The Weisenau family name comes from the village on the Rhine, today part of Mainz, where many of the Mainz Jews had settled after the expulsion from Mainz in 1473. In the Frankfurt Jewish community the name Weisenau was particularly prominent in the 16th and 17th centuries. The outstanding figure was Simon von Weisenau at the Roter Hirsch. The family was very prosperous, and its members figured constantly in the list of highest tax payers. Their wealth came particularly from trade.