Benedict (Moshe Baruch ben Moshe Yuda Segal) Goldschmidt

Benedict married ca. 1608 (see Overview in profile of his wife Rosina). This suggests that he was born in ca. 1590. The last time the records in Worms mention him is in 1613. His whereabouts are unknown until 1618, when “Benedictus” appears on the list of Jews who payed protection money in Witzenhausen. He headed one of six Jewish households there (StA Marburg, AR II Witzenhausen 10, Jg. 1618). In 1620, “Benedikt Goldschmidt” was already living in Kassel. He is number nine on a list of ten tax-paying Jews, Benedikt paying the largest sum (Hallo 1930).

Schnee (1954: 318) thought that Benedict originally came from Frankfurt am Main. However, there is no evidence that he ever lived there. It is unknown where he lived before he moved to Worms in ca. 1608. If he was a son of Liebmann Goldschmidt, then he probably lived in Hebenshausen before marrying Rosina.

Previous generations of genealogists did not know the Hebrew or Yiddish names of Benedict Goldschmidt. Sometimes Jews signed German documents in Hebrew or Yiddish. Dr. Kröger (2011: 124) identified Benedict’s signature under a document from 1625. However, he signed in German: “Bendix Goltschmit Jud”.

Benedict Goldschmidt was one of the first so-called Court Jews. Several historians have written about him. Below follow translations of paragraphs in an article and in a book referring to Benedict Goldschmidt:

“Benedikt Goldschmidt became the founder of the institution of Court Agent in Hessen and the ancestor of the Goldschmidt family which lived in Kassel and which held a leading position among the Court Jews of Kassel before the rise of the House of Rothschild. Benedikt Goldschmidt was banker to the court of the landgraves Moritz (1592-1627), Wilhelm V (1627-1637) and Wilhelm VI (1637-1663). They used him to take care of their financial business in Frankfurt am Main. His financial strength is shown by the fact that he paid 2000 Dollars (Talern) in Gold in advance, which Hessian Jewry had to contribute during the Thirty Years War. At the first general Jewish diet (Judenlandtag) of 1626 Goldschmidt divided this sum among his coreligionists in Oberhessen and Niederhessen. The Court Banker was also the Obervorsteher of the Jews [of Hesse]. As a court official he enjoyed the very important privilege of being released of the burden of having to quarter troops. Benedikt Goldschmidt complained immediately, when the city council of Kassel imposed to quarter troops in his home in spite of his privilege, by appealing to his privilege of 1625 and 1636, for which he had paid 600 Reichsthaler in advance. The landgrave supported his Court Jew and the soldiers were quartered somewhere else. Soon the court agent attracted other coreligionists to Kassel. The town was opposed to this and in 1635 even achieved that all Jews had to leave Kassel. Only Benedikt and his dependents were allowed to stay. ... In 1631 he pleaded his right of ritual slaughter against the butchers’ guild in Kassel and won. ... He died in 1642” (Schnee 1954, pp. 318-19).

“Only Jews who were in the service of the Court were living, barely visible, in Kassel itself. First among these was Hayum, since 1602 authorized supplier of silver to the mint, and soon after him his rival and the one to replace him later, Benedikt Goldschmidt, a Court Jew in the strict sense. On the other hand, Isaak, Hayum’s son-in-law, the Rabbi, lived in Bettenhausen, perhaps also from 1602. He would come to the town for prayer services or – as Benedikt called it in 1622 – “to our Shul”, which as far as known for these years, was located in the house of Jost Riemers in the important Marktgasse” (Hallo 1931, p. 12).

“The documents which have been preserved show clearly how serious friction developed between the two groups, the party of Rabbi Isaak in Bettenhausen and the Rabbi of Friedberg who sometimes cooperated with him, on the one hand, and the government-supported party of Benedikt the Jew, known as Goldschmidt, on the other hand. The friction was not in the least caused by the fact that Isaak used his sermons in the synagogue ... for angry attacks on Goldschmidt. He accused him of being a “traitor” of the Jews to the government. While the outcome of the many insulting quarrels is not known anymore, two results are clear: first the undisputed victory of the Goldschmidts, which was crowned by the expulsion of all other Jews from Kassel in 1635, because the State cared more about the economic power of its Jews than their religious discipline; and second, although almost useless, the order of 1625, to appoint an officially recognized Hessian Rabbi. This order probably took into consideration the for the State irritating interference of the Rabbis of Fulda and Friedberg with Hessian Jewish affairs. One can guess that the role of Rabbi in Bettenhausen was finished after this. It is unknown, whether it was considered to have the official Rabbi reside in Kassel. Anyhow, in 1656 he resided in Witzenhausen. Because of the isolation of the Goldschmidts, there was no chance of having a synagogue in Kassel. Numerically, these Jews at the Court were just not strong enough to gather the ten adults necessary for the service. Moreover, the possibility that they would voluntarily subordinate themselves to a Rabbi in Kassel can be ruled out in the case of this family of “self-made regents”, as Isaak called Benedikt in 1622” (Hallo 1931, pp. 12-13).

The year of death on the tombstone of Benedict is not readable anymore, except for the day and month (Thursday 7th of Elul). According to Horwitz (1909, p. 292), he died in 1642, but he does not mention his source. This must be about right, however, because on July 18, 1641 he was still alive, whereas a document from March 18, 1644 mentions the late father of Abraham and Simon Goldschmidt (StA Marburg, Best. 17 I Nr. 3434; and 40a XVI Gen. Nr. 1). However, the day and month raise a problem. In the 1640s, 7 Ellul falls on a Thursday only once, in 1644. However, the 7th of Elul in this year is on September 8, or several months after March 18, 1644.

References: Rudolf Hallo, “Aus der Geschichte der Kasseler Gemeinde”, Jüdische Wochenzeitung für Cassel, Hessen und Waldeck 7 (1930). Rudolf Hallo, “Kasseler Synagogengeschichte: Synagogen und Friedhöfe, Kunst und Handwerk der Juden in Kassel,” in Geschichte der jüdischen Gemeinde Kassel, Volume I (Kassel: Israelitischen Gemeinde Kassel, 1931). Ludwig Horwitz, “Hofjuden in Kurhessen,” Hessenland – Zeitschrift für hessische Geschichte und Literatur 23 (1909): 291-293. Rüdiger Kröger, “Deutschsprachige Literalität in Familie un Umfeld von Jobst Goldschmidt alias Josef Hameln,” pp 119-137 in Birgit E. Klein and Rotraud Ries (eds.), Selbstzeugnisse und Ego-Dokumente frühneuzeitlicher Juden in Aschkenas: Beispiel, Methoden und Konzepte (Metropol, 2011). Heinrich Schnee, Die Hoffinanz und der Moderne Staat: Geschichte und System der Hoffaktoren an deutschen Fürstenhofen im Zeitalter des Absolutismus, Vols. II (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1954).