Goldfoot Genealogy

Nadene Goldfoot 
                                                                   
Hungary was a country outside the Pale of Settlement where Jews had found refuge to live.  The first-known Jewish grave dates back from the 2nd century CE.  Jewish communities lived in Hungary in the 9th century.  By the 13th century, the decrees of the Lateran Council segregating the Jews from their neighbors were put into effect.  This was the 4th Council when these things were decided:
   Regulations relating to Jews and Muslims

• Canon 67: Jews may not charge extortionate interest.
• Canons 68: Jews and Muslims shall wear a special dress to enable them to be distinguished from Christians so that no Christian shall come to marry them ignorant of who they are.
• Canon 69: Declares Jews disqualified from holding public offices, incorporating into ecclesiastical law a decree of the Holy Christian Empire.
• Canon 70: Takes measures to prevent converted Jews from returning to their former belief.

Jews had to wear a distinctive badge of identification, usually the star of David.  During the reign of Bela IV from 1235 to 1270, many Jews settled in Hungary as his property. 

Béla IV of Hungary

 They enjoyed good relations with their neighbors.   Jews often were the minters of coins.  Some of them even had Hebrew inscriptions on them.  

The Pope put pressure on the people and the Jews, but Jews remained in a good position until 1349 when they all were expelled for the first time in Hungary.  A 2nd time took place in 1360.  Then many Jews immigrated from neighboring countries when the edict was revoked in 1364.  A year later, the office of "Judge of the Jews" was established to collect taxes from the Jewish population  and protect their interests.  The last judge was appointed in 1440.  

The 15th and 16th centuries were marked by recurrent charges of Ritual Murder.  They blamed Jews for killing a child they may have found murdered somewhere and said the Jews did it so they could use the child's blood in making matzos for Passover.  Of course it's the worst of lies said for an excuse to kill Jews.  The reason was that then they could cancel debts of money owed to the Jews.  

For nearly a 150 years until 1686, the Jews of Budapest and southern Hungary enjoyed a large measure of civic equality and religious liberty under the occupying Ottoman regime, although they were subject to their heavy taxes being they were dhimmis, or 2nd class citizens.  .

The restoration of Hungarian sovereignty brought in its wake expulsions and the exclusion of Jews from agriculture and the professions.  At the same time, some nobles protected the Jews whose numbers were augmented by refugees from Vienna in 1670.  The Jewish population increased because they were joined by Jew arriving from Moravia and Poland in the first half of the 18th century.  
                                                     

The Polish immigrants brought the study of the Talmud to Hungary.  They established important centers of learning.    

Rabbi Samson "Wertheimer (1658-1724) born in Worms, Germany, 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. 
                                       
                                       Rabbi Samson Wertheimer

     Wertheimer is the man  I match in DNA along with others in a DNA group on FTDNA which traces back to him.  This was found by triangulation of DNA.  The
genealogy I've done only goes back to Telsiai, Lithuania and our Goldfus family.  Descendants of Iones Jonah Goldfus

1  Iones Jonah Goldfus b: Abt. 1730 in Telsiai, Telsiai, Kaunas, Lithuania d: 1813 in prob. Telsiai, Telsiai, Kaunas, Lithuania

 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." 

During Maria Theresa's reign, many new methods were created for exacting money from the Jews, who had been the big money-lenders.  The rule of Joseph II (1780 to 1790) brought the  right to establish schools, lease lands, engage in all trades and professions and ive in the royal cities.  The Jewish badge was abolished, and the Jews had to adopt German surnames.  All this was then nullified at Joseph's death.  It was followed with a struggle to regain these legal rights plus an increeased Magyarization of the Jewish community.                   


 There was a a revolution between Austria and Hungary.   Wholehearted support for the 1848 revolution brought severe reprisals by the Austrians.  It took until 1867 till the Jews were finally granted full civic and political rights.  Then Hungarian Jewry became divided in its religious life into two opposing camps of orthodox and liberal Jews.  
                                                      

The rapid integration of the Jews into the country's life received a brief setback with the rise of 19th century anti-Semitism, culminating in the TISZAESZLAR Ritual Murder libel.  "An accusation of Jewish ritual murder in the Hungarian village of Tiszaeszlár (before 1918, in Szabolcs county) led to the arrest, imprisonment, interrogation, and eventual trial of 13 Jewish defendants, April 1882–August 1883. The Tiszaeszlár affair began with the disappearance of a 14-year-old Christian girl named Eszter Solymosi on 1 April 1882. "

Jews played a prominent part in the cultural life of Hungary before World War I.  Jews played a disproportionate participation in the Communist Revolution of 1919 so suffered heavily after the collapse of the Bela KUN regime, and discrimination of many kinds was instituted against them.  After the advent of Nazism in Germany, the scope of anti-Jewish measures enacted by the government had increased.  These also applied to  300,000 Jews in territories which the Hungarians annexed from Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and Romania during World War II.  
                                                          

In 1944, the Nazis overran Hungary, imposing ghettos, concentration camps and deportations to extermination centers.  Of Hungary's 725,000 Jews, about 400,000 were murdered in the Holocaust.  After the liberation, all pre-war organizations were re-established.  The accession to power of the communists in 1948 led to the nationalization of Jewish institutions, and religious organizations were centralized under one authority.  

Some 20,000 Jews fled Hungary after the 1956 revolution.  Jewish communal and religious life (including the Budapest rabbinical seminary) continued under the communist regime but flourished more freely with the introduction of liberalization.  80,000 Jews were registered with the community by 1990, but there were many more who were not affiliated.  

The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Charles-VI-Holy-Roman-emperor
http://www.yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Tiszaeszlar_Blood_Libel

Nadene Goldfoot                                   

RASHI, famous biblical and Talmudic commentator whose thoughts are in our prayer books b: 1040 in Troyes, France, d: 1105 France Studied in the Rhineland  Rabbi Solomon Yitzhaki (ben Isaac) =RASHI

   
   I woke up with an idea brewing in my head.  It finally bubbled up and I knew what to search.  When I had spoken with my 3rd cousin, Stanley Goldfoot, many years ago in Jerusalem, he had mentioned that he thought the Goldfoot line was related to the Gaon of Vilna, a Lithuanian Rabbi of great esteem of the Mitnaggedim branch of Jewish thought.  Goldfoot or the original name of Goldfus is not listed as a descendant of the Gaon in Chaim Freedman's book, ELIYAHU'S BRANCHES, the bible of genealogy for the Gaon.  I surmised at the time that Stanley's connection must have been from his mother's side.  She was a Tavriger.  I promptly put aside the thought that we might be connected.
                                                                       

Rabbi Samson Wertheimer b: 1658 Worms, Germany; d: 1724 Vienna, Austria Nephew of Samuel Oppenheimer

We already belong to Halpern and Branches, a DNA group of people  on Family Tree DNA that have found out their connection to Rabbi Samson Wertheimer who led to RASHI who also led to King David.  I wondered today if it were possible to have roots with both of these famous rabbis.

Another route to RASHI, I was told, was through the surname, Rubenstein.  I'm not sure which one is the common ancestor.  Rabbi Wertheimer was one route the group had discovered and another was Rubenstein.

There was a Rabbi Isaac Rubinstein b: 1880-d: 1945.  In 1906 he was appointed as the rabbi in Vilna by the government.  In 1920 he was made Minister of Jewish Affairs in the Lithuanian government.  Vilna, a center of Jewish learning in Lithuania, was annexed to Poland in 1922.  Rubinstein was elected to the Polish Senate where he fought for Jewish rights. until the Nazis came.  He became joint chief rabbi of Vilna in 1928.  Then Soviet Russia annexed Lithuania in 1940.  Rubinstein left the country then for New  York and taught at the Rabbi Isaac ElhananYeshivah. 
                                                                             
My family tree has an extensive history of Stanley's family who left Lithuania at about the same time my grandfather, Nathan Abraham Goldfus did.  Stanley's mother's history of Tavriger is found only in Ireland, where Stanley's parents and my grandfather also lived after leaving Lithuania;  mine being a very short period there.  A Tavriger was married to a Reubenstein, not a Rubenstein.  That spelling doesn't come up much anymore if ever.
                                                                             
I checked my matches on Family Tree DNA and lo and behold, I had 8 matches of Rubenstein; 2 males and 6 females of which all were 5th cousins except for a male and female 4th cousins.   Then I found that I matched 5 Rubinsteins of which 4 were 4th cousins and one was a 5th.            They probably gave us more paths to RASHI.  However, my 1st cousin, daughter of my father's sister, had 13 Rubenstein matches; seven 4th cousins and five 5th cousins.   She also matched 15 Rubinsteins.                                               

The Gaon of Vilna b: 1720 in Lithuania d: 1797 in Vilna, Lithuania Claimed descent from King David

  One of her Rubenstein 5th cousins bore this exciting information:  that she was a descendant of the Gaon of Vilna. She also had Katzenellenbogen on her tree.   

Katzenellenbogen  is an important surname and is found in the book by Dan Rottenberg, FINDING OUR FATHERS-a guide to Jewish Genealogy.  In this book on page 11 is chart B with RASHI's traditional ancestors.  On page 12 is chart C with Rashi and his Descendants.  On page 13 is chart D of the Luria family showing an unbroken line almost back to RASHI.  On page 14 is the last chart of E, showing how he families Rashi, Treves, Luria, Minz, Katzenellenbogen, WAhl, Drucker, Horowitz, Isserles and even Karl Marx are all related to each other.  

The relationship to the Gaon of Vilna also includes: Claire Oppenheim and Nora Oppenheimer. Also, there are 4 Rubensteins listed in Freedman's book that connect to the Gaon.   

  Rabbinical families tended to intermarry if they were within distance and in the same generations.  With traveling in today's world, we are brought together and have wonderful ancestry to mix with each other.  While not from rabbinical families, my aunt and her husband married, not ever knowing that they were distantly related. He just managed to get out of Germany in 1939 and our family had left Germany possibly by the 1500's when we could have entered Lithuania.   This was discovered through a tool on GedMatch through her daughter's DNA.  I wonder if I"ll match someone related to the Gaon of Vilna.  


                                                                   

David ruled from 1010 BCE to 970 BCE over Israel. He took over from King Saul. That's over 3,000 years ago.  He was Jesse's 8th son and was from the tribe of Judah while King Saul was from the tribe of Benjamin.

Several roads lead to being the descendants of King David.  "Most families claim descent from King David through Rashi. Several families claim descent "ben akhar ben"(father to son) in a direct line, most notably the Dayan, Shealtiel and Charlap/Don Yechia, families*."Hillel, Rabban Gamliel, Rabbi Yehuda Hanasi, Yochanan Hasandler, Rashi, the Rambam and Yosef Karo as well as the more contemporary gedolim like the Baal Shem Tov, the Breslevor Rebbe and the first Lubavicher Rebbe, Shneur Zalman of Liadi, to name but a few have traced their family back to King David.

Wives of David, King of Israel,  

1  [1] King of Israel David b: in 1000 BCE Bethlehem d: in 960 BCE Occupation: King of Israel
.. +Bathsheba b: in Giloh, Judah
*2nd Wife of [1] King of Israel David:
.. +Ahinoam of Jezreel
*3rd Wife of [1] King of Israel David:
.. +Michal the First, Daughter of Saul
*4th Wife of [1] King of Israel David:
.. +Abigail b: in Carmelite
*5th Wife of [1] King of Israel David:
.. +Maachah Fromgeshur
*6th Wife of [1] King of Israel David:
.. +Merab
*7th Wife of [1] King of Israel David:
.. +Haggith
*Partner of [1] King of Israel David:
.. +Abital
*8th Wife of [1] King of Israel David:
.. +Eglah
*9th Wife of [1] King of Israel David:

.. +Maacah


Research:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rashi
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
Finding Our Fathers by Dan Rottennberg
Eliyahu's Branches by Chaim Freedman 
http://eliyahusbranches.blogspot.com/2011/02/ancestry-of-gaon-of-vilna-descent-from.html
http://www.davidicdynasty.org/*
Tanakh, the Stone Edition (bible) 

My hobby of genealogy has led me to find that my genes connect my family to a Rabbi Samson Wertheimer (1658 in Worms, Germany)  or his brother, Moshe Wertheimer,  Rabbi Samson died in 1724 in Vienna, Austria.  He was the nephew of Samuel Oppenheimer and they were both financiers of royalty.  They were called  court financiers!  I found this out through taking the familyfinder DNA test with FTDNA and being found by a couple of ladies doing triangulation to find people connected to the surname of Halpern.  Personally, I matched 4 of today's Wertheimers and am either 4th or 5th cousins with them with from 60cMs to 80cMs total over anywhere from 17 to 23 segments of chromosomes.  My sharing a common ancestor could go back as far as 356 years ago, but I would guess someone in his family that was carrying these genes as well, perhaps a Wertheimer.  It's exciting to realize that segments of someone's genes have gone to each generation intact, losing a few cMs along the way till I inherited such segments from my father.

UPDATE: 2/14/18:  
A message from our leader of Halpern & Branches , Andi Alpert  Ziegelman, of 8/26/13 explained that the common ancestor of the group was Zevulun Eliezer Heilprin, and that's where she and others were descendants. 
  We had NO matches from this line.

We had 11 or so Halperns on our list of matches, however, and they come from the non-Zevulun Eliezer Heilprin lines.  We also have almost all the Alperoviches.  She and other Alps also connect to the Zevulun Eliezer line. Their connection and they being on our list means that someone from our Halpern family married the Alperovich family founder because 9 Alps are on our list.  

Heilprin of 1510 was the son of Hilborn Yitzchak of Dampieire.  

Another Heilprin of importance was Jehiel ben Solomon born about 1660 and died in 1746.  He was a scholar and rabbi at Glusk in White Russia (Belorussia) and by 1711 lived in Minsk.  He wrote Seder ha-Dorot which had a chronology to 1696 that was in alphabet order of tannaim (rabbinical teachers of the Mishnah of the 1st two centuries CE)  and amoraim  (rabbinical scholars in Palestine and Babylonia in the 3rd to 6th centuries, recorded in the Talmud).  He also wrote a catalog of post-talmudic Hebrew authors and books.  He was not only a well-educated rabbi, but had a wide secular education and was a student of Kabbalah.  

The latest information I have is that we connect to Wertheimer by 3 different paths.  
                                                                             

Charles b:1906 and Morris (my father)b: 1908 Goldfoot in Portland. I would say that here they are 5 and 3 years old.

My father's parents were new immigrants from Lithuania and couldn't speak English.
                                                                         

1910 at the first St. Vincent's Hospital in Portland. My grandfather died in 1912-probably in this room.  He had hit his head.

  Grandfather Nathan was killed while driving his horse and wagon.  His horse was frightened and ran, careening through the streets of SE Portland, and threw out Nathan who hit his head and never woke up, dying in the ancient hospital that one day his ggrandson would work in as a nurse.  The only difference is that the ancient one was replaced by a new building.
                                                                           

Vintage Portland at Front and Morrison when my parents were babies. Notice the horses and wagons.  Nathan had one like this and went to the docks to get boxes and then deliver them in SE Portland.  Nathan had a one horse wagon and my other grandfather had 4 horses.

 My  father would plotz if he knew his ancestors were court financiers.  He had to come up the ladder the hard way.  Starting as a kosher butcher, he finally owned Silver Falls Meat Packing Co, and was in competition with such places on the Columbia River as Swift and Armour.  There have been a few people that he lent money to in order to give them a start in their own business.

My brother matched 2 Wertheimers, a 4th and a 5th cousin.  Our 1st cousin matched 7 Wertheimers, all 4th cousins a one 5th cousin.  A Goldfoot 3rd cousin, discovered a few years ago, matched 4 Wertheimers with 3 that were 4th cousins and one 5th cousin.

                                                                                     

Rabbi Samuel Oppenheimer, the uncle

Rabbi Samson Wertheimer

   
Rabbi Samson Wertheimer b: in Worms, Germany 1658-died in 1724, joined the bank of his uncle Oppenheimer in Vienna in 1684; became a court banker with him;; established a fund to help paupers in Palestine which existed until 1914:  Uncle  Samuel Oppenheimer b: 1630-d: 1703.  Oppenheimer was the first Jew to settle in Vienna after the 1670 expulsion probably because he was Germany's

Emperor Leopold I 1640-1705 of Germany

Emperor Leopold I's agent and financier and had helped to finance his wars with the Turks and the War of the Spanish Succession.

In 1697, Oppenheimer was accused of the unthinkable;  conspiring to murder his rival, Uncle Samson Wertheimer, so he was imprisoned until vindicated.  He was a man who liberally supported the poor Jewish scholars, and also Judah Hasid's movement to settle in Palestine.

We have Oppenheim on our tree, but also know that we are connected to Rabbi Samson Wertheimer by DNA testing using triangulation of other matches.  Our surname in Telsiai, Lithuania was Goldfus.

Descendants of Sender Opengeim Oppenheim

1   Sender Opengeim Oppenheim b: Abt. 1814 in Telsiai, Telsiai, Kaunas, Lithuania
. 2   Yontav ben Sekor OPPENHEIM b: 1839 in Telsiai, Kaunas, Lithuania
..... +Gutta Golda bat Nochem GOLDFUS b: 1839 in Telsiai, Kaunas, Lithuania
..... 3   Khaim Nokhum OPPENHEIM b: September 12, 1875 in Telsiai, Telsiai, Kaunas, Lithuania
. 2   Iosif OPPENHEIM b: Abt. 1841
..... +Guta
..... 3   Mikhail Itsyk Opengeim OPPENHEIM b: July 09, 1877
. 2   Shaia OPPENHEIM b: Abt. 1843
..... +Zlate Pere
..... 3   Zelman OPPENHEIM b: July 23, 1878
. 2   Leib OPPENHEIM b: Abt. 1845
..... +Rokhel b: Abt. 1845
..... 3   Liba Tsivia OPPENHEIM b: September 06, 1897 in Telsiai, Telsiai, Kaunas, Lithuania

On Family Tree DNA's familyfinder test (autosomal) , I found I share segments from our 23 chromosomes with: Oppenheim on our tree shown above but  have no Wertheimers  on my tree as yet.

Familyfinder test:  that I am connected to 3 Oppenheims and one Oppenheimer.
.....   that I am connected to 4 Wertheimers
Familyfinder Test of my brother: 1 Oppenheim and 1 Oppenheimer, different from my matches
..... of my brother:  1 Wertheimer- I match and 1 Wertheimer I don't match.
Familyfinder Test of our 1st cousin-daughter of our father's sister:  4 Oppenheim-(2 matching mine, 1 matching my brother's, and 1 Oppenheimer not matching ours).
.....of my 1st cousin:  6 Wertheimers-(1 I match, same 2 that David matches,)

There was a Rabbi David Oppenheim (or Oppenheimer) b: 1664 d: 1736, nephew of Samuel Oppenheimer.
He was born in Worms, Germany and served as rabbi in Nikelsburg, and from 1702, in Prague.  He built up a library of books  and expended enormous sums on their acquisition, but, because of the censorship in Prague, kept them in Hanover, Germany.  The Bodleian Library Oxford purchased his collection in 1829, and it served as the basis of its Hebrew sections.

There are many descendants of these Oppenheims, Oppenheimers and Wertheimers.  One way to check if they are related is through their Y haplogroup (male line).

I found some of our Oppenheim/Oppenheimers' Y haplogroups were : J, or R's
Some of the Wertheimers were J or E's.  Not all had been tested.