Lewin (Yehuda Leib ben Baruch Bendit Halevi) Goldschmidt

A tax list from 1689 mentions his being 60 years old (Burchard and Mundhenke 1941, p. 145). Thus, he was born around 1629. The name of his father on the tombstone suggests that he was a son of Benedict Goldschmidt (Gronemann 1913, Part II, p. 2). So much is also suggested by his first name. He would have been named after his paternal grandfather, who had died in ca. 1726. Thus, his first wife was his second cousin. Lewin “erected a synagogue in his house in 1688, in which he served as cantor, as told in the Memorbuch, and ... he also helped convince the Duke issue an edict to protect the cemetery. The picture of Esther drawn by Glückel is of a very pious and Godfearing woman. She died young on March 31, 1675. Her tombstone is the second oldest in the cemetery” (Gronemann 1913, Part I, p. 19). Glückel writes: “The sixth child [of Jobst Goldschmit] was his daughter Esther, the pattern of piety and womanly virtues. She underwent more than her share of troubles, yet her patience never flagged, to the moment she breathed her pure soul away” (Lowenthal 1977, p. 32). According to the Memorbuch, his second wife reached the age of about 100. Probably, this is another case of age overstatement (Schellekens 1995). She is unlikely to have been more than 90 years old.

References: Max Burchard and Herbert Mundhenke, Kopfsteuerbeschreibung der Fürstenthümer Calenberg-Göttingen und Grubenhagen von 1689, Band 2 (Hannover: M&H Schaper, 1941). S. Gronemann, Genealogische Studien über die Alten Jüdischen Familien Hannovers (Berlin: Verlag von Louis Lamm, 1913). Marvin Lowenthal (translator.), The Memoirs of Glückel of Hameln (New York: Schocken Books, 1977). Jona Schellekens, “Age overstatement among European Jews,” Avotaynu 11 (1995): 30-31.