Ashkenazi Jewish surnames

[i_am_belle]

(from an internet website) ...

Until a few hundred years ago, Ashkenazim (Jews from Northern and Eastern Europe) followed no tradition of surnames, but used patronymics within the synagogue, and matronymics in other venues. For example, a boy named Joseph of a father named Isaac would be called to the Torah as Joseph ben Isaac. That same boy of a mother named Rachel would be known in business as Joseph ben Rachel. A male used the Hebrew word "ben" (son) and a female "bat" (daughter).

When northern European countries legislated that Jews required "proper" surnames, Jews were left with a number of options. Many Jews (particularly in Austria, Prussia and Russia) were forced to adopt Germanic names. Joseph II issued a law in 1787 which assumed that all Jews were to adopt German names. The city mayors were to choose the name for every Jewish family. For names related to precious metals and flowers a fee was gathered, the free of charge surnames were usually connected to animals and common metals. Many took Yiddish names derived from occupation (e.g. Goldstein, 'Gold-smith'), from their father (e.g. Jacobson), or from location (e.g. Berliner, Warszawski or Pinsker). That makes Ashkenazi surnames quite similar to Scandinavian and especially Swedish ones.

In Prussia special military commissions were created to chose the names. It became common that the poorer Jews were forced to adopt derogatory, offensive or simply bizarre names. Among those created by Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann were:

• Ochsenschwanz - Oxtail
• Temperaturwechsel - Temperatureglitch
• Kanalgeruch - Sewerstink
• Singmirwas - Singmesomething

The Jews of Poland adopted names much earlier. Those who were adopted by a szlachta family usually changed the name to that of the family. Christened Jews usually adopted either a common Polish name or a name created after the month of their baptism (that's why many Frankists adopted the name Majewski - after the month of May in 1759).

Both the given names and surnames of Ashkenazim today may be completely European in origin, though many will also posess a traditional Hebrew name for use only in the synagogue.

 

[loeggusder]

are you lolabunny in disguise?

 

[i_am_belle]

Jews of Singapore
from an article by Terry O'Glick. Originally published at American Asian Kashrus Society

When word got out in 1819 that Sir Stamford Raffles had talked the Sultan of Johore into permitting the East Indian Co. to establish a trading post in Singapore, a tiny jungle-swampy fishing village on the tip end of the Malay Peninsula, several Jews from Baghdad moved in. They started the fabulous trade center Change Alley, built homes, then they dashed back to Baghdad to fetch brides for themselves from there.

A couple of decades after the Sultan in 1824 ceded the 200 square mile area (on one of the world's finest harbors) to England, the Jewish community was large enough to build a synagogue seating 40 persons on what is still known as "Synagogue Street."

They also bought (so says the current Jewish community)or leased (as the current government insists) a cemetery plot on the outskirts of town. Today, the old synagogue is gone: the section totally Chinese. And that far-out cemetery (not used since 1928) sits smack in the best shopping district on Orchard Street. (orchard road, lah !) Part of it was sold in 1973 by the Jewish Welfare Board for S.$3,500,000 ($$$ !) (about $1,700,000 U.S.)

The old Synagogue was outgrown in a couple of decades. The orthodox Maghain Aboth Synagogue, built on Waterloo Street in 1878, is still used jointly by both Sephardim and Ashkenazim. An interesting custom developed, sanctioned and used by the rabbi to ride on Sabbath and holiday services in a rickshaw. Provided, of course, that the driver was paid before the start of the Sabbath.

Some of the Jews of Maghain Aboth Synagogue bear name-plates for Sir Menasseh Meyer and his son Reuben Menasseh (it was the custom for the eldest son to take his father's first name for his surname). Menasseh Meyer, reputed to have been the richest Jew in Asia, was knighted for raising the cultural level of the city.

Arriving as a penniless youth of 15 from Baghdad, Meyer ultimately owned nearly half of Singapore's real property. He was a real estate dealer, and importer and exporter — with a monopoly on the opium traffic, a legal pursuit in Singapore under British rule.

In 1904, after an argument with a fellow member of the Synagogue, Sir Menasseh Meyer built his own private synagogue, Chesed El, on the grounds of his palatial residence on Oxley Rise. He employed "Minyan Men" (hokkien lang ?) regularly for his services. In 1920 the Minyan men, of all things, struck for increased salary and rickshaw fare for their daily services.

The Jewish community engaged mostly in business and the professions, and was highly prosperous and important out of an proportiontoits size. The 1931 census records that the 832 Jews, and a greater number of Arabs, were all the largest house property owners .

The Jews shared their wealth. Provisions from the Menasseh Meyer Fund, after his death in 1933, enabled promising Jewish youth to study abroad, supplied food for the poor, furnished religious education at the Talmud Torah in Singapore and at a yeshiva in Jerusalem. The Amber Trust Fund, set up by the Elias family, provided for Jewish youth, as did the Flora and Abdullah Schoker Fund.

By 1939 there were more than l ,000 Jews in Singapore. Then came World War II, and most were interned by the Japanese. The men had to till the fields (ha ha ha). One internee presented a problem to the Japponese. Prominent, even at an early age, David Marshall, born in 1908 to a Baghdad-Persian Jewish family, studied law in England. He was a volunteer in the British army and was too light-skinned to be totally Asian — so he was sent to a labor camp in one of Japan's northern most islands, where he had time to buy. After the war many of the Jews decamped to Australia, England, the United States, and Israel. But not dynamic, tall, handsome, politically David Marshall. Hating colonialism (yeah, jews jealous of whites), he initiated the fight for independence from Britain. Looking in on the fray was an obscure young leftist Chinese lawyer, Lee Kuan Yew (the key word here is 'obscure').

David Marshall became his country's "Father of Independence." In Singapore's first real election in 1955, he was elected Chief Minister (Prime Minister). He fought on for total self government. By 1959 it was achieved. But the Peking-minded People's Action Party (ROTFL) won hands down. David Marshall was out. All that the communist leaders needed for a takeover was a moderate front man. That man, they decided, was Lee Kuan Yew, who, as lawyer for leftist trade unions, had wheedled labor concessions from the British. Lee became Prime Minister.

Having been for over a century merely a British warehouse, insurance, and banking center with little industry,the new nation was a ragged, almost illiterate society living in slums, which Lee went all-out to correct. (the 'corrected' homes, the smaller sized ones, now again, in 2009, look like slums too).

At the end of World War II, Singapore's Jews tore off the arm bands and medallions with the word "Jew" on them that they had been required to wear. Those who didn't emigrate tried to reassemble Jewish life. The Jewish Welfare Board was organized. It administers a home for the aged, assists widows, provides medical aid for the needy and provides scholarships.

Jewish children, whose education was in mission schools, found the New Testament were required subjects (ho ho ho !). A Communal Hall was built in 1955 with some of the Reuben Menasseh Meyer Fund, and the Talmud Torah provided free daily religious instruction. The youth-organized Habonim, with emphasis on Zionism and Jewish culture, was 300 strong. One group broke away to form the more social Menorah Club.

Now in the country there are about 500 Jews (... only ... thank god !), and they are trying to keep the spirit alive. The shul which is still located at Waterloo street has beed renovated with all the modern facilities especially the 8 air-conditioners to keep the temperature to a cooler point. There is a rabbi there by the name of Rabbi Mordechai Abergel.