Moses / Wilhelm Jakob Christoph Goldschmidt / Friedstatt

Ettlinger (ca. 1955) confused him with Mosche the son of Meir z. Lilie, who was baptized in Frankfurt on 16 October 1646 as Conrad Wilhelm. On the other hand, the Frankfurt Jew Moses zum Goldenen Roß was baptized in Kassel on 17 June 17 1646 at the age of 24, adopting the name Wilhelm Jakob Christoph Friedstatt (Kasper-Holtkotte 2005, p. 338). At seven o'clock in the morning of 20 April 1646, he left his home and went to the town hall to express his wish to convert. In a letter to his wife, written in German on the day he left his home, he mentions their two sons, Benedikt and Liebmann (Kasper-Holtkotte 2005, p. 347). His family name, Goldschmidt, place of origin, Kassel, his approximate year of birth, 1622, and the name of his son, Benedikt, leave little doubt as to the identity of his father. There was only one Benedikt living in Kassel in those days. When he married a local girl in 1638, he received permission to live in Frankfurt (Dietz 1907, p. 115).

In 1654 Wilhelm Friedstädt is mentioned as an Untereinnehmer in Hersfeld. In 1648 he married his second wife Anna Elisabeth Welwein in Kassel. They had seven children (Knetch 1926). Their grandchildren were artists. In 1756, one of them, the painter Johann Martin Frickstadt guilded the Hechal in the new synagogue of Kassel (Hallo 1931, p. 20).

References: Alexander Dietz, Stammbuch der Frankfurter Juden: Geschichtliche Mitteilungen über die Frankfurter Jüdischen Familien von 1349-1849 (Frankfurt: Verlag von J. St. Goar, 1907). Schlomo Ettlinger, Ele Toldot (ca. 1955). 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). Cilli Kasper-Holtkotte, “Religionswechsel im sozialen Kontext: Moses Goldschmidt und andere Frankfurter Konvertiten des 17. Jahrhunderts,” Aschkenas 15 (2005): 337-369. Carl Knetsch, "Goldschmidt-Friedstatt, ein Apostat aus der Zeit des dreißigjährigen Krieges," Mitteilungen der Gesellschaft für Jüdische Familien-Forschung 7 (1926): 154-158.