EPHRAIM, VEITEL-HEINE:
German financier; died at Berlin in 1775. The name means "Veitel, the son of Heine [German for "Ḥayyim"], the son of Ephraim." He was jeweler to the Prussian court and mint-master under Frederick William I. and Frederick the Great, by whom he was held in high esteem. By his financial operations he assisted this king in his wars, and when afterward charges of defalcation were brought against him, the king would not permit an investigation. Being the brother-in-law of David Fränkel, when the latter was elected rabbi of Berlin (1743), Ephraim pledged himself to pay annually the sum of 150 thalers into the treasury of the congregation, so that Fränkel might employ a substitute in law cases in which his relatives were involved and in which he could not act as judge (Landshuth, "Toledot Anshe Shem," p.37, Berlin, 1884). The most important of the organizations which he founded is the Veitel-Heine Ephraim'sche Lehranstalt in Berlin, originally founded as a bet ha-midrash about 1774.
- Ha-Maggid, ix. 318;
- Fuenn, Keneset Yisrael, p. 153;
- Wissenschaftliche, Blätter aus der Veitel-Heine Ephraim'schen Lehranstalt, Preface, Berlin, 1862;
- Lebrecht, Die Rabbinische Bibliothek des Berliner Bet Hamidrasch, Berlin, 1852.
