government bonds, raising hundreds of thousands of dollars through loans of his own and others' money, but lost heavily in the post-Revolutionary recession. He also worked to secure equal treatment for his fellow Jews. |
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