“Jewish Protection Letter” (‘Judenschutzbriefe’), issued by Landgrave Wilhelm IX of Hesse-Kassel, year 1790* [Holy Roman Empire; Present-day Germany; Principality of Orange-Nassau] [Provisional]: “By the grace of God, We, Wilhelm the ninth, Landgrave to Hesse […] announce herewith publicly that we have taken on the Jews – with the reservations of previous ordinances – and allowed them to settle with wife and child […] and to live in Our sovereign protection (‘landesherrlichen Schutz’) […] as long as they adhere to the current laws and especially to the already issued Jewish ordinances […] and to behave accordingly, and to not to take advantage of anyone or burden them with excessive usury. For this protection, the […] Jew is to pay for himself and his family the usual silver and war contribution and all other fees, which they owe and are to submit to us and are to pay duly and not to fall short on […] We have signed this letter of protection Ourselves and have sealed it with our Princely secret seal as it occurred in our City of Residency of Kassel […]” [Researcher’s note: *Even though, we do have the original text of the ‘Schutzbrief’ of Wilhelm the ninth, it is unclear when exactly this document was signed. Experts in the field have narrowed it down to the first half of the 1790s.]
Hecker, Horst: Jüdisches Leben in Frankenberg (“Jewish Life in Frankenberg by Horst Hecker”), 2011. Accessed online; Researched and Translated by Ziba Shadjaani 9/7/2018