Surname of Goldfoot's History

 Nadene Goldfoot                                          

                             Nathan Abraham Goldfoot b: January 1, 1871, d: July 19, 1912 

                                             Nokhim Avram"Abraham" of Abram Goldfus

                                                 Telsiai, Lithuania;  Portland, Oregon, USA

Nathan immigrated from Telsiai, Lithuania in 1893, and again on 1896 and went to England.  From there he went to Dublin, Ireland and married and I believe, divorced a Lena Goldberg.  From there he went on a ship from Londonderry Port  to Winnipeg, Canada and finally was found in Council, Idaho marrying my Bubbie, Zlata Jermiulowski/e.  

My father, Maurice (Moses-Morris-Maurice) Goldfoot, lost his father to a horse and wagon accident when he was only 4 years old, and our Bubby only spoke Yiddish which I didn't, so our history was lost to us.  It wasn't until I was much older when I took up genealogy as a hobby and found out so many things about our family. 

                                                                      

                                  Rabbi Abraham Goldberg and Rabbi Moshe Twersky

Researchers that have helped me are Mike Posnick and British-born Rabbi Abraham Goldberg of Jerusalem.  I failed to get the information from them as to their connection to the family.  In fact, I didn't know until Goldberg, age 68 was killed in a synagogue in Jerusalem that he was a rabbi.  He, along with other rabbis were killed by a terrorist or terrorists who burst in and slaughtered them. Now I wonder if he was connected to Lena Goldberg.  He was a father of 6 children.  Our email messages just didn't give me a chance to ask more.    Without their help, I would know very little.  

 Before Nathan died, he managed to leave 4 children; Charles, Morris, Elsie and Ann who in turn left 9 children of which Charles left one son and Morris left one son to carry on the surname.  I am using my maiden name preferably over my  married name.  Some of us women are doing that today, sort of joining the Spanish custom of naming.   Morris AKA Maurice's son, David took FTDNA's  Y haplogroup test and is  QBZ67.   He has one other person who he matched with this haplotype on FTDNA after taking the BIG Y test.  

Jews were named without surnames but with their father's name such as David, son of Moses.  The governments found they needed surnames of all citizens to carry on their functions, so this became a requirement, and they posted surnames to choose from and charged money for them.  Gold is the prefix of many Jewish surnames.  Germany was the first to do this, so Goldfus was selected and became a Yiddish surname.  Yiddish is the language the German Jews were speaking, a mixture of German and Hebrew.  It spread all over the Pale of Settlement and outside as well.  Gentiles also have Goldfuss as a surname. I've found a few Jews also using that spelling.  

I've discovered that we match RASHI who had a tree back to King David of Israel.  I tested my DNA first with 23&Me, then transferred my results to Family Tree DNA (FTDNA) and finally transferred my results to GEDMatch Genesis, where most serious researchers find out more.  We belong to the Halpern and Branches group started by Andi Ziegelman and Sandy Aaronson because I matched Andi as a 3rd cousin and matched others in the group enough as well.  

 Another group, iGENEA, did a study on our surname.  That's what prompted me to write this article.  First, a little history on FTDNA, run by Bennett Greenspan who happens to be my distant cousin, another  match.  Here are their results.  

First, FamilyTreeDNA was founded based on an idea conceived by Bennett Greenspan, a lifelong entrepreneur and genealogy enthusiast. In 1999, Greenspan had entered semi-retirement and was working on his family history. He began work on his mother's Nitz lineage. When faced with a roadblock in his work, he remembered two cases of genetics being used to prove ancestry that had recently been covered by the media. These were a study by University of Arizona researchers showing that many Cohen men from both Ashkenazic and Sephardic groups share the same Y-chromosome and a study that showed that male descendants of a paternal uncle of US President Thomas Jefferson (who presumably shared his Y-chromosome) and male-line descendants of his freed slave Sally Hemings shared the same Y-chromosome and a recent common ancestry.   It was early 2000 when Greenspan with his business partners Max Blankfeld and Jim Warren officially launched FamilyTreeDNA.  I signed up in 2013.  

"FamilyTreeDNA is a division of Gene by Gene, a commercial genetic testing company based in Houston, Texas. FamilyTreeDNA offers analysis of autosomal DNA, Y-DNA, and mitochondrial DNA to individuals for genealogical purpose. With a database of more than two million records, it is the most popular company worldwide for Y-DNA and mitochondrial DNA, and the fourth most popular for autosomal DNA. In Europe, it is the most common also for autosomal DNA." Autosomal is the test to find people who carry some of your genes, too, meaning that you both have a common ancestor and may be anything from siblings to 5th cousins and beyond.  At FTDNA it's called the familyfinder test.  

Family Finder allows customers to match relatives as distant as about fifth cousins. Family Finder also includes a component called myOrigins. The results of this test provide percentages of a DNA associated with general regions or specific ethnic groups (e.g. Western Europe, Asia, Jewish, Native American, etc.).

I think I'm one of the first to find out about the Ashina Royal Dynasty and wrote about it when I discovered it through a Y haplogroup Test of my brother's of his match, Alfred Freddy Krupa, who belongs to this.  Alfred is an artist, teaches art and lives in Croatia.  He lived in a castle there for many years until the government ended that and evidently took it over.  His Y test also shows he is a Q and has a distance of 4 with David, but they share no DNA.  

Between 2007 and 2010, FamilyTreeDNA forged several new partnerships that allowed them to access additional international markets.  The first of FamilyTreeDNA's new partnerships was with the Switzerland-based iGENEA Company. It was formed alongside the closing of DNA-Fingerprint and Thomas Krahn's helping open the Genomic Research Center in Houston. Their website is available in English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish.

Members:  Of iGENEA

4

Description:

The Goldfoot surname project is attempting to find where the line originated from and what countries they have been living in. We have found two members who are Q1b haplogroup and two who are of the R1b1b2 haplogroup. They share the same surname but are not related. They both come from Germany and Bavaria. We have a 73.94% chance of having an ancestor about 600 years ago, in the 1400's. Both Q1b are related. We just found out the results of the two 67 allele tests. 4 generations ago we have a 22.83% chance of being related. 8 generations ago the percent is 67.49%. 12 generations ago is 90.53%, 16 generations ago is 97.77%, 20 generations ago is 99.54% and 24 generations ago the chance of being related goes up to 99.91%. We had a perfect match with 64 out of the 64 alleles. The mutations were in the first set of 25 alleles; one slow mutater and two fast mutaters. It is a theory that the Q1b's are both members of the Ashina Royal Dynasty. We have now found out how connected we are to other Q1b's. We had two people only match a Goldfoot at the 12 allele level, and that hasn't changed. I surmise that Goldfoot (Goldfus/fuss) was a German name first, and later was adopted by Russian Jews when they had to take surnames. That these two Russian Goldfoots are a dna match tells me their surname makes them closer than I had showed on the tests, unless they both had roots in Germany first before going to Russia

Resource:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_Tree_DNA.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/nov/18/uk-born-victim-israel-synagogue-attack-avraham-shmuel-goldberg#:~:text=British%2Dborn%20rabbi%20Avraham%20Goldberg,others%2C%20his%20cousin%20has%20said.

RASHI's Family Tree and the Rabbi of Worms, Eleazar ben Judah

Nadene Goldfoot                                                            

                                                     RASHI (2/22/1040 CE-1105 CE)

Jerusalem fell in 70 CE to the Romans who burned it down.  Jews scattered to the four winds.  Many were taken to Rome.  From Rome they could escape to France and then go into the Rhineland, which became Germany.  About 1,000 years later we meet RASHI, Judaism's most famous commentator on the Torah and other Jewish writings in Troyes, France. "  Jews settled there very early.  Thought Ashkenaz means "Germany" in Hebrew, it includes France as well.  In fact, Rashi lived there first before being interested in Germany.  Jews lived in France according to legend sources at the time of the 2nd Temple.  They came with the legions of Rome later when they went there to conquer "Gaul" and make it a Roman colony.  Jews came, some as slaves forced to be soldiers, and stayed there.  Jews settled in France in 3 places:  Provence in southern France on the Mediterranean, the Rhineland, which was controlled under both France and Germany at different times, and Paris and Troyes.  They were only 25 miles apart.  Jews lived in Troyes for hundreds of years, but today there is no sign that they were ever there.  Ashkenazi Jews started as Frenchmen. The migration went eastward into Germany and Central Europe, and from there further east into Poland, Russia and Eastern Europe.  Most of the moving was "due to anti-Semitism and persecution."

Rashi's comments on the Torah are listed in the Jewish prayer books.  He is the most well known commentator of Jewish writings.  Rashi is the abbreviation for Rabbi Solomon Yitzhaki which is ben Isaac.  He was born in 1040 and died in 1105 CE in Troyes, France but had studied in the Rhineland.  He had a livelihood dependent on his vineyard.  He also wrote commentaries on the Babylonian Talmud.  His comments on the Pentateuch became universally popular and his notes on the Babylonian Talmud made that work an open book.  He wrote in a simple but concise style and he wrote with knowledge of Midrash.  " A legend relates that the Jews of Worms were descended from the Benjamites who had migrated from (Israel) to Germany."  The Benjamites were the offspring  and tribe of descendants of  Jacob and Rachel, who 2nd son was Benjamin.  Their first son had been Joseph.  Rachel had died in childbirth.  

Rashi was the son of Rabbi Yitzchak Tzarfati [RASHI father], רבי יצחק צרפתי - אבי רש"יand Leah Miriam Bat Yizchak Tzarfati [RASHI mother], לאה מרים צרפתי - אם רש"י
Husband of Rivkah wife of Rashi
Father of Yocheved bat RASHI Kalonimus, יוכבד קלונימוס בת רש"י; Miriam Bat RASHI, Ben Natan, מרים בת רש"י אשת ריב"ן and Rachel bat Rashi / רחל בת רש"י
                                                                     

                              Jewish headstones in the once Jewish Quarter of Worms
                                                       
One of his descendants 120 years later was Eleazar ben Judah of Worms.  He actually was a native of Mainz, Germany.   "It was the capital of the Electorate of Mainz at the time of the Holy Roman Empire. In antiquity Mainz was a Roman fort city which commanded the west bank of the Rhine and formed part of the northernmost frontier of the Roman Empire; it was founded as a military post by the Romans in the late 1st century BC and became the provincial capital of Germania Superior. The city is located on the river Rhine at its confluence with the Mainopposite Wiesbaden, in the western part of the Frankfurt Rhine-Main; in the modern age, Frankfurt shares much of its regional importance."  

The Jewish community of Mainz dated from the 10th century CE and was noted for its religious education found there.  Rabbi Gershom ben Judah (960-1040) taught there among others.  At this time he concentrated on the study of the Talmud and created a German Jewish tradition.  Rabbi Amnon of Mainz was also from this city and had been martyred.  He was the composer of the Unetanneh Tokef prayer.  The Jews of Maniz, Speyer and Worms created a supreme council to set standards in Jewish law and education in the 12th century.  

Non-Jews in Mainz sometimes allowed Jews freedom and protected them but at other times persecuted them.  Jews were expelled in 1012 and 1462.  Later they were invited to return, but then in 1474 were expelled again.  They were attacked by mobs in 1283.  The Black Death was usually blamed on the Jews.  At such outbreaks, they were massacred as in 1349 when about 6,000 Jews were burned alive.  

 His full name was Eleazar Ben Judah Ben Kalonymos, or for short, Eleazar Rokeah.  He was born in about 1160 in Manz, Franaconia (Germany) and died in 1238 in Worms.  He was a rabbi, liturgical poet, mystic kabbalist, Talmudist and codifier.  He was a part of the eminent Kalonymos family, which gave medieval Germany many of its spiritual leaders and mystics. Rabbeinu Gershom explicitly prohibited polygamy for the first time in Jewish history.  Both he and Rashi lived in Worms.    Judah ben Samuel, a Hasid of Regensburg was his teacher and spiritual master.
                                                                 

Eleazar's wife was a businesswoman, allowing her husband to study and work on his findings.  In 1196, two Christian crusaders broke into his house and murdered his wife and 2 daughters in front of him.

 Even after going through this traumatic event, he continued to teach a doctrine of love of humanity.  He became a rabbi at Worms in 1201 and in 1223 took part in a synod at Mainz, which debated about problems such as business relations with Christians and the "inequitable exemptions of favored Jews" from the taxes imposed by the government.    His works stressed the idea of repentance.  He wrote "The Book of the Spice-Dealer".

Eleazar had studied Kabbalism, which is an influential body of Jewish mystical writings, and the Talmud, which is the rabbinical compendium of law, lore and commentary.  He tried to unify these opposing aspects of Judaism in his writings, often with interesting results.  He was an angelologist.  He held mystical theories of theurgy, which is the art of persuading or compelling supernatural beings to one's bidding.  Eleazar believed that the Kavod, a ruling angel, was an emanation from G-d and the knowable aspect of him, while G-d himself was infinitely transcendent and unknowable.  He also wrote mystical commentaries on the 5 scrolls of Song of Solomon, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, and Esther, and on the Five Books of Moses.

"Kalonymos or Kalonymus (Hebrew: קלונימוס‎) is a prominent Jewish family originally from Lucca, Italy, "city of Tuscany, Italy. Its Jewish community is known in literature especially through the Kalonymus family of Lucca, whose ancestor saved the life of the German emperor Otto II. after the battle of Cotrone in Calabria (982), and seems thereupon to have settled at Mayence, where the family had extensive privileges.".  Then, after the settlement at Mainz and Speyer of several of its members, took during many generations a leading part in the development of Jewish learning in Germany. The family is according to many considered the foundation of Hachmei and Hasidei Ashkenaz."

Worms turned out to be an important Jewish city for the Jewish academia.  The city was old, having existed before Roman times, which the Romans had captured and fortified under Drusus in 14 BCE.  The Romans kept a small troop of infantry and cavalry there who were garrisoned in Augusta Vangionum.  Originally the Celtic people had settled there and called it Borbetomagus.  It grew, with the garrison turning into a small town with the regularized Roman street plan, a forum, and temples for their main gods, Jupiter, Juno and Minerva.  On top of these was built the cathedral and another temple for Mars.  Roman inscriptions and altars and votive offerings are now in the city's archaeological museum along with a collection of Roman glass.  Found in this area were fragments of amphoras which show that olive oil that they held had come from Hispania Baetica by sea and then up the Rhine.  At Borbetomagus, Gunther, king of the Burgundians, was set up as a puppet-emperor, Jovinus as he was called during the disorders of 411-13.  Hun mercenaries overwhelmed them in 437 called in by the Roman,  General Aetius,  to put an end to Burgundian raids.

Worms, Germany, is a city in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, on the Rhine River and about 40 miles SW of Frankfurt-am-Main.  The census in 2004 showed it had 85,829 people.  It  was known in Medieval Hebrew under the name Varmayza or Vermaysa. which anglicized, would be "Worms."    It had become the center of Ashkenazic Judaism.  The Jewish community was established in the late 10th century and the first synagogue was erected in 1034.

By 1096, 800 Jews were murdered by crusaders and the local mob.  The Jewish cemetery in Worms dates from the 11th century and is believed to be the oldest surviving one in Europe.

There is the Rashi Synagogue there, which dates from 1175 and was carefully reconstructed after its desecration on Kristallnacht in 1938.  It is the oldest synagogue in Germany.

For hundreds of years, the Jewish Quarter was the center of Jewish life until Kristallnacht.  That was the year that much of the Jewish Quarter was destroyed.  Today, Worms has a very small Jewish population.  There were renovations in the 70's and 80's.  Many of the buildings of the Quarter can be seen in a reconstuction of the original, preserved as an outdoor museum.

In 2010, the synagogue was fire bombed.  Eight corners of the building were set on fire.  Somebody threw a Molotov cocktail through the window.  Kurt Beck, Minister-President of Rhineland-Palatinate, condemned the attack and vowed to find  the guilty.  He said, "We will not tolerate such an attack on a synagogue."

Today, with DNA coming out of scientific achievements, people are finding they are part of a group who have had their DNA tested and find they are matching with others who have a direct connection to the Rabbi of Worms, and therefore, to Rashi.  A group is formed at Family Tree DNA called the Halpern and Branches, part of the Jewish Heritage Project. My family genes are connected to the Rabbi of Worms.   I believe that Rashi would have been a Cohen bearing the Y haplogroup of J1, but descendants carrying some of these genes  would be of other lineages because of his only having daughters. The Eshet Chayil Foundation is tracing the descendants of King David, and they list Rashi in their material as well as the Luria family.  Their tree leads to the Gaon of Vilna b: 1720 in Lithuania, of which my oral history is that we are connected to him. Now there could be some truth to this because of our Rabbi of Worms connection and the fact that my grandfather was born in Lithuania.

A Rashi family tree can be seen at http://www.loebtree.com/rashi.html. and at http://www.loebtree.com/rashi.html.   He had 3 daughters.
[1] Rashi: Rabbi Solomon ben Isaac (b. 1040 Troyes/Champagne, France, d. 1105 Troyes/Champagne, France) marriedBatisaak daughter of Isaak BENABUN. They lived in France. Rashi wrote well known concise commentary on the bible.

Reference:  http://www.geni.com/projects/THE-RASHI-LEGACY-Kalonymos-Treves-Luria-and-Spira-Families/56
Encyclopedia Brittanica
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worms,_Germany
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mainz
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalonymos_family
http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/15013-worms
http://www.loebtree.com/rashi.html
http://www.davidicdynasty.org/familytrees.php--including Rashi
http://www.jewishhistory.org/ashkenazic-jewry-in-france/