Moyse Petershagen

The argument for his identification as the father of Liebmann and Samuel Goldschmidt runs as follows: 1. Moyse Petershagen and Liebmann Goldschmidt both belong to a Levite family of Goldschmidt. 2. Moyse Petershagen had a son called Lew. In 1626, a list of Jews living in Witzenhausen calls Liebmann Goldschmidt, the father of Benedict, “Lew oder Liebman” (StA Marburg, Best. 40a XVI Gen. Nr. 1). 3. Liebmann and Schmoll both had a son called Moses. 4. Schmoll had a daughter called Chana. Women whose Hebrew name is Chana were often called Hendel in Yiddish. Moyse Petershagen was married to Hendel. 5. Lew and Liebmann Goldschmidt approximately belong to the same generation. Lew was still a bachelor in 1562. So probably he had not yet reached the age of fifteen, the age at which many children of the elite married. For example, Benedict's son Meyer (born Kassel ca. 1621) married at the age of thirteen. Thus, Lew probably was born around 1550. This would leave a plausible generational gap of about seventy years between Lew and Benedict's youngest son Meyer (=1621-1550). 6. Benedict's Hebrew name is Baruch. Baruch is not a very common name. We know from the letter of 1562 that Moyse Petershagen had a brother called Baruch. Thus, Benedict may (indirectly) have been named after Lew's uncle.

The German sources call him Moyse Petershagen without ever mentioning the family name Goldschmidt. He was born in or after 1531, the year his grandfather Mosche died. Moyse left Frankfurt and moved to Petershagen in the bishopric of Minden. He is the author of a letter that was intercepted in 1562 by the officials of the town of Minden. He died in or before 1580, because between 1578 and 1580 "Lew Jud von Kleinen Premen" is mentioned in Frankfurt as son and heir of "Moiβ von Petershagen" [and grandson of Isaak zum Einhorn]. For Moyse Petershagen and his son Lew, see Bernd-Wilhelm Linnemeier & Rosemarie Kosche, “Jüdische Privatkorrespondenz des Mittleren 16. Jahrhunderts aus den Nordöstlichen Westfalen,” Aschkenas 8 (1998), pp. 275-324.