A Study in American Jewish Leadership

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The Making of a Leader

From Frankfurt’s “Judengasse” to Wall Street

On January 10, 1847, a second son and third child, Jacob Henry, was born
to Moses and Clara Niederhofheim Schiff of Frankfurt-am-Main. A dealer
in shawls who became a successful stockbroker, Moses Schiff was a stern
father and pious Jew who demanded the same religious behavior from his
five children. Jacob, a restless boy, did not conform willingly. He preferred
playing to studying, and he especially resented parental insistence that he
attend the synagogue three times daily for prayers. Although relations
between father and son were strained, Jacob was closely attached to his
mother, “an exceptional, well-educated woman.” He once remarked to a
friend that whatever success he had attained and whatever good he had ac-
complished were due to his mother’s teaching and example.^1
Differences with his father reinforced Jacob’s desire to leave Frankfurt,
but he remained loyal to both parents and to his siblings. The only one of
the family to emigrate to America, he maintained close ties by frequent let-
ters and visits to Germany; even as an adult he would kiss the photographs
of his parents when he finished reciting his daily prayers. Jacob devotedly
marked the anniversaries of his parents’ deaths, and he frequently made
donations in their memory to institutions in Frankfurt as well as New York.
Despite his mild rebellion against his father’s discipline, his values and be-
havioral traits were shaped significantly by what he had absorbed from his
boyhood home. Punctuality, precision, attention to details, and especially a
domineering role over his household suggest patterns of his father’s Or-
thodox mind-set.^2

The Frankfurt in which Jacob grew up was a bustling commercial center
where the number of Jews increased dramatically in the nineteenth cen-
tury—from over five thousand in 1858 to more than ten thousand in 1871.