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yerbeer's birthname was Jacob Liebmann Beer; he was born in Tasdorf (now a part of Rüdersdorf), near Berlin, then the capital of Prussia, to a Jewish family. His father was the wealthy financier Judah Herz Beer (1769–1825) and his mother, Amalia (Malka) Wulff (1767–1854), to whom he was particularly devoted, also came from the moneyed elite. Their other children included the astronomer Wilhelm Beer and the poet Michael Beer.[4] He was to adopt the surname Meyerbeer on the death of his grandfather Liebmann Meyer Wulff (1811) and italianize his first name to Giacomo during his period of study in Italy, around 1817.[5] Judah Beer was a leader of the Berlin Jewish community and maintained a private synagogue in his house which leaned towards reformist views. Jacob Beer wrote an early cantata for performance at this synagogue.[6] Both Judah Herz Beer and his wife were close to the Prussian court; when Amalia was awarded in 1816 the Order of Louise, she was given, by Royal dispensation, not the traditional Cross but a portrait bust of the Queen. The Beer children were provided with a fine education; their tutors included two of the leaders of the enlightened Jewish intelligentsia, the author Aaron Halle-Wolfssohn and Edmund Kley, (later a reform movement rabbi in Hamburg) to whom they remained attached into their maturity.[7] The brothers Alexander von Humboldt, the renowned naturalist, geographer and explorer, and the philosopher, linguist and diplomat Wilhelm von Humboldt were close friends of the family circle.[8] Amalie Beer, Meyerbeer's mother, painting by Carl Kretschmar [de], c. 1803 Beer's first keyboard instructor was Franz Lau