He was one of the most obscure personalities in the history of modern Torah philanthropy
ATthe end of September 1913, the Rudolph Lepke Auction House in Berlin staged an auction of an impressive art collection from the estate of Herr Emil Lachmann. Without fanfare, the book on this mysterious bachelor — relatively anonymous in his hometown — seemingly came to a close.
Further east, however, his passing had been publicly mourned, and his glorious legacy lived on in the Torah institutions he built and the initiatives he funded. Ovadiah Emil Lachmann (1846–1910) was one of the greatest supporters of Torah in the 19th century. He was also one of the most obscure personalities in the history of modern Torah philanthropy. A footnote in a 1916 article in the Berlin-based journal Jeschurun emphasizes this point:
It fills us with satisfaction that this pious man, who lived unappreciated in Berlin for decades and died abandoned a few years ago, is memorialized here from such an appointed mouth. All the peculiarities of this man, which were partly responsible for his loneliness, do not excuse the fact that in Germany and in the capital so little notice was taken of his death. In Russia, of course, one hesped followed the other.
According to official records, Lachmann was born on November 22, 1846, in the West Prussian town of Graudenz (currently Poland) to Herrmann and Friederike (née Gotthilf) Lachmann. The Lachmanns were a prosperous family of merchants with a presence in Hamburg and Berlin.
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