Change Your Jewish Last Name

"In a world where anti-Semitism is becoming less a reality and more of an inside joke..."

Yeah, maybe in arts communities and urban centers, but in most of the world anti-Semitism is alive and well.  I hang out with New York hipsters and have still encountered very upsetting anti-Semitism.  I'm glad it's just an "inside" joke for you, but I think that's kind of short-sighted.

I grew up with a distinctly Jewish last name. Plus, hypenated--oy! And to indulge in stereotyping, I may have some Izfro action happening.

My husband had the hair, but not the name. He tells me that he didn't really experience anti-semitism growing up.

I got checked for horns.

When we got married, we both changed our names to take on the names of our families combined, to respect the heritage for which our families immigrated and died. In the scant five months we've been married, my husband has experienced anti-semitism. 

But, we're welcome in any shul anywhere in the world--I guess everyone has to pick their battles. That's what's nice about the metling pot; like our grandparents who Anglicized their names and forgot their Yiddish, we get to choose what to keep and what to leave behind.

 

The author's reality sounds nothing like mine. Jews who use a Jewish last name to schmooze other Jews? Of course, the corollary is Jews who change their names to better schmooze the non-Jewish world.  Either way, no thanks. 

 I thought this was going to be a thread about Hebraicizing Ashkenazi last names like they often do in Israel. That's something I can appreciate. What are "Jewish last names" but German or modified German words? It harkens back to a time when upwardly mobile Jews aspired to join mainsttream German society by taking, and sometimes even purchasing, German surnames. 

How'd that attempt at ingratiation into continental society end up working out?

 We've all heard of people who avoid setting foot in Germany, Austria, Lithuania, Poland, wherever. We've heard of people who refuse to drive Mercedes, BMW, Porsche, or VW because of their Nazi legacy. America is the New World. Why not take a new name to go with it, one that still retains your old family totem, but in the language of Jewish liberation rather than the languages of eliminationist antisemitism?

Peres instead of Persky. Shamir instead of Jezerniecky. Sharon instead of Scheinermann. Ben Zvi instead of Shimshelevitz. Rabin instead of Rubitzov. Barak instead of Brog. Yadin instead of Sukenin. Etc.

Aren't modern Jewish names simply the result of trying to adopt names that would help Jews better fit into their European host cultures at the time, much like American Jews who change their name from Kaplan to Copeland or Finkl to Franklin? Well, since we know how that attempt at acceptance in Europe worked out, maybe holding onto those Europeanized names isn't so crucial anymore.  

 

I've kind of had the opposite problem when it comes to being accepted in the Jewish community. My name definitely passes muster, so people put me on their mailing lists and invite me to stuff, and then when those same people see that I don't look like their notion of "what an Ashkenazi Jew looks like" and/or hear that my mom's not Jewish, the invites often get rescinded.

Names are part of it, but the real issue is getting the Jewish community to be more inclusive and welcoming.

"In a world where anti-Semitism is becoming less a reality and more of an inside joke, what happens to the Jewish Name Game? It becomes a commercial nightmare; a transactional tool that is exploitive and frankly, demeans the Jewish people. "

 Such complacency of the Jewish people was punished before, and it will be punished again unless we are careful. Just because YOU feel at home in Brooklyne N.Y. or Brookline M.A. doesn't mean that anti-Semitism is a "joke". Have you rad what is being said in Hungary's parliament? shown on Turkish/Arabic/Persian TV? To all Jews who think anti-Semitism is dead in the US, read the American comments to Haaretz article about Madoff. Listen to a few of Farakhan's speeches about the month of "Jew-lie".

As for the name changes, I don't care whom my personal ethnic-Jewish, Ashkenazi history alienates. That is why it is MY PERSONAL history. 

So, here in the Galut I will remain "Fishman" with all that that brings, thank you very much!

My last name is Jewish, but a lot of ignorant anti-Semites don't recognize that it is.

As a bonus, I often pass as non-Jewish, so I use it as a little reminder. For example, below is the transcript of a very true interaction that -- actually! -- took place in Brookline, MA:

Anti-Semitic Administrator: "We got another call from Mr. [Insert Jewish-sounding last name here]? Was he being a pushy Jew?"

Me, Empolyee of Administrator: "Excuse me? For your information, my last name's not McCarthy, you know, and comments like that are offensive. Now, how do we address his request without the bigoted subtext?"

My last name is pretty rare and means something positive, so I had little interest in changing it either time I got married (and I didn't). Actually, my first husband (although Jewish) had a last name that would have made me sound like the WASPiest WASP ever.

I would love to know how I'd go about Hebraicizing my last name, though...

After that, I would address the administrator as "haver" every time I'd see him/her. Add a "shalom" to make him/her skwirm!

And by thorn I mean "WASP childhood neighbors."

Long before I was born my grandparents traded down and decided to be "the right kind of white" with a ridiculous European place-name.  To say I grew up surrounded by gloomy, depressive self-haters would be an understatement.

I changed my surname as soon as I could get out of the house.  I am proud to be an East European Jew.  If I could go back in time I would beg my grandmother to teach me my native tongue instead of being ashamed of her and my mother and trying to fit in with blonde kids.

When I have children they will bear the correctly-spelled Ashkenazic version of my mother's maiden family name.  And honestly, eff anyone who doesn't like it. 

I am what I am. 

I feel a lot of guilt and shame for not respecting where I came from as a kid.  The day I finally made peace with my inner Jew was the day I became the happiest man on Earth.

I mean honestly...sometimes all a man has in the world is his name. 

No?

That's an intriguing proposal. Since many fellow Jews don't perceive my last name or appearance as Jewish, I definitely experience that exclusion that some of you have mentioned. Yet admittedly, I like the feeling of meeting someone with a seemingly Jewish last name and being able to easily connect with other Jews--it can be a marker just like wearing a Star of David necklace (though I think both last name and appearance as Jewish markers are much more problematic than a necklace). I like that our last names distinguish us as Jews--but unfortunately, it happens at our own expense when we exclude our fellow Jews.

The Hebraicization of  last names strikes my curiosity as well. I had noticed that Israeli names tend to sound, well, Hebrew, while other Jewish names tend to be German or Eastern European, but I never realized that this was the result of Hebraicization. Makes sense. How does it usually happen? Do people often change their last name when they make aliyah?

I'm quite pleased with my name. My mother and her side of the family are Ashkenazic Jews and my dad's side of the family is mostly German with a dash of French (Huguenots) and they were at some point in time good Lutherans. My last name is a monosyllabic German last name but it's not at all common in the US. Most Jews either think it's Jewish or don't think anything of it. I don't think of my name as being a slave name in the sense of Malcolm X's ideas. It represents the people that I came from. People on both sides of my family immigrated to the US for economic opportunity, to escape violent situations and religious persecution. Plus I have two z's in my name, which is pretty awesome.

"The Hebraicization of  last names strikes my curiosity as well. I had noticed that Israeli names tend to sound, well, Hebrew, while other Jewish names tend to be German or Eastern European, but I never realized that this was the result of Hebraicization. Makes sense. How does it usually happen? Do people often change their last name when they make aliyah?"

In the early days of statehood, it was government policy dictated straight from David Ben Gurion (nee David Gruen) himself for any high ranking member of government or the military to Hebraicize their name. But people had been doing it of their own volition before and after Ben Gurion's decree. If you think about the total transformation and act of self reinvention that moving to the nascent Middle Eastern state from the centers of Western civilization entailed,  it makes perfect sense. 

When Zionism was still just a theory, the proto-Zionists argued over what the language of the new state should be, and I believe most of them wanted German! Establishing Hebrew as the de facto language of the land took extraordinary efforts by a small, dedicated group of people.

Of all the tenets of turn of the century utopian Zionism--secularism, socialist paradise, light unto nations, etc--having Hebrew as the national language is the only one that stuck.

Edited to add:

 Heh. There's a wiki page that has both the history of Hebraization and a how to guide. I can't get it to link, but the phrase to enter in the wiki search engine is 'Hebraization of Surnames'. Very interesting. 

 

I disagree with the post.

http://stloujew.blogspot.com/2009/10/jewish-last-names.html 

www.thestloujew.com

Thanks for all the info.

"If you think about the total transformation and act of self reinvention
that moving to the nascent Middle Eastern state from the centers of
Western civilization entailed,  it makes perfect sense. " Definitely.

"In a world where anti-Semitism is becoming less a reality and more of an inside joke..."

You obviously don't hang out with the right people.

 Seriously?  Where do you come up with that sort of proposition?  Sure, I don't personally experience unambiguous antisemitism on a daily basis, but I certainly have such experiences on a regular enough basis to know that it isn't a joke (though I have been known to make jokes about it.)

I also don't have to look at just my own personal experiences.  There is the rhetoric of anti-Semitic demagogues, hate-crimes statistics in western nations, terrorism (not just against Israel; also remember last year's attacks on Mumbai; Indians are very aware that the attacks were partially motivated by antisemitism) et cetera.

You are being incredibly dismissive of a reality of which many Jews have direct exprience, and that undermines your authority as an essayist even before it can undermine your argument.

 Besides:  I like my surname; sure it was acquired sometime in the 18th century and doesn't have an ancient history attached to it, but it is rare enough that whenever I do meet another Thal, I know that there is a very good chance that this newly met Thal is a distant cousin.

I don't think so.  Anti-semitism is actually having a big "comeback" lately with the recession and the war which erupted in Israel this year.  Also, anti-semitism has never completely gone away in eastern Europe.  Do your homework.

"I want every Jew to change their last name. Katz, Goldberg, Weinstein...these names need to perish into the history books."

Oh I forgot Patrick thinks that there is no more antisemitism.

What bullshit, and what chutzpah.

First Jews are supposed to disappear because of antisemitism, next they are supposed to disappear because there is no antisemitism.  

Finally, names like Irving and Irwin, etc. used to be 100 percent wasp. Then as more and more Jews adopted them they became "Jewish" names.

Who knows maybe in the near future Patrick too will become a "Jewish name."

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

How do we know that "Patrick Aleph" is Jewish? 

 Adopting the first letter of the Hebrew alpahbet doesn't make one a Jew.

You raise an interesting (though provocative) idea. But...I will say that despite my decidedly non-Jewish last name (Osborne), I have rarely, if ever, faced difficulties when it comes to being accepted by various Jewish communities of differing levels of observance. That said, I get to introduce myself as Dr. Osborne, who teaches midrash and Jewish literature, so maybe that gives me Jewish street creds. But, still, I have found most Jewish communities to be extremely accepting of people with non-Jewish last names who demonstrate a clear and authentic commitment to Judaism and Jewish culture.

     I live in the most redneck state W.V. and people call me the Jew.It Feels pretty bad when all people can say is hey Jew.We don't even have a synagogue WTF,I have to drive 45 miles to worship. When I was in High School I wore the star of David around my neck and I played footbal.When shower time came on my first day of practice Two rednecks commented on the necklace and before I knew it they were making fun of the fact that I was a money grubber, a Jesus killer and That I was of a cowardice race that ran from German soldiers and would not fight.

Two or three months later I played the game and fumbled the ball, and cost the team the game. I was invited to a party after the game and the two rednecks were there. They offered me a beverage and I accepted. The drink was laced with a drug that made me passout. when I woke up I noticed that my shirt was removed. Went to the bathroom and seen that a star of David was drawn on my chest circuled and crossed out and there was a Nazi party flag drawn on my forhead. Later the next day after school I broke one leg four fingers and two noses and I was arested and booked and placed on probation untill I was 21.So Anti-Semitism is still a very real reality for some of us.

1999

The only difference between me and my first cousins is the last name. They have the Jewish family name, and I don't. My mother was Jewish; their fathers were Jewish, yet they are seen as "real" Jews, while nobody thinks of me as Jewish, except, of course, me. And anyway, it is not all about being of Eastern European descent. What that has to do with anything that matters, I don't know.

I never understood the preoccupation with Jewish last names seeing as how it's supposedly passed only through the mother. It's very hypocritical. I mean how dumb are those people? They won't let people named Klein and Weinstein into our little club if their moms aren't Jewish, so who cares about last names?

 (and for the record, both my parents are Jewish.)