Benedikt Goldschmidt

Benedikt Moses Baruch Goldschmidt (born around 1575 in Frankfurt am Main ; died 1642 in Kassel ), mentioned as a protective Jew in Witzenhausen (1618–1622) and in Kassel (from 1620), was the court banker of three Hessian landgraves ( Moritz , Wilhelm V. and Wilhelm VI. ) Court Jeweler, First Ruler and Schtadlan of the State Jewry .

family

Benedikt Goldschmidt was the son of Levi Goldschmidt († 1608). He married his wife Rosina (Röschen) around 1600. His son and successor as head of the Jews was Simon Goldschmidt . Benedikt Goldschmidt is the progenitor of the oldest manufacturer and banker family Goldschmidt in Kassel.

Life

Benedikt Goldschmidt came from the Frankfurt parent company “Zum Goldenen Schwan”, which was family-owned from 1521 to 1883. Around 1602, as a young man, he moved from Frankfurt am Main to Witzenhausen, where he was mentioned from 1618 to 1622. Around 1620 he delivered the minted silver to the Kassel Mint. In the same year 1620 he was named in the list of taxpayers of the city of Kassel as a “court Jew” with a payment of 500 Reichstalers. He won the full confidence of Landgrave Moritz von Hessen , who repeatedly sent him to Frankfurt to do important business. For his successor William V , he was doing business.

When 2000 gold thalers were demanded from the Jews as a financial contribution to the costs of the Thirty Years' War , Benedikt was the first head of the Hessian state Jewry - he had taken over this office from his relative Joseph Goldschmidt (from the "Golden Swan" in Frankfurt) and it remained hereditary in Benedict's descendants until the beginning of the 18th century - this sum was initially missing, but then distributed this claim to all Jewish families in Upper and Lower Hesse at the first Jewish state parliament, which he convened in Kassel in 1626. In the course of the war, on the orders of the city ​​council, he received billeting in his house, whereupon he immediately complained successfully to the landgrave, stating that he had the privilege of being a court official (for which he paid 600 Reichstaler in 1625 and 1636 ) from billeting be. On the intervention of the Landgrave, Benedict remained exempt.

A decisive chapter in his life and also in Kassel's Jewish community was Benedict's long-standing argument with Rabbi Isaak from Bettenhausen , leader of a group of Orthodox Jews who held their services in Kassel. As early as 1622, the rabbi repeatedly referred to the wealthy court Jew and his family as "self-grown regents" and "traitors to the Jews" because Benedict - probably as a cosmopolitan and modern thinking Jewish merchant - as a court Jew had got involved with the government so hated by the Orthodox Jews . After several disputes, Benedikt won this dispute in 1625, not least with the support of the Landgrave, to whom the economic power of the Goldschmidt family was closer than the protection of Orthodox Judaism, and in 1635 even obtained a decree for the immediate expulsion of all Jews living in Kassel with the exception of himself own family. This decree was renewed again in 1637 , " that no Jew except himself should be allowed to settle in Cassel ".

As early as 1631 Goldschmidt had won a dispute against the Christian butchers' guild by granting him the right to ritual slaughter , even though the Jews were forbidden to do manual work. His victory thus also helped to ease the situation for all Jews in all of Hesse .

With the disappearance of the Jewish community in Kassel, however, there was no longer a Jewish service, as at least ten adult service participants had to be proven. For example, the “ increasingly deeply rooted and physically growing family Goldschmidt ” carried out their “private church service” in their own home without permission, and Jews from abroad also came to these church services without a residence permit and stayed there overnight. Years later, the Goldschmidt family “ could even dare to try with their own indomitable energy to have it (the service) officially legitimized!” However, this only succeeded in 1651, Benedict's son Simon.

The Goldschmidt family remained the most influential among Hesse's court Jews until the rise of the Frankfurt Rothschilds .

literature

• Sigismund von Dobschütz: The ancestors of Elisabeth Goldschmidt from Kassel and Mannheim. in: Hessian Family Studies (HFK). Edited by the Association of Family Studies Societies in Hessen. Verlagdruckerei Schmidt, Neustadt (Aisch) 24.1998, no. 4, pp. 161f. ISSN  0018-1064 (first edition)
  • also in: Majan - The source. Swiss Association for Jewish Genealogy, Zurich 2005, no. 76. ISSN  1011-4009 (new edition with supplement)
• Dr. Jona Schellekens, James Bennett, Rüdiger Kröger: From Goldschmidt to Goldsmid, An Anglo-Dutch Family From Hessen. Hebrew University, Jerusalem 2004 (unpublished manuscript).

Web links

• ( Page no longer available , search in web archives: short biography )

See also

• Jewish community of Kassel