The Rescher family emerged from the fog of historical obscurity in the area of the Lake of Constance in the middle of the 17th Century. They were founders of the Israelite community that thrived in Hochberg from 1750 to 1850 and their fate typified that of their Swabian corrrelegionsts in a rise to prosperity and Germanification. However, as of the 1850s most persons bearing the family name crossed the Atlantic and by the time of Nazi Germany all living members had become part of American Christendom, with the unlikely exception of the eminent orientalist Oskar Rescher, but subsequently Osman Reser, living in Istanbul as a convert to Islam.