On the Ancestry of Rabbi Salomon Baruch Borchardt

Until now, we had not been able to discover who the ancestors of Rabbi Salomon Baruch Borchardt were. We did know that he must
have been born around the year 1770, but we still do not know where. We knew that he married a Scheine (J eanette), but we still do
not know her maiden name. We knew that the couple had a fair number of children, all born between 1798 and 1812 in Neustadt
near Pinne / Lwwek. We knew that Salomon Baruch Borchardt later moved to Zirke / Sierakw, where he served as Rabbi, and that
he died in Unruhstadt / Kargowa, but that is just about all that we knew until now with any degree of confidence. There even was
some uncertainty as to the spelling of his family name. Was it Borchar dt , or was it Burchardt ?

The only true evidence that we have for the Burchardt spelling is the inscription on the gravestone of his daughter Marianne:

.

that clearly states her maiden name as Burchar dt :



She and her husband were buried in the J ewish cemetery of Guben (Mark Brandenburg) that survived the destructions of World War
II intact. The Hebrew side of the gravestone (translated with the help of Ruben Frankenstein) reads:



The Hebrew inscriptions on J ewish gravestones are hardly ever a one-to-one translation of the German inscription. The Hebrew side
of the gravestone does not mention Mariannes maiden name at all. On the other hand, it reveals the name of her father, Rabbi
Salomon Bar uch Burchardt .

Is then Burchar dt the correct spelling of the name? Instinctively, we trust gravestones. Whereas we know that paper is patient
(meaning that paper does not care what is written on it), the truthpresented on gravestones is (quite literally) carved in stone,and
therefore must be correct.

Yet stone is just as patient as paper (as Mariannes misspelled first name proves), and this is really the only evidence that we have
for the Burchardt spelling of the name. Mariannes brother, Rabbi Isaac Salomon Borchardt , spelled his family name with an o:


Her sister Basse Cohns death certificate lists her maiden name spelled with an o, and also the death certificate of my great-
grandmother, Rosal ie Borchardt , shows the maiden name of her mother, Caroli ne Borchardt , another sister of Mariannes, also
written with an o:




Which is more likely, that all of Mariannes siblings conspired in changing the spelling of their family name simultaneously while leaving
poor Marianne out on the deal, or that the gravestone had been overly patient? J ust think of Occams razor!

Do we have other evidence for the Burchardt spelling? The J udenbrgerbcher der Stadt Berlin list the name of Mariannes father
with an o:


Source: J udenbrgerbcher der Stadt Berlin

In contrast, the Biographisches Handbuch der Rabbiner depicts him with a u:


Source: Biographisches Handbuch der Rabbiner

However, we must distinguish corroborating evidence from an echo that echoes back from the forest. Ruben Frankenst ein, a direct
descendant of Marianne Rei ner, is the one who advocated the spelling with the ubased on Mariannes gravestone inscription.

I am convinced that the Burchar dt spelling is wrong, plain and simply. Marianne and her husband had no say in the matter. They
were both dead when their children commissioned the gravestone, and to them, Marianne had been Marianne Reiner for as long
as they could remember. There was no other Borchardt living in Guben at the time, and thus, they only knew their mothers maiden
name from hearsay and from a few Borchardt relatives who must have come to visit with Marianne and her family occasionally.

It is thus safe to assume that Rabbi Sal omon Baruch Borchardt was a descendant of the Borchardt of Halberstadt and Kslin. I
recently published an article on the origins of the Borchardt name that talks about this family in some detail.

From Salomons birthdate (approximately 1770), we can conclude that he must have been a fourth generation Borchardt. His fathers
name must have been Baruch x Borchar dt , where the x may stand for the first name of any one of the eight sons of Baruch ben
Lipmann. Until today, we did not know which of them it is.

The descendants of Marianne Reiner have been searching for Salomons father for ages without success. With the new knowledge
on the origins of the Borchardt family, I found him quickly. He went by the alternate family name of Kslin, and the literature remembers
him under the name of Rabbi Bar uch Kslin. J ust like his son and his grandson, he was a Rabbi. He served as Rabbi of Emden
(Lower Saxony), where he passed away in 1810.

Knowing that Baruch Kslin had been living in Emden, I was quickly able to find him listed under his Borchardt name as well. His full
name was Rabbi Baruch Davi d Borchar dt , and consequently, he must have been a son of Davi d Bor char dt of Kslin.

This then bridges the gap to Mari anne Reiner and her descendants:



Baruch David Borchardt married twice. Our ancestor, Rabbi Salomon Baruch Borchardt , was a son from his first marriage. We
still do not know where Salomon Baruch Borchardt was born, and we do not yet know the name of his mother. We know, however,
that Baruch David Borchardt lived in Amsterdam for a while. After the death of his first wife, he remarried in 1795 a Dutch J ewish
woman by the name of Golda Levi e Slesi nger. His only son from his second marriage, Davi d Levie Borchardt , was born in
Amsterdam, but already one year later in 1797, Baruch Borchardt was appointed Rabbi of Emden, and so, he moved back to Germany.
His two daughters, Branke and Ester Borchardt, were born in Emden, but both of them later moved back to Amsterdam where they
found Dutch J ewish husbands. Baruch David Borchardt died in Emden in 1810.

His son, Rabbi Sal omon Baruch Borchardt , lived as a young man in Neustadt near Pinne, which is where all of his children were
born:



Adol ph Raphal Borchardt , his firstborn son, moved later to England. Rabbi Isaac Sal omon Borchar dt moved to Berlin, where he
served as Rabbi. Basse Cohn (-Borchardt ) remained in Neustadt, where she married a tailor. Mari anne Rei ner (-Borchardt )
moved with her husband to Guben (Mark Brandenburg), and Carol ine Kwilecki (-Borchardt ) moved with her husband to Pinne. The
mobility was high in J ewish families, and so, the Borchardt name quickly spread over the entire planet.