Jaakow Mosche Heilbut

The tombstone of Philipp calls him a son of Yaakov. According to the Memorbuch Isaac is the son of Yaakov Heilbut. Philipp and Isaac already headed a household in 1638, implying that their father belongs to the first generation of Heilbut in Hamburg. Jakob's tombstone has disappeared, but Rabbi Eduard Duckesz, Zur Geschichte und Genealogie der Ersten Familien der Hochdeutschen Israeliten-Gemeinden in Hamburg-Altona (Hamburg: M. Letzmann, 1915), pp. 23-24, cites the text on the tombstone. His holy name (shem kodesh; with a family name in Yiddish) is Moshe Yaakov bar Yehoshua Yosef Feibelman (Heilbut). His secular name (kinnuy) in German is unknown. I have reconstructed it as Jakob Heilbot, because he had a grandson called Jakob Heilbot, who visited the Leipziger Messe in 1682 and 1689 (see Max Freudenthal, Leipziger Messgäste: Die Jüdischen Besucher der Leipziger Messen in den Jahren 1675 bis 1764 (Frankfurt am Main: J. Kauffmann Verlag, 1928). p. 125). Jakob being his kinnuy, the name Moshe must have been added later at the time of a serious illness. According to Duckesz, Jakob died in 1648. However, he does not appear on the list of Jewish inhabitants of Hamburg or Altona, which dates from 1638 (see Jona Schellekens, Dating the oldest list of Jewish inhabitants in Altona and Hamburg, Stammbaum 30 (2006), pp. 20-21). Perhaps, he was living in the household of his father-in-law Meyer, who may be identical with the Meyer who is listed as No. 6 on the list of Jewish Households in Altona in 1638.

According to her tombstone, Jakob was married to Prive bat Meir Shmuel Altona. She died in 1664. On her tombstone her husband's holy name appears in reversed order (Yaakov Moshe). It is not known whether she was the mother of Isaac and Philipp.

Moshe Meir ben Yakov Moshe Heilbut, who died in 1709, is probably to be identified as a third son of Jakob. Meir is a son of Prive, because he was named after his maternal grandfather.

1577-1590 in Hannover