Detmond, Johann Hermann, son of the Court physician at Hanover, born in 1787. The whole family embraced Christianity, and Detmond, junior, became a member of the German Parliament in 1848. ("Jewish Intelligence," 1856, p. 329).
Deutsch, Christian Solomon, born at Temesvar, in Hungary, 1734. Up to his twentieth year he studied scarcely anything but the Talmud at home and in Prague. The Bible was a sealed book to him. He had married, as the custom was then, very young, and had his board and lodging with his father-in-law, so that he could apply all his energies to Talmudic study, till he should be a light in Israel. In 1760 his wife died, and after four months he married the second daughter, and was kept again. In the same year he received from the Grand Rabbi of Moravia, the title of Moreinu or D.D. However, he was not happy; he had read a passage in the Talmud, tract Megillah 24 b, which troubled him. It is thus: "R. Jose said: I was vexed all my life in not being able to understand the prophecy in Deut. xxviii. 29. 'Thou shalt grope at noonday, as the blind gropeth in darkness,' until one dark night I met a blind man carrying a burning torch, and asked him, 'What good is that torch to you?' He replied, 'Although I cannot myself see, yet others can see and take care of me that I fall not into a pit or among thorns and briars." This awakened serious thoughts in Solomon's mind. He felt that he was not even like the blind man, for he had neglected the Word of God in the Old Testament, and as for the New, he, living in a Roman Catholic country, had never heard of it. So he began to practise penitence by wearing a garment of horsehair over his body, fasting and castigations. At night he often used to weep over his sins, and his wife could not console him. Then she reproached him that he had some secret which he kept from her. To this he replied, "I will confess the truth to you; we must choose another way and get out of the darkness in which we are living, if we wish to escape from hell." He had been already meditating about embracing Christianity, and this he betrayed somewhat by his behaviour, and the result was that he was compelled by the rabbi to divorce his wife. When three Roman priests heard of this affair, they visited him, and one of them assured him that he had prayed to the Virgin for his conversion, therefore he ought at once to join the Church. But Solomon refused, and left his home in 1762, praying on the way for guidance in the name of Jesus. This prayer he records in full in his autobiography. He came to Prague and then to Saxony, studying the Scriptures on the way. Here in "a prominent town" (probably Dresden) he visited the rabbi, and they enjoyed themselves in a discussion over some knotty Talmudic subtleties. On October 24, he read for the first time Isa. liii. and asked the rabbi concerning whom the prophet spoke. Then the rabbi appointed an hour and a private place where he would speak to him about this chapter. When they met together he was astonished to hear the rabbi revealing as a secret his belief that the chapter was fulfilled in Jesus of Nazareth. Thence Solomon went to Leipzig, Berlin, Amsterdam, and at last to London, where he was very ill. After his recovery in 1763, he returned to Holland. On his way by ship to Arnheim, he met a Swiss Christian, who took a great fancy to him, and in a conversation expressed a wish that the Lord might enlighten his eyes as he did Rabbi Jechiel Hirschlein who had been baptized at Zurich. In short, after much instruction, Solomon was baptized at Amsterdam, on June 25, 1767, after handing in a written confession of his faith under the title, "Jehovah Glorified through the acknowledgment of the true Messiah Jesus Christ, proved from the writings of the Prophets, Evangelists, and Apostles," consisting of 175 pages, and printed at Amsterdam. He then studied theology and became Pastor at Mydret in 1777, where he laboured faithfully till his death in 1797. His chief literary work was, "Israel's Verlosinge en eeuwige Behoudenis" (Israel's redemption and eternal salvation), 3 vols., Amsterdam, 1769-93.
Deutsch, Ignaz Friedrich Gottlieb, a native of Perskretscham, and evidently a relative of the next, was baptized in Berlin in 1825.
Deutsch, Siegmund Herman, was a remarkable personality. He was born in Perskretscham, Silesia, in 1791. As usual he had an early Talmudical education. Then he went to the Gymnasium, and then to the University of Breslau, where he studied mathematics and astronomy. In 1815 he served as a soldier in the Prussian army, took part in the war, and was promoted to be an officer and teacher in the military school in 1817. Then he had a duel with some one and was imprisoned in a fort. There he was converted to Christianity, and afterwards served as an artillery officer in the Greek liberation war.
Returning to Berlin in 1824, where he attended the ministry of the celebrated Gossner, he associated with the convert Lachs, who was a teacher in a school for deaf and dumb, sat under the theological teachings of Neander, and was thus spiritually prepared for being called to labour for the Master among his own people. This call came from Dr. McCaul, and after a little more preparation in the Hebrew College in Palestine Place, he was sent by the L.J.S. as a missionary to Warsaw in 1828, where he laboured (with a short interval at Breslau) till 1833. He then was stationed in Bavaria. He died in 1864, leaving a MS. (not yet printed) on the future of Israel.
Disraeli, Benjamin, Earl of Beaconsfield, born in London, December 21, 1804, died there April 19, 1881. Of this preeminently distinguished man in the nineteenth century there are many biographies and lasting monuments. We need only record very briefly here that he was one of England's greatest sons and statesmen, and the greatest ornament of the Jewish people in modern times. An ardent lover of his nation, a genuine English patriot, a friend of his great Queen, a thorough Protestant Churchman, yet with liberal tendencies, and a true believer in Christianity, which he regarded as completed Judaism. His works are these: "Vivian Grey," 1817; "The Infernal Marriage;" "Ixion in Heaven," and "Popanilla," 1828; "Contarini Fleming," and "The Wondrous Tale of Alroy," 1832; "The Young Duke," about that time; "What is he?" 1833; "Revolutionary Epic," 1834; "Coningsby," 1844; "Tancred," 1847; "Sybil," 1845; "The rise of Iskander," "Vindication of the British Constitution," "Venetia," "Henrietta Temple," "The Tragedy of Count Alarcos," and "Lothair," were all productions of his great intellect at different seasons. Benjamin's mother, his sister Sarah, born 1802, his brother Ralph, 1809, and his brother James, 1813, were all Hebrew Christians.
Disraeli, Isaac, left the synagogue in 1817. Though we have no definite information about his baptism, we may reasonably assume that he was a member of the Church of England. This appears from his having his children baptized, from his pamphlet, "The Spirit of Judaism," in which he vindicated himself for the step he had taken, from his articles on "The Talmud," "Psalm Singing," the Pearl Bibles and six thousand errata in his "Curiosities of literature," &c., all shewing that he was an earnest student of religious subjects and of the Scriptures, and that he endeavoured to spread the light of truth.
Ducat, H., a native of Warsaw, embraced Christianity, together with his wife, about the middle of the nineteenth century. He was a saintly Christian man, laboured as missionary for some time under the British Society, was one of the founders of the Hebrew Christian Prayer Union and of a Loan Fund for needy converts. His sons-in-law are the Rev. Dr. Flecker and the Rev. John Schor.
Dushaw, Amos I., spent the greater part of his youth in Jerusalem, Palestine, where he attended the school of the London Jews' Society. Here the seeds of Christian truth were sown in his young heart. He afterwards came to London, where he was brought into close connexion with the members of the above-mentioned society, and the germs of truth gradually grew, budded, and blossomed into faith in our Lord as his Messiah.
Dushaw went to America in 1895. The following year he was baptized, upon confession of his faith in Christ, in the Fourth Congregational Church, at Hartford, Conn.