Windmuller-Heynen Family Tree

A Prussian patriot, he fought tenaciously throughout his life for the legal equality of his fellow-believers. Having made personal sacrifices and endured hostility from in the Prussian monarchy, he finally saw the achievement of Jewish equality in the year of his death.

From the Jüedische Schriftstellerinnen und Schriftsteller in Westfalen (Google translation):

SUTRO, Abraham, land rabbi, born 5.7. 1784 in Bruck, today incorporated in Erlangen; died 10.10. 1869 in Münster, there also buried. Born as the eldest of seven siblings, S., [i.e., Sutro] who was called Abraham (ben) Samuel until 1808, passed through the Talmud schools of Fürth and Prague and then worked as a tutor in Prague, Aschaffenburg and Kassel. At the age of fifteen, S. received the title of Chober, the preliminary stage of the rabbinical ordination, from the deeply orthodox rabbi Wolf Hamburg in Fürth. The actual rabbinical diplomas, combined with the Murano title, he acquired in 1808 in Kassel and 1810 in Paderborn. In 1810 teacher in Reichensachsen, from 13.12. 1810 in Beverungen. From here managed S. as a rabbinical adjoint also the district rabbinate of Warburg. In 1811 married S. Rebecca Culp from Wanfried / Hesse. The marriage produced eleven children. On 16.5. 1815 he was confirmed as a land rabbi of the Jewish communities in the Münsterland and in the counties of Mark and Limburg. He relocated in 1816 his official residence to Münster, where he remained until his death. S. served the government of the newly established Prussian province of Westphalia as an expert on Jewish issues. He also served the Jewish communities in his district as a consultant and judge in matters of worship and education. In essence, S. was responsible for the Jews living in his area only for marriages / divorces and the supervision of the rituals. He was poor and his legal position was never finally resolved. It was characteristic that S. on the occasion of the anniversary of his 50 years as a rabbi on 15.5.1861, although the Red Eagle Order in the prescribed star form for Jews received, but only in the lowest (4th) class and without him as a land rabbi. He was only considered a "civil servant". During his tenure under the Kasseler Konsistorium he fought for innovations in Jewish practices with: he preached in German and accepted both the organ in the synagogue, for which he was later particularly hated He also introduced the Protestant model of confirmation. In his time in Munster, on the other hand, after his life, work, fate, and writings in Westphalia, he most consistently embodied the type of orthodox rabbi, the "rigid Rabbanite," as an adversary dubbed it. - S. was, as it says on his tombstone, "a faithful teacher and fighter for Israel for 57 years." The Prussian patriot, who he was, committed himself tenaciously throughout his life, with personal sacrifices and many hostilities in the Prussian monarchy, for the legal equality of his fellow-believers, which was formally achieved in the year of his death. His son Baruch, because he was a Jew, was removed in 1853 from his promised position as a construction manager in Münster. In 1860 S.'s petitions were successful: from then on Jews were allowed to work as surveyors and construction supervisors in civil service. Baruch S. had died abroad, of course. S. wanted to promote the "religiosity and morality" of his fellow-believers and to eliminate the "existing disorders in the synagogues," as he wrote to Vincke in 1816. Above all, he wanted to leave the "old venerable rite unchanged." Here he had only limited success in Westphalia. He hindered, as his opponents reproached him, with "blind zeal the wheel of the time." Here stood against the mainstream of development. - As an opponent of the reform movement, he was a literary collaborator of the orthodox journal Schomer zion hane-eman his friend, the rabbi Jacob Ettlinger from Altona. - From S. comes the "refutation of the writing of Mr. H.B. H. Cleve: [The] Spirit of Rabbinism or My Passage from the Jewish to Christianity. "[Münster 1823] From Holy Scripture and the Talmud, Münster and Hamm 1824, and" Michamot adonai "(Fights for God) in four issues , H. 1, 1836 in Hannover, H. 2, 1862 in Frankfurt, H. 3, 1863 in Hannover, H. 4, 1864 in Halberstadt. With this work S. was the last Hebrew writer Westfalens. His real meaning is, apart from the interlude under the consistory in Kassel, in the unity of life, work and writing. At the same time, S. was open-minded in the extra-religious realm, proficient in spoken and written French, English and Italian, also had Latin language skills, was historically and geographically studded and interested in the natural sciences. In this connection between rigid rejection of religious reform and openness toward S. the last Hebrew writer of Westphalia. His real meaning is, apart from the interlude under the consistory in Kassel, in the unity of life, work and writing. At the same time, S. was open-minded in the extra-religious realm, proficient in spoken and written French, English and Italian, also had Latin language skills, was historically and geographically studded and interested in the natural sciences. In this connection between rigid rejection of religious reform and openness to modern education, he was an early type of neo-orthodox modern coinage. The pending comprehensive biography could be based on extensive, largely unused archival material. It would be equivalent to an inner history of Westphalian Jewry in the first half of the 19th century. - One of his disciples, Isaac Leeser (1806-1868), the leading figure in Orthodox American Judaism, greatly influenced Sutra's anti-reformer ideas from Milchamot adonai in US Judaism.