Stand up and be counted

Rabbi Mark Wm. Gross

Peoples’ names are a conundrum. I’m Mark, with a “k,” but a lot of northeasterners insist on writing it with a “c.” It’s the same for my wife, Carol, whose name most folks persist in writing as “Carole,” French-style — possibly the consequence of so many Jews from New York being just down the road from Quebec. And three out of five people hearing me introduced as “Gross,” by some strange Pavlovian reflex, repeat it as “Grossman.”

Seriously, the question of namechanging matters immensely to Jews. Even in antiquity, acculturation by our cosmopolitan people led to many Jews adopting “outside” names. Case in point, the second Hasmonean king who ruled Israel 2,100 years ago was a Jew born YoNatan and nicknamed Yannai, whose Maccabean family had struggled against Hellenic culture and, yet, was known throughout his realm in Greek as Alexander Jannaeus.

This phenomenon grew exponentially over the ensuing ages, after the global dispersal of the Jews following the destruction of Jerusalem in the fi rst century. The 12th-century Egyptian philosopherphysician Moses Maimonides was Moshe in the synagogue, but Mussa in the street. The 13th-century Iberian rabbi, revered as Moshe ben-Nachman, was known to his Catalan neighbors as Bonastruc ça Porta. And in 17th-century Amsterdam, Portuguese philosopher Baruch de Spinoza was generally referred to by the Latin translation of his name, Benedict.

Our “everyday” names tend to reflect a comfortable accommodation to the numerous cultural settings in which we have found ourselves. Jews with Arabic names, like Bahya; Persian names, such as Daryush; and Russian names, like Natalya, are all Jews. And we all have Hebrew spirit-names that serve as our credentials in the Jewish world. (Mine is Mordechai, as an active memorialization of my dad’s grandfather, from which my “street name” Mark was reverse engineered as an incidental add-on after the fact because it started with the corresponding consonant and happened to be in vogue at the time that I made my début).

And yet, there is an uncomfortable level at which our Hebrew names have not only come second but have been kept submerged. Even our “street” names and family names have sometimes been suppressed in the interests of expediency.

As author Dara Horn notes, early in the 20th century, “new Americans, living in what they hoped was the first place in centuries where their families could enjoy full and free lives, soon discovered that when they applied for a job as Rosenberg no one would hire them, but when they applied as Rose, everyone would.”

Hollywood performers, Winona Ryder and Tony Curtis, are desirable and exciting; Winona Horowitz and Bernie Schwartz — not so much.

How far down do we submerge ourselves in the interests of expediency? How much of ourselves can we hide away without losing ourselves in the process?

This month, we commemorate the birth of the Jewish people through the Exodus from Egypt. An important teaching of our tradition is that our long-ago forebearers merited God’s redemption from Pharaoh’s brick pits because, in spite of their generations of suffering and oppression, they proudly retained their identity and never changed their names.

It was Jacob’s children, Reuven, Shim’on, Leivi and Judah, who came down to Egypt; 400 years later, in the census at the foot of Mount Sinai, it was the Tribes of Reuven, Shim’on, Leivi and Judah who stood up to be counted.

May this season of liberation be a time to stand up and be counted; to identify in terms of who we truly are; to share with our children the noble story of our people; and to say our names out loud.

Rabbi Mark Wm. Gross serves at Jewish Congregation of Marco Island.