Goldfoot Genealogy

Nadene Goldfoot                                                                         

                                                      Rashi:  Jewish commentator on Bible
 My 3rd cousin, Stanley Goldfoot of South Africa made aliyah to Jerusalem and became the Chief of Intelligence for the Stern Group.  He told me when I finally met him in Jerusalem that he was told we were connected to the Vilna Gaon.  This is possible because the Goldfoot family, originally Goldfus, were from Telsiai, Kaunas, Lithuania and this was not too far from Vilna.

Chaim Freedman is the author of Eliyahu's Branches.  This is a book listing the descendants of the Vilna Gaon and his family and is usually found in the reference section of a Jewish library.  In the Index is listed:  Gold, Goldberg, Goldfaden, Goldfarb, Goldfeder, Goldfield, Goldin, Golding, Goldman, Goldner, Goldring, Goldschmidt, Goldsmidt, Goldsmith, Goldsmitt, Goldstandt, Goldstin, Goldsteinas, Goldzweig, but NO GOLDFOOT!

However, the connection could be the surrname of Halpern.  We have one match with a Halpern at familytreedna and the name of  Khaya Halpern, married to Akivah Pines is in the book for the Vilna Gaon.  Halpern people are also connected to Rashi.

The Vilna Gaon's name was Elijah Ben Solomon Zalman.  He was born on April 23, 1720 and died on October  9, 1797.  In England or the USA, this would not be a hard job to trace back and have a family tree.  People in England have trees and the necessary information to go back to the 1500's.  For us Jews, this is a much harder job as so many places had been burned down from the wars that would have had papers showing census and tax information.

The Vilna Gaon was a Talmudist born in Lithuania and was famous at an early age for his scholarship.  From 1740 to 1745 he traveled among the Jewish communities of Poland and Germany, settling in Vilna where he taught and later founded his own academy.

His reputation was that of a saint as well as a scholar.  He refused rabbinic office and lived in seclusion.  He led the opposition to the Hasidim in Lithuania and he was able to check the spread of Hasidism in Lithuania.  He was well known for his skill in the field of halakhah.  He sought to establish critical texts of the authoritative rabbinic writings, resorting also to emendations.  He avoided pilpul and based his views and rulings upon the plain meaning of the text.  He regarded the early kabbalistic works highly and was very critical of philosophy.  He was interested in secular studies insofar as they threw light on the Torah, but opposed the Haskalah.  He wrote commentaries on the Bible, and annotations on the Talmud, Midrash and Zohar.  He even wrote about works on mathematics, the geography of Palestine, and Hebrew grammar.

When he was about 60 years old, he set out alone for Palestine but returned before reaching there.  Elijah influenced his own generations and those that followed.  This leader of the Mitnaggedim regarded him as their spiritual leader.

There is also the possibility that we are connected to Rashi, which is the anacronym for R. Solomon Yitzhaki or ben Isaac who was born in 1040 and died in 1105 in France.  He was a rabbinical scholar who studied first in the Rhineland.  He then returned to his native Troyes, France and his school achieved a wide reputation.  This scholar earned a livelihood from his vineyard.

 This possibility is addressed after taking an autosomal DNA test through 23&Me and FamilyTreeDNA's familyfinder test which matched up with the Halpern family who have found that they are descendants of Rashi.

Many halakhic queries were addressed to Rashi and his decision have been preserved in the works of his pupils.  He also composed penitential hymns.  His chief contribution was his lucid commentary on the Bible and the Babylonian Talmud.  His thoughts on the Pentateuch in the Bible became universally popular and his notes on the Babylonian Talmud were responsible for making that work an open book.  His style was simple but concise.  His commentary on the entire Talmud made some outstanding contributions.  Students today who study the Jewish religion in a Yeshiva will be studying Rashi's comments.

From Rashi we also have the "Rashi Script" which was a semi cursive form of writing Hebrew letters that was used for writing and printing rabbinical commentaries.

Rashi's commentries served as the basis for later scholars such as Nahmanides and Ibn Ezra in their interpretation of the Pentateuch.