Goldfoot Genealogy

Nadene Goldfoot                                                        

Rabbi Samson Wertheimer, born in Worms, Germany, son of Joseph Josel Wertheimer (1626-1713) and received his education at the yeshivas of Worms and Frankfurt am main.

DNA testing through FTDNA and a special group from there, Halpern and  Branches, shows that we Goldfoots come from either Rabbi Samson Wertheimer (b: 1658- d: 1724) or his brother, Moshe; most likely Moshe.

"Rabbi Samson WERTHEIM (WERTHEIMER) Born: Jan 17, 1658 Died: Aug 6, 1724 in Vienna. 
Landesrabbiner + Veronica "Frumet" (see BRILIN family)  Born: Mar 15, 1658/9 Died: Apr 24, 1715/18 in Vienna 
Father: Rabbi Isaak Brilin (Brüll) (Worms? - 3/17/1678 Mannheim bur. Worms, Germany) 
Mother: Sorle (Sarlan, Sara, Serle) Oppenheim/er (Wolf) (Worms, Germany - 3/3/1673 Worms or Mannheim, Germany)" reference below from Wertheim tree. 
This shows that  Samson Wertheimer's uncle was Samuel Oppenheimer.  

 Rabbi Wertheimer was a court Jew, born in Worms, Rhineland/Germany,  and court Jews were especially prominent in the Vienna court.  Two of the most notable were Samuel Oppenheimer and his nephew,  Samson Wertheimer.  Rabbi Wertheimer had gone to Vienna in 1684 to join the bank of his uncle, Samuel Oppenheimer, and soon became a court banker.  His uncle Samuel Oppenheimer was a banker and he lived with him.
                                                                           

King Charles VI

King Leopold

Wertheimer  leased royal revenues and was one of the chief purveyors of the imperial forces.  Together with his son, Wolf, they lent large sums to the emperor, the Holy Roman Emperor, King Leopold (1640-1705)  of Germany,  Hungary, Croatia and Bohemia.  In 1719 /Charles VI (1685-1740) another Holy Roman Emperor,  appointed him as chief rabbi of Hungary with judicial authority.  He used his connections to assist Jewish communities and obtained an order from  Emperor Leopold prohibiting the publication of Eisenmenger's antii-Jewish work, "Entdecktes Judentum."
                                                                         

Safed

Wertheimer established a fund to assist the poor in Palestine, which existed until 1914, the start of WWI.
                                                                             
 Perhaps this is start of what children in America's Jewish Sunday Schools contributed to called Karen-Ahmein or Karen-Kimet.  Some of his Shabbat homilies have been preserved.
                                                                           
Samuel Oppenheimer or Oppenheim (b: 1630-d: 1703) , his uncle, was a philanthropist besides being a Court Jew.  He was the first Jew to settle in Vienna after the 1670 expulsion and was Leopold I's agent and financier, helping to finance his wars with the Turks and the War of the Spanish Succession.  In 1697, he was accused of conspiring to murder his nephew and rival, Rabbi Samson Wertheimer, and was put in prison until vindicated.  Samuel liberally supported the poor, Jewish scholars, and Judah Hasid's movement to settle in Palestine.  He was a Zionist before it became popular.  " Prince Eugene of Savoy brought him a large number of valuable Hebrew manuscripts from Turkey, which became the nucleus of the famous David Oppenheimer Library, now comprised in the Bodleian Library at Oxford.."

Connecting to the family of the Vilna Gaon of Lithuania is :Rabbi Moshe Rivkas who came to Vilna from Prague in the early 17th century.  During the Cossack massacres in 1655, Rivkas fled to Amsterdam, where he completed his commentary on the Shulkhan Arukh called Be-er Hagolah. 

Court Jews or Hofjuden were Jews who served as financial or other agents of rulers.  They advanced credit as tax-farmers and as organizers of commissariat in Central and Eastern Europe during the 17th and 18th centuries.  They were men of wealth and played an important role at court, especially in the period after the Peace of Westphalia in 1648.

Court Jews enjoyed special privileges;  were exempted from wearing the Jewish badge and could live anywhere, maintaining the necessary Jewish religious functionaries in their place of residence.  In other words, Rabbi Samson continued to function as a rabbi besides his financial obligations for the court.
                                                                       
Some court Jews met with disaster, such as Joseph Suss Oppenheim of Wurttemberg of SW Germany whose capital was Stuttgart (b: c1698-d: 1738) who died at age 40. He was a financier appointed by Carl Alexander of Wurttemberg as his finance minister in 1732.  He endeavored to consolidate the duchy's finances and free its ruler from dependence on grants from the estates.  His "modern" financial methods aroused much opposition and after the death of the duke in 1737,  he was accused of embezzling state finances and was hung at Stuttgart, nominally for having sexual relations with Christian women.  He refused to save his life by accepting baptism.  His career is the subject of many books, including the novel, Jew Suss by Lion Feuchtwanger.   Because of their position, they were influential in obtaining rights and privileges for other Jews and were men of great power in the Jewish community.  The office was sometimes hereditary.

"Although there was a ban on new settlement  for Jews in place until 1624, this was repeatedly circumvented through the granting of exceptions, to the point that a new cemetery was established in the Seegasse in 1582. Jews’ rights were further restricted in 1637, leading to the second expulsion of Vienna’s Jewish population in 1669/70 under Leopold I. The second Ottoman siege of Vienna in 1683 however led to Samuel Oppenheimer’s (1630-1703) appointment as a financier to the court; he was also responsible for the restoration of the cemetery.  Oppenheimer was able to help Samson Wertheimer from Worms to come to Vienna in 1684.  Wertheimer was later named Court Jew, but he could not perform his duties as a Rabbi in Vienna and therefore left for Eisenstadt, part of the Siebengemeinden, where Jews were welcomed under Paul I, 1st Prince Esterházy of Galántha."   updated 12/20/15 from Wikipedia.  

Lob Jehuda Efraim Sinzheim was born c 1675-1680 in Vienna, Austria and died June 4, 1744. He was the son of Haim and Rebecca Sinzheim.   He became the Court Purveyor of Mainz, Germany and the Court Jew of Vienna.  Some of the Sinzheim descendants follow:
                                                                                 
Rabbi Joseph David Sinzheim (November 16, 1745-November 11, 1812) was from France and was the Rabbi of Strasbourg.  Strasbourg is " the capital city of the Alsace region in northeastern France. 
                                                                            

Rabbi Joseph David Sinzheim , the most well-known Sinzheim

He was born in Trier, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany said one source and died in Paris.  His father was Rabbi Isaac Abraham Sinzheim b: c1700 and mother was Esther, daughter of Joseph Abterodel.  Rabbi Isaac was the rabbi at Edencoben, Trier, Niedemai.   Strasbourg is the seat of the European Parliament and sits near the German border, with culture and architecture blending German and French influences."   He belonged to the Assembly of Notables and was president of the Great Sanhedrin in 1807.  Napoleon appointed him chief rabbi of the Central Consistory on its inception.  Sinzheim was the author of Yad David, an unfinished piece that was on parts of the Babylonian Talmud. Bella Sinzheim (1725-Sept. 4, 1789)  nee Hahn had married Simon Isak Sinzheim in Vienna, Austria.  She was the daughter of Amschel Salomon Hahn.  Isac Low Sinzheim was born in 1749 in Vienna, Austria.  He was the son of Raphael Simzheim and wife Ghele.
                                                                           

Forced clothing worn by German Jews of 13th century

 Jewish settlement here goes back to the Dark Ages and was first protected by the lords and clergy.  In the First Crusade of 1096, the Jewish quarter was burned and many Jews were killed.  At the beginning of the 12th century, the Jews received protection as "serfs" of the emperor.  Their position worsened by the 13th and 14th centuries.  Many were ferociously massacred in 1349, and in 1388 the new community was expelled.  Resettlement only started again in 1771, with Rabbi David Sintzheim.  Of course, WWII depleted the city of Jews by the extermination camps.

Update 12/20/15  Finding myself and family matching the surname Rivlin as 5th cousins, which is the name of the President Reuven Rivlin of Israel, I find his history goes back to Rabbi Yosef of Ovan who lived in Vienna around 1550 and then was exiled to Prague.  Somehow we must have had ancestors who met during this period as well.

"The "Judenturm" at Vienna.(From an old print.) 1554
                                                                           
A word on Vienna's Jews: Vienna was the city of Hitler's birth in 1889.  He died at the end of WWII in 1945.   The capital of Austria was Vienna and Jews had been living there at the beginning of the 10th century, the same time when Jews had arrived in Worms, Germany.  In Vienna they received a special living quarter near the ducal palace and were allowed to get houses elsewhere in the city.  The center was famous for its scholarship.  In the 13th century, life had deteriorated under pressure from the burghers, and a ghetto was created for them.  In 1406, the Jewish quarter was burnt, and in 1421, the Jews were killed or expelled as the result of a Ritual Murder accusation (Wiener Geserah).

  Jews lived there during the 16th century, and a community was again formed at the beginning of the 17th century, maintaining trade connections with Poland, Italy and Turkey, but they were again banished in 1670 with Samuel Oppenheimer being the first to return.   When that happened, many went to Moravia.  Rabbi Samson and his entouraage were exempt from the expulsion, probably for financial reasons.   Other Jews returned slowly under special license after 1675, but no synagogue could be built until 1826.  They participated in the 1848 revolution  and finally received equal rights in 1867.  

Many were prominent in the political, economic, cultural and scholastic life of the city in the 19th-20th centuries.  Anti-Semitism began to spread from the 1880s, the year the first aliyah was made to Palestine.  The anti-Semitic attacks were under the leadership of Karl Lueger. 
                                                                               

 Theodor Herzl (1860-1904)  was starting Zionism then and he was from Vienna. He was the founder of political Zionism and was born in Budapest but studied in Vienna from 1878 to 1884.  From 1891 to 1895 he was a Paris correspondent for the Vienna Neue Freie Presse and became very interested in the Jewish problem.  He first advocated assimilation, but saw that was a bad idea.  It was the Dreyfus trial that caused him to conclude that his zionistic idea of returning to Eretz Yisrael was the only way to go.   The Dreyfous/fus family was also from Trier (Treves), France.  and belonged to the Alsatian branch of the Treves family.  
                                                                           

A later Moshe Wertheimer (1878-1944) from Hungary,  66 years old at death.  The 2nd world war did not end until May 8, 1945.

Moshe Zvi Mor Wertheimer was born circa 1878, at birth place, to Marton (Mordechai) Wertheimer (Vertheimer)and Miriam Lea, Maria Wertheimer (born Herskovits, Hershkovitz Halevi). Marton was born on 10/1/1855 other source 1854, in Gelse, Szabolcs county, Hungary. Moshe had 3 brothers: Dezso David Yehuda Wertheimer (Verthaimer) and 2 other siblings. Moshe married Esther, Ester, Lea Wertheimer (born Fisher). Esther was born in 1885, in Slatina, Slotino. Her occupation was Merchant. They had 10 children: Ytzchak Eisik Wertheimer, Shmuel Wertheimer and 8 other children. Another Moshe Wertheimer was "Moshe Wertheimer, 1893 - 1969" Moshe Wertheimer was born in 1893, to Shlomo Aaron Wertheimer and Golda Lea Wertheimer (born Reiseman). Shlomo was born in 1866, in Pezinok, Hungary. Golda Reiseman was born in Jerusalem. Moshe had 10 siblings: Rivka Wertheimer, Frida Gittel Wertheimer and 8 other siblings. Moshe married Fruma Wertheimer (born Zilbiger Wertheimer). Fruma was born on October 24 1893. They had 7 children: Abraham Joseph Wertheimer and 6 other children. Moshe passed away in 1969, at age 75 .

During WWI, Jewish refugees came into Austria and Vienna from Galicia, Hungary and Bukovina, swelling their Jewish population.  At this time there were 17 major synagogues in Vienna of which one was Sephardi.  They also had a rabbinical seminary, a Jewish museum, a school network and other institutions.  There were 180,000 Jews in Vienna before the Nazi invasion of 1938, when a ferocious persecution immediately began.  About 1/3 of the Jews were able to emigrate.  All the rest were deported to extermination camps.  
                                                                            

Jews of Hungary when they were rounded up to be sent to extermination camps

After the war in 1945, survivors from Hungary, Poland and Czechoslovakia went to Vienna.  The Jewish population in 1991 was 6,000.  

Update: 7/11/17 
OPPENHEIM from Jewish Virtual Libary  Needed Background History http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0015_0_15132.html

"OPPENHEIM, town in Germany. Jews are first mentioned there in the tax register of 1241, according to which they were obliged to pay the emperor an annual tax of 15 marks. The Jews of the town, legally the property of the emperor, were placed under the protection of the officers in charge of the local fortress, to whom they paid their taxes. They also paid a house tax to the archbishop of Mainz. *Rudolf of Hapsburg and other kings gave letters of credit to various noblemen which were to be defrayed from the taxes paid by the Jews of Oppenheim; at times, they also leased these taxes. The burden of their taxes appears to have caused several Jews of Oppenheim to join the group that fled from the Rhineland and, under the leadership of *Meir b. Baruch of Rothenburg, attempted to emigrate to Eretz Israel (1285). At the end of July 1349, during the persecutions that followed the *Black Death, most of the Jews of Oppenheim were murdered, while others chose martyrdom (*kiddush ha-Shem) and burned themselves to death in order to escape forced conversion at the hands of the mob. Among the martyrs was the rabbi Joel ha-Kohen.

Some time later the community was reestablished. After 1400 the right of residence was made renewable at the end of every six years, and the amount of taxes to be paid was fixed. In 1422 a plot by two Christians to kill the Jews of the town was frustrated by the municipal council. Certain protection fees and "gifts" that the Jews of Oppenheim were compelled to pay weighed upon them so heavily that despite the additional support of such communities as Worms, Mainz, and Frankfurt, Oppenheim Jewry could not meet their payments and were therefore penalized (1444). In 1456, R. Seligmann Bing (or R. Seligmann Oppenheim) attempted to establish a union of the communities of the Upper Rhine, but because of community opposition and that of R. Israel Isserlein (c. 1390–1460), the project was abandoned.

The community suffered during the wars of Louis XIV, and by 1674 only three families remained in the town. By 1722 the number had grown to eight. Many Oppenheim Jews settled in Frankfurt and other south German cities, where they were known as "Oppenheim" or "Oppenheimer," and the name became widespread. The community numbered 20 families in 1807; 257 in 1872; 189 in 1880; and 56 in 1933. Of the 17 Jews who remained during World War II, 16 were deported. In 1970 no Jews lived in Oppenheim. A memorial plaque commemorates the destroyed synagogue and the Oppenheim Jews who were victims of the Holocaust. The municipality organized two meetings of "Oppenheims" and "Oppenheimers" in 2000 and 2003."

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

FJW, 405; P. Lazarus, in: ZGJD, 5 (1934), 200–4; Germania Judaica, 1 (1963), 255–6; 2 (1968), 629–32; E.L. Rapp and O. Boecher, in: Festschrift 1200 Jahre Oppenheim (1965), 91–105. ADD. BIBLIOGRAPHY: P. Arnsberg, Die juedischen Gemeinden in Hessen. Volume 1: Anfang, Untergang, Neubeginn, vol. 2 (1971), 180–87; Germania Judaica, vol. 3. 1350–1514 (1987), 1068–76; F.-J. Ziwes, Studien zur Geschichte der Juden im mittleren Rheingebiet waehrend des hohen und spaeten Mittelalters (Forschungen zur Geschichte der Juden. Abteilung A, Abhandlungen, vol. 1) (1995).

[Paul Lazarus /

Zvi Avneri /

Larissa Daemmig (2nd ed.)]

Resource: Halpern & Branches Group on Family Tree DNA; leaders, Ziegleman and Aaronson.
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leopold_I,_Holy_Roman_Emperor
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~prohel/names/oppenheimer/sam_oppenheimer.html
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~prohel/names/wertheimer/wertheimer.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_National_Fund
http://goldfoot_genealogy.blogspot.com/2013/09/connections-to-king-david-rashi-isaac.html
Geni.com tree for Sinzheim managed by R. Randol Schoenberg
Update: 7/27/15
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salomon_Oppenheim
//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Vienna
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rabbis