Mendle Bacherach aus Lauchheim zum Knoblauch ben Jitschak - Laucheim-Jotem

Mendel "Jotem" Bacharach

Mendel Bacharach of the Knoblauch, called Mendel Jotem, was ancestor of the Stiefel and Drach families, among others. He died on 23 August 1599 and is buried with his wife, Edel, daughter of Moses Weissenberg of the Kessel (HO 362, Epidat ffb-1881). Their beautiful and very legible gravestone is shown on Epidat. On the stone, Mendel is called "Mendel Jotem" not "Mendel Lochem". At some point, Ettlinger, who had only Horovitz's transcription to go on, was forced to conclude that this referred to the town of Lauchheim, which it does not.

Mendel is also mentioned on the Ele Toldot house pages for the Kessel (individual #42) and the Knoblauch, which he built (individual #1). On the latter typewritten page, Ettlinger has added a long handwritten note regarding the mystery of the name Jotem, endeavoring to figure out why the name on the gravestone, as quoted in various burial registry entries, is different from the name shown by Horovitz.

Mendel is mentioned in records extracted by Andernacht as follows: Set B-2: #936, #1068, #2423, and #2851. However, all of these refer to him by his house name, not by Bacharach nor Jotem.

On the Ele Toldot sheet for Brendlin (=4 IV 1628) wife of Mendel Bacharach zum Rost (=um 1623), grandson of Mendel "Jotem", it is shown that Brendlin's burial record calls her husband "Mendlen ben Shmuel Jotem". The same Shmuel is mentioned in the Gruene Buch of Worms on page 80 "...in Elul 1608 money was sent to Shmuel bn Mendel Jotem in Frankfurt". These references confirm that the word was used as if it were a surname in the next generation as well, even though it fades away after that, at least in the Frankfurt sources.

On the Ele Toldot sheet for "Sprinze" Reik Stiefel (=30 XI 1633) it is shown that she was buried next to her grandfather Mendel "Jotem". In this case, as in the following one, the person recording the death and burial is reading directly from the stone. Ettlinger comments on this in his handwritten note, realizing that this "first person" reading, at a time when the stone was not very old, is probably reliable. When Schoenle Reinganum (daughter of Herz Gans) dies (=5 III 1715) the burial register states that she is buried next to the double gravestone of Mendel Jotem and his wife, and next to her father.

The detail of the portion of the headstone which shows the word "Jotem" and makes it clear how easy it was to misread it as "Lochem".

Isn’t that amazing? So we no longer need to worry about anybody living in Lauchheim. And in the next section, we’ll look again at Mendel’s possible mother Brendlin again. The reason why the conclusions about her are unclear to you is that there really are no conclusions, unfortunately. It’s one of those cases where all we can do for now is rule out certain things, rather than conclude anything. But in my next e-mail, I’ll go over what we do and don’t know, and we’ll find her eventually, especially now that we know we don’t have to look at the town of Lauchheim.