In her memoires, Glikel Hamel mentions the Yiddish name of the grandfather of her husband: Shmuel Stuckert. She mentions that he used to be the parnas of the Jews in Hessen. She does not mention his holy name (shem kodesh) in Hebrew, nor his German name. The Memorbuch of Hannover, however, mentions the holy name of his son, Glikel's father-in-law: Joseph bar Baruch Daniel Shmuel Halevi (Kaufmann 1896a, p. XXXVIII). But what was his German name? Rabbi Eduard Duckesz (1938) suggested that his German name was Benedict Goldschmidt, because the holy name of most men called Benedict is Baruch. This hypothesis has spread like a virus on the internet. However, there is now overwhelming evidence that Benedict Goldschmidt and Shmuel Stuckert were not the same person. Below I will use the modern spelling of German names (for the contemporary spelling see Kröger 2011). There are at least four reasons why Benedict cannot have been the same person as Shmuel:
1. A missing son: Simon succeeded his father Benedict as a Court Jew in Kassel. There is an eighteenth-century genealogy, which starts with Shmuel Stuckert. It mentions the names of only three sons (in Yiddish): Joseph Hamel (=Jobst Goldschmidt), Abraham Witzenhausen and Moshe Kramer. It does not mention a son by the name of Simon (Kaufmann 1896b, p. 297).
2. Holy names: Benedict and Samuel had different holy names. I have identified the tombstones of Benedict Goldschmidt (died 1641-44) and his wife Rosina (died 1647) in the Jewish cemetery of Kassel in Bettenhausen. They lie buried next to each other (Nrs. BI019 and BI020). Benedict's holy name is not Shmuel Daniel Baruch ben [Moshe?] Segal, as argued by Duckesz, but Moshe Baruch bar Moshe Yuda Segal.
3. Cousins: Dr. Rüdiger Kröger uncovered a document from 1635, in which Benedict calls Shmuel Stuckert's son, Jobst Goldschmidt of Stadthagen, his Vetter – cousin in modern German (StA Marburg, Best. 17 I Nr 3436). Thus, Shmuel Stuckert probably was Benedict's uncle.
4. Benedict survived Samuel by more than fifteen years. Kröger has uncovered the German name of Shmuel Stuckert. A document from 1625 mentions the late Samuel Goldschmidt in Witzenhausen, who had been the Vorsteher (=parnas) of the Jews in Hessen. The same document also mentions his successor as Vorsteher (after a short interruption): Benedict Goldschmidt (StA Marburg, AR II Witzenhausen 10, Jg. 1625).
Besides an incorrect merger, there are many incorrect data in the profile. There is no evidence whatsoever, that either Benedict or Samuel were born in Frankfurt. Thus, neither Samuel nor Benedict were expelled from Frankfurt in 1614. Neither is there any evidence for their having been born in about 1575. In the case of Samuel, this date fits what we know about him, but in the case of Benedict this is unlikely (see below). There is no document mentioning a wife of Samuel by the name of Zippora or any other name. We know that Benedict was only married once, to Rosina (Wallich) from Worms. So what else do we know?
Samuel was economically active at least from 1596, when he loaned money to someone belonging to the nobility. We do not know where he was living at the time. In 1606-1617, Samuel is listed as living in Hebenhausen (in Hessen). In 1617 or 1618, he moved to Witzenhausen, where he was to remain until his death in 1623 or 1624. When he moved to Witzenhausen, his son Jobst moved to Stadthagen in the Weser valley, where he married a local girl (Kröger forthcoming). According to Gronemann (1913), Jobst was born around 1597. If this is correct, then he was about twenty years old at the time of his marriage.
Dr. Ursula Reuter has identified Benedict and his wife Rosina in Worms. They appear there on the list of Jewish households in 1610. This is the earliest reference to Benedict. Benedict was a foreigner, i.e. not from Worms. The couple only had one daughter and no sons in 1610. The amount of taxes he paid is the equivalent of three years. Therefore, Reuter thinks that Benedict arrived in Worms in 1607 or 1608, after marrying a local girl by the name of Rosina (Wallich). If he was between fifteen and twenty years old at the time of his marriage, which was the range for the age at first marriage among men from elite families, then he was born around 1587-1593.
Benedict left Worms in or after 1613. It is possible that he was expelled with all other Jews in 1615. We do not know his whereabouts until 1618. It is possible that he went to Petershagen. A document from 1617 mentions a Jew called Benedict who was living there and who was a Vetter of Leser Hirsch, the husband of Rosa Wallich (Linnemeier 2002, pp. 75 and 332). I suspect that this Benedict is to be identified with Benedict Goldschmidt for two reasons. First, a branch of the Levite Goldschmidt family from Frankfurt was living there in the 1560s. It is possible that Benedict and Samuel are descendants of this branch of Goldschmidt, in particular they may be a grandson and a son of Moyse Petershagen, respectively (Linnemeier and Kosche 1998). However, before creating a profile for Moyse Petershagen, we need more evidence for the relationship. Second, Rosa was a cousin of Benedict’s wife Rosina. In 1618, Benedict and Rosina joined his uncle Samuel in Witzenhausen. In 1622, the couple moved to Kassel, where they were to remain for the rest of their lives. Benedict died in 1641-44, whereas Rosina died in 1647 (Kröger forthcoming).
References:
Duckesz, Eduard. 1938. “Familiengeschichte Goldschmidt – Hameln – Bendix Cassel”, Jüdische Familienforschung XIV.
Gronemann, S. 1913. Genealogische Studien über die Alten Jüdischen Familien Hannovers (Berlin: Verlag von Louis Lamm).
Kaufmann, David (ed.). 1896a. Die Memoiren der Glückel von Hameln 1645-1719. (Frankfurt am Main: J. Kaufmann).
Kaufmann, David. 1896b. Aus Heinrich Heine’s Ahnensaal (Breslau: S. Schottlaender).
Kröger, Rüdiger, “Deutschsprachige Literalität in Familie un Umfeld von Jobst Goldschmidt alias Josef Hameln,” blz 119-137 in Birgit E. Klein en Rotraud Ries (ed.), Selbstzeugnisse und Ego-Dokumente frühneuzeitlicher Juden in Aschkenas: Beispiel, Methoden und Konzepte (Metropol, 2011).
Kröger, Rüdiger. Forthcoming. Die Geschäftskorrespondenz des Jobst Goldschmidt (1597-1677) und ergänzende Quellen.
Linnemeier, Bernd-Wilhelm. 2002. Jüdisches Leben im Alten Reich: Stadt und Fürstentum Minden in der Frühen Neuzeit. Bielefeld: Verlag für Regionalgeschichte.
Linnemeier, Bernd-Wilhelm, and Rosemarie Kosche. 1998. "Jüdische Privatkorrespondenz des Mittleren 16. Jahrhunderts aus den Nordöstlichen Westfalen." Aschkenas 8: 275-324.
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