Education and Family Background

Moses Moritz Michaelis was born in 1820 into a family of strictly orthodox Jews in Lügde, a town in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. He was the fifth of seven children to the Talmud scholar Ruben Michaelis (?–?) and his wife, Sara Michaelis née Michel (?–1845). His nephew Isaac Hallenstein was born ten years later in Brunswick, Germany, to Reuben (?–1864) and Helene Hallenstein née Michaelis (1801–1878), Moritz Michaelis’s elder sister. Much less is known about his early life than that of his uncle, who left an autobiography.

Michaelis was educated in his hometown, where he was taught German, French, Latin, Hebrew, and Talmudic studies before being sent, at the age of fifteen, to study medicine. He completed nearly two years of study, but due to financial difficulties arising from his father’s illness, he quit his education. Michaelis was instead apprenticed to a wholesale and retail trading company in Cologne.

Immigration and Marriage

In 1843, Michaelis was sent to Manchester to work for a German firm of commission agents, Sampson & Leppoc. In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, Manchester was transformed into a booming industrial city, dubbed ‘Cottonopolis’, due to its economic development centred on mechanised textile production. Many German Jews arrived after completing apprenticeships in German companies, bringing skills and experience beneficial for large-scale commerce. This experience provided opportunities for men like Michaelis, who came without capital and with limited connections, to secure employment as clerks or managers in their compatriots’ factories, offices, and warehouses.

During the second half of the nineteenth century, a substantial number of Jews arrived in Manchester from continental Europe, the Russian Empire, North Africa, and the Middle East. Before this larger influx, the small Jewish community of a few hundred people was more homogeneous, and newcomers often found it challenging to settle in. Arriving in Manchester on the Day of Atonement, September 23, 1843, Michaelis endeavoured to attend synagogue, but, as a non-member, he was denied entry. This action so incensed him that he did not enter a synagogue for the ten years he lived in England. During this time, Michaelis read widely in German and English, including the works of the Berlin-based philosopher Moses Mendelssohn (1729–1786), who is considered the father of Jewish Enlightenment (Haskalah).

The climate of Manchester did not agree with Michaelis, and after reading about the Australian colonies, he became determined to journey there. Like him, a few others took the opportunity to move on to the colonies as representatives of their companies before branching out independently. With the discovery of gold in 1851, the prospect seemed even more enticing. Eventually, Sampson & Leppoc agreed, sending Michaelis alongside another German-born employee, Adolphus Boyd (1825–1863), and a partnership was formed between the two younger men.

Before he sailed, Michaelis returned to Germany and married his cousin Rahel Gotthelf (1829–1901) in 1853. Consanguineous marriages were common in England among German Jews at the time, who often maintained close ties to their former homes. The couple was to have 14 children.

The relationship with Sampson & Leppoc lasted two years before the partners established an independent company, Michaelis and Boyd & Co., as importers, agents, and auctioneers. In a mercantile society devoid of significant manufacturing, like many of its competitors, the firm imported a diverse range of goods to meet the colony’s expanding needs, from clothing to rum, paper hangings to oil braziers, dray and horse covers to soap and salad oil. However, after facing insolvency in 1866, Michaelis and Boyd & Co. was officially dissolved in 1867.

The Michaelis Hallenstein Family and German-Jewish Transnational Network

The Michaelis Hallenstein companies were created through a complex network of interconnected ventures based on partnering with various family members and others in subsidiary companies. Michaelis was joined in Manchester by his nephews, Michaelis (1831–1904) and Bendix Hallenstein (1835–1905), who also worked for Sampson & Leppoc before following him to Victoria. These two Hallenstein brothers established a series of stores on the Victorian goldfields in partnership with another German settler named Hermann Buttner (?–?). In 1863, they were joined by their elder brother Isaac Hallenstein, who had newly arrived from the Californian goldfields, where he had gained experience in tanning.

Fig. 3: Buttner and Hallenstein’s shop, Daylesford Goldfields, 1860s; private archive of Gabby Walters.

In 1864, still in partnership with Buttner, Isaac Hallenstein purchased a small tanning business in Footscray, a suburb of Melbourne. Shortly after, his brother Michaelis Hallenstein joined the company. In 1867, Buttner sold his share to Moritz Michaelis, and Bendix Hallenstein also became a partner. However, he left Victoria and migrated to New Zealand, where he built an empire in the clothing industry, as well as in leather, pharmaceuticals, and insurance. As a parliamentarian and the German Consul, Bendix Hallenstein established a public profile there through his involvement in local politics.

As Michaelis Hallenstein and Co., shipping agents, tanners, and leather merchants, the business expanded and diversified into various colonies with a complex model. It expanded first to Sydney, bringing a manager from Germany to train and oversee this enterprise. In New Zealand, Bendix Hallenstein had input, while Moritz Michaelis’s son-in-law managed Michaelis, Hallenstein & Farquhar. In 1873, Michaelis Hallenstein assumed responsibility for the London branch, enabling the firm to negotiate with European markets and operate as a buying house for all group members. Two of Moritz Michaelis’s sons returned to Germany, where they, too, managed branches of the family business. Thus, the firm eventually operated divisions across the Australian colonies (except Tasmania), New Zealand, Hong Kong, England, and Germany.

Fig. 4: Aerial view of works of Michaelis Hallenstein & Co. Pty. Ltd., manufacturers of high-grade gelatine, around 1930; State Library of Victoria, Accession No: H2003.54.

The Jewish Community in Melbourne

By 1860, Michaelis had firmly established his position within the colony and was appointed an auditor for the National Bank of Australasia, now known as the National Australia Bank. The extended Michaelis Hallenstein family was at the centre of Jewish life in Melbourne. They served as leaders in the metropolitan synagogues, participated in communal organisations, and engaged in substantial philanthropic activities, supporting Jewish and broader causes.

Melbourne had one synagogue in 1853, when Rahel and Moritz Michaelis arrived: the Melbourne Hebrew Congregation. It was led by the Edinburgh-born Rabbi Moses Rintel (1823–1880), evolving from the first efforts of the tiny community of Anglo-Jews who had settled in the 1830s. This community expanded as expectant and optimistic settlers flocked to the gold rush of the 1850s. Amongst these were many Jews from Britain, Germany, and other parts of Europe, the Caribbean, the United States of America, and further afield.

Michaelis immediately became involved in congregational life. But especially after 1857, when Rintel split from the Melbourne Hebrew Congregation, forming Melbourne’s second congregation, the East Melbourne Hebrew Congregation. Here, Michaelis immediately took a leadership role. Land could be granted for schools but not religious buildings, so the congregation applied for a site for a schoolhouse, nominating Michaelis as one of the Trustees. Always mindful of their image, the architects chosen were those currently designing the Parliament building, a block to the east. The East Melbourne Hebrew Congregation then applied to the government for permission to use the schoolhouse as a place of worship, with Michaelis as a board member and Trustee. In the 1870s, it moved the synagogue building to a more prominent location, strategically positioned between Parliament, several major churches, the Catholic cathedral, and the affluent mansions of East Melbourne. In 1877, Michaelis played a key role in negotiating with the Minister for Education to secure a land transfer, enabling the congregation’s relocation to a new site in East Melbourne.

Fig. 5: The Residence of Moritz Michaelis Esqr, around 1879; State Library of Victoria, Accession No: H87.91/1, Accession No: LTAF 311.

As an ‘instant city,’ Melbourne expanded rapidly, and the seaside suburb of St Kilda became a popular destination for the Jewish community, especially German-born Jews. Many of these families built substantial houses and mansions designed by some of Melbourne’s most fashionable architects. Michaelis and his growing family soon moved to this suburb and, in 1870, built their residence: Linden, designed by the Swiss architect Alfred Kursteiner (1829–1879), while Isaac Hallenstein and his wife Lina Hallenstein née Lowenstein (1833–1891) purchased the nearby 20-roomed mansion Woonsocket.

Moving to St Kilda required a congregation. By September 1871, it was organised as the St Kilda Hebrew Congregation and had elected Michaelis, a Trustee and the first President. The demography of this new congregation was evident when, at their inaugural meeting, they defined themselves as “a Hebrew and German school and synagogue combined” Minutes of the St Kilda Hebrew Congregation, 12 September 1869..

Victoria had just introduced a free and secular education system, hampering the congregation’s ability to operate a day school but not a self-funded afterschool program. Thus, in 1872, when Michaelis laid the foundation stone for the synagogue and school building, he delivered a speech quoting in English from the German poet Friedrich Schiller (1759–1805), Das Lied von der Glocke (The Song of the Bell), which emphasised the foundations of life and work. He then proceeded to extol the importance of Jewish education and its significance in maintaining Jewish identity. Subsequently, all the family’s children received a religious education at the St Kilda Hebrew School.

At this time, Isaac Hallenstein was travelling in Europe to select a suitable English or German Rabbi to lead the congregation. The candidate had to be able to read the services for Shabbat and the Jewish festivals, teach Hebrew to the children, perform circumcision and kosher meat preparation if required, and lecture in English occasionally. Hallenstein identified Elias Blaubaum (1847–1904) as an appropriate candidate. Blaubaum was born in Kassel, in northern Hesse, to an orthodox family.

Like its sister congregations, the St Kilda Hebrew Congregation had placed itself under the English Chief Rabbi. Although Blaubaum dedicated his life to the congregation, there was constant friction between the orthodox Rabbi, those who wanted a slightly more reforming model of service, and the more conservative community members who wished to maintain the status quo.

Michaelis’s communal activities also extended to the boards of the Sabbath Observance Society and Jewish Aid Society, while he was a Trustee of the Jewish section of the St Kilda Cemetery and a founder of the newspaper the Australian Israelite. His financial position allowed him to contribute generously to the Victorian community. He was often listed as the major donor to Jewish and secular causes. Thus, in 1872, when the St Kilda Hebrew Congregation was fundraising for the synagogue’s construction, Michaelis became the most generous donor.

Fig. 6: Isaac and Lina Hallenstein’s mansion, Woonsocket, in Melbourne in the early twentieth century; private archive of Gabby Walters.

Travel and Return to Germany

Moritz Michaelis and Isaac Hallenstein returned to Germany several times and maintained informal and professional ties with their country of origin. They visited friends and family, ensuring that their multinational business operated smoothly. Michaelis’s connection with what later became Germany was evident in his role as an official representative of the Kingdom of Prussia. In 1859, he was appointed Prussian Consul in Melbourne and held this position for a decade. Like other consuls, mostly successful German businessmen who lived permanently in one of the Australian colonies, Michaelis attended several official functions and gained considerable social prestige.

Unlike most German-born Jews who stayed in the Australian colonies or retired to London, Hallenstein returned to Germany at the turn of the twentieth century. He died in Hamburg at the age of 81, where he was laid to rest in 1911 at the Jewish Cemetery Ilandkoppel. His uncle Michaelis died in St Kilda in 1902.

Today, the family members are remembered for their philanthropy. Although their business is still operational, it trades under a different name. The tannery site in Footscray is no longer in use, but Hallenstein Street bears its name, and Linden is the home of a public art gallery. Several descendants have gone on to have illustrious and public careers, keeping their names in the public eye in today’s Melbourne.

Selected Bibliography