I want every Jew to change their last name.

Katz, Goldberg, Weinstein...these names need to perish into the history books.

Am I suggesting the complete obliteration of hundreds of years of familial titles? Am I suggesting that we disconnect the one thing that keeps some people Jewish? Eliminate our historic, Old World flair?

You bet I am! And for a very good reason. But first, I have to get personal.

Patrick A is the name I use in my daily life. I only recently started calling myself Patrick Aleph because I could not blog on many sites (including this one) as "Patrick A." But Patrick A is my name in every way: my stage name, my writing name, the name I use at my job, the name my friends call me, it's everything. You can tell immediately, though, that the name "Aleph" is a Hebrew character, and not an "actual" last name. No one knows my family name. And they'll never know.

The Jewish Name Game is an amazing sport. At shul, a networking event, or any situation where name tags are involved, Jews go into Jewish Geography overdrive. "Your name is Grossman? Is your family from Monsey? Did they own the glatt deli down the street from Temple Beth Blah-Blah-Blah? Oh, my G_d! We went to summer camp together!"

This can be fun, and I've played this game before. But it has a dark side to it.

Jews have banded together through history because of persecution. So a Jewish last name was a "screw you" to the establishment. And when two Jews met, they had an instant connection, a feeling of safety and comfort in each others presence. A name was an easy way of saying, "don't worry, we're in this together".

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.

Continue reading...