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Friday, July 5, 2019

Being Connected By DNA to Rabbi Samson Wertheimer or his Brother Back In 1658

Nadene Goldfoot
                                                                         
Rabbi Samson Wertheimer
One of the benefits of having my DNA tested by FTDNA was to find out I was a 3rd cousin to one of the heads of the group, Halpern & Branches, and then finding out that I was in a group connecting to Rabbi Samson Wertherimer (1658-1724) who was born in Worms, Germany.  He had gone to Vienna in 1684 to join the bank of his uncle Samuel Oppenheimer and soon became court banker.  He is also known now as a financier.


Some three hundred years ago, in the city of Vienna, capital of Austria, there lived a famous rabbi, Rabbi Samson Wertheimer. (Rabbi Samson Wertheimer was born in Worms in 1658 and died in Vienna at the age of 66. Through his great friend, Samuel Oppenheimer, the great financier, Rabbi Samson was presented to the royal court and, together, they were of great assistance to 
                                                    

                                        King Leopold the First. 
 Leopold I (FrenchLéopold;[a] 16 December 1790 – 10 December 1865) was a German prince who became the first King of the Belgians following the country's independence in 1830. He reigned between July 1831 and December 1865.  
Later, after the death of Oppenheimer, Rabbi Samson took over his post, which he kept also during the reign of King Joseph.)
This rabbi was renowned not only on account of his riches and high government position, but also on account of his wisdom and fine character.  He was King Leopold’s Finance-Minister, and was entrusted with all the financial secrets of the country. He also supplied much of the war material for the army in the great war with Spain at that time.  Because of this, he was accused of cheating and almost was either hung or burned alive in fire.  (Chabad story-reference below to finish reading). 
Why was this such a benefit?  Rabbi Samson had a tree showing a connection to RASHI, famous biblical scholar, and RASHI was a descendant of King David.  Back in the ancient days, all men on the Sanhedrin had to have trees to show such a connection.  

There are other known Wertheimers.  Joseph Von W.(1800-1887) was an Austrian educator and author which is what I am except I'm from the USA.  This man was first a businessman and established the 1st kindergarten in Vienna in 1830.  He founded a society for developing handicrafts among the Jews in 1840.  He supported the struggle for equal rights by writing  comprehensive accounts of Jews in Austria.  He was the author of popular plays, too.  
                                                

Max Wertheimer (1880-1943) was a psychologist and taught in Germany until 1933 since the movement against Jews had become so strong that he decided to move to New York where he taught at the New School for Social Research.  He was a founder of the Gestalt theory of psychology.  He's written many books, all on amazon.com.  Too bad he passed away before the time of DNA testing.  I wonder what he would think of students of today?  "  He's buried in New Rochelle, Westchester, New York.  His father was Moses Wertheimer and mother was Elizabeth Dreyfus.  He married Miriam K. Solomon on August 30, 1908.  


My brother, now a retired psychologist,  matched with 3 Wertheimers of which 2 were men I didn't match,  and I matched 4.  All were either 4th or 5th cousins. My 1st female cousin matched 10 Wertheimers of which 5 not my brother or my matches.  My male 1st cousin matched 2  of the ones my brother and I matched.  It looks like we females match more Wertheimers than our male counterparts.  My cousins are children of my father's sisters.   No Wertheimer we matched was of Q haplotype, but were Js, Es and R.  (2 of my matches matched each other on one chromosome with a little over 5cMs.  One was a 4th cousin and the other a 5th.) That was the only 3 people on the same chromosome and segment match I had-a triangulation with them.  
                                                     
Wertheim Castle

There was the surname of Wertheim. This is an example of a surname being taken from the town they were from.  Jews had to buy their surnames, usually from a certain list of surnames up for sale for Jews.  Like Goldfoot, there are Jewish Goldfoots and Gentile Goldfoots with a completely different Y haplotype.  Ours is Q, theirs is R, one of the more common surnames found in Europe.  

 Wertheim am Main is a municipality in Germany. Wertheim (East FranconianWärde) is a town in southwestern Germany, in the state of Baden-Württemberg with a population of around 23,400. It is located on the confluence of the rivers Tauberand Main. Wertheim is best known for its landmark castle and medieval town centre.

"Maurice Wertheim was born on February 16, 1886 to Jacob Wertheim and his wife, Hannah A. Morgenthau Wertheim. Jacob Wertheim was a founder of Wertheim & Schiffer (later Kerbs, Wertheim & Schiffer), one of several domestic cigar-manufacturing companies which were combined in 1902 to form the United Cigar Manufacturers Company, of which he became president. Jacob was also at one time director of the General Motors Corporation, a director of the Underwood Typewriter Company, and a director of several large real-estate concerns. He was also a founder of the Federation for the Support of Jewish Philanthropic Societies."

I see the middle name of Morgenthau, which is a Jewish name.  "Hans Joachim Morgenthau (February 17, 1904 – July 19, 1980) was one of the major twentieth-century figures in the study of international politics. Morgenthau's works belong to the tradition of realism in international relations theory, and he is usually considered, along with George F. Kennan and Reinhold Niebuhr, one of the three leading American realists of the post-World War II period. Morgenthau made landmark contributions to international relations theory and the study of international law. His Politics Among Nations, first published in 1948, went through five editions during his lifetime.

Morgenthau was born in an Ashkenazi Jewish family in CoburgSaxe-Coburg and GothaGermany in 1904, and, after attending the Casimirianum, was educated at the universities of BerlinFrankfurt, and Munich, and pursued postdoctoral work at the Graduate Institute of International Studies in GenevaSwitzerland.  On the other hand, there may be Morgenthaus of a Y haplogroup not common to Jews who proves to be a Gentile.  We have to remember that there are Catholic families who had been from Jewish families in the past, and now their descendants have no idea of their Jewish heritage.  That's why testing for the Y haplogroup is so important in such cases if facts are desired.  

Resource:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wertheim_%26_Co.
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/112291/jewish/Rabbi-Samsons-Great-Escape.htm


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