Were Secular Names Just Random or Arbitrary? If You Believe That Our Ancestors Were Unintelligent, Yes.

 TL:DR: our ancestors were not unintelligent, and even calquing “Rachel” with “Rosa” or “Rose” was very specific. 

If you actually read: 

Let’s start with my my own case: I could have taken “ניקול” or “ניכול” as my Hebrew name when I found out that I’m Jewish. I made a concerted effort to look up what a Hebrew name equivalent to my secular name would be. “נצחיה” was already there. As far as my Hebrew middle or second name: 

1) I don’t want to give out my secular middle name to most people for multiple reasons. 

2) “מרה-טובה” (good bitterness) describes my life perfectly. 

Someone else suggested that I just use “מרתה” (Marta or Martha). I declined that suggestion because: 

1) That name does not fit with either of my secular names in any way. 

2) I am not a direct descendant of any Marta or Martha, as far as I know, and I did not know that my paternal grandfather’s aunt Sophie Martha Thomas-Brighton (née Trudnak) existed until after my great-grandmother (ז״ל) died. I also did not know that Great-Grandma herself was a daughter of Crypto-Jews until after she died. Because I did not know Great-Grandaunt Sophie personally and am (as far as I know) not in contact with any of her living descendants, I think that I would actually be insulting Great-Grandaunt Sophie’s memory and her side of our family if I use “Marta”. 

This isn’t just my view. In Jewish culture, uses and transliterations of names as well as translations of names are actually important. Despite what some might say, many actually tried to keep the Jewish (Hebrew or Hebrew-dialect) and secular (non-Jewish) names as close as possible in some or another form. 

Now to “Rachel” “Rachel” (“Ewe”) and “Rosa” (“rose” or “pink”): while the names indeed correlate partly due to the first letter in Latin lettering, they also correlate because Rachel’s life was seen like the life of a rose. Fragile and thorny was Rachel’s life indeed, no matter the sweetness or blossoming in it. After all, even though she was the favorite wife of Jacob, she wanted to die because of competition against Leah and her own infertility (“Give me children lest I die!” we read that she told Ya’akov avinu). When she finally had biological children (as the sons born to Bilhah were put with Bilhah instead of her when Ya’akov had to divide everybody), she died in childbirth and named her second child “בן-אוני”—“son of my sorrow”.

Our ancestors understood how thorny, fragile, and bittersweet Rachel’s life was, even if they could read only Hebrew lettering and not—for example—Latin lettering (all of which—despite their various orthographies—the various Romance languages, the Germanic languages, Slavic languages such as Polish and Slovakian, Balkan languages such as Serbian and Croatian, and Magyar use). 

Our ancestors were scattered and often could not even read or write in Hebrew dialects, let alone read and write in the various languages surrounding them in the Exile. Their lack of proficiency in any given language—especially after lack of proficiency was forced by oppressive law—did not equate to a lack of intelligence. Therefore, for instance and as demonstrated, they did not just randomly or cavalierly equate “Rachel” and “Rose”— they understood the correlation between the fragile, thorny, and bittersweet life of a rose and the life of Rachel imeinu—which was fraught with peril, distress, and sorrow even in the joys and suffering in the blessings.

Calling Up the Dead? Not Really, Though Maybe Painting What A Belated Matriarch Looked Like?

 

Latest painting: “Middle Eastern (Possibly Egyptian or Jewish) Woman”. If it ended up being a self-portrait, I certainly did not intend that. The woman has black hair, whereas I have brown hair. I did have some ancestors with black hair, as some of my relatives had black hair—i.e., great-granduncles and -aunts, and cousins known to not have inherited or likely inherited black hair from elsewhere. I’ve actually occasionally felt pretty smug about the fact that some of them inherited black hair, as we thankfully often avoided the blond and other hair that could’ve come from Slavs, Balts, Vikings, and Magyars as well as other gentiles in Eastern and Southeastern Europe.  

The stereotypical brown, red, and black hair thankfully made it difficult for my family whom wanted our Jewish heritage even lost to history within the family. By the way, I take joy in looking Jewish. Other people knew that I was Jewish before I did because I even look Jewish— and that’s literally what someone told me when I told him that I’m Jewish: “I figured that you’re Jewish. You look Jewish.” 

I don’t shy away from my Jewish looks, and so be if this a self portrait or even an unintentional portrait of a belated ancestor—with, as I will demonstrate in an update, a Gajdosz or Ushinsky matriarch readily coming to mind. 

Update:

1) Joseph Edmund Gajdos was a brown-eyed brunet and brother of my father’s maternal grandfather (whom identified as “Russian” as the closest way to identity as Jewish—and he absolutely knew the distinction between “Russian” and “Ruthenian”. At least two of his ancestors were Jews in what is now Ukraine and Poland, and the whole of Ukraine by that point was entirely occupied by the Soviet Union. The first known one fled to Upper Hungary as the Russians encroached; and the second one was born “Palin”, “Polin”, or “Palir”.)

2) I am not aware as to whether his mother had brown eyes. That is what I’m trying to figure out, as my great-grandfather had blue eyes.

3) My great-grandfather’s youngest brother was also a brown-eyed brunet. So far, I have not been able to find any physical description of either of their parents except for that their mother was about 5 feet exactly! By the way, her manifest at Philadelphia absolutely disproves that people could not remember on what ship they came to the U.S., as every single immigrant—including ones who lied about somethings or others at the ports of emigration—had a “contract ticket number”.

4) Impressively, my great-granddad maybe was one of the few blue-eyed kids—and maybe the only blue-eyed one, has all of his surviving brothers’ draft cards indicate that they were brown-eyed brunets. Also as I’ve said before, I have simcha in our family’s stereotypically-Jewish features. The gentiles could not take away our Jewish features so easily. Conversely, my father’s paternal grandfather and one of his cousins (Julius/Julian Danilowicz by secular name) were so ashamed of looking Jewish, they even dyed their hair blonde at various times.

#WoofWednesday: Someone Broke Into Camille’s “Jail”!

 

A Painting—And Not For Only Six Million

 

I originally covered up parts of when I accidentally painted two upward triangles on the flag. Then it made me realize that even if the skies should cover any part of the Israeli flag, and should cover part of Israel, Israel will emerge as a light in the darkness. 

PS Not for just six million, might I add—many  Holocaust victims & survivors are apparently too “not halachically Jewish” or too persecuted outside of 1933-1945 Germany to be recognized as Holocaust victims & survivors. Never mind that Stalin culminated his Antisemitic ethnocide with the Soviet-called “The Doctor’s Plot”, and the gulag system did not close until 1960; and never mind that the Islamic Middle East persecuted Jews before and after 1933-1945 🙄. 😡 It makes me sick that, e.g., even the President of Ukraine was tricked into not understanding that his parents who were born in Russia-occupied Ukraine are Holocaust survivors (One was even born right before the perpetration of the Soviet-called “The Doctor’s Plot, and the other was born during it.). 

Not just six million in 1933-1945 at the hands of the Germans and their accomplices—Jews in the Soviet Union and the Islamic Middle East (including during the Hebron and Aleppo Pogroms) who were victimized (including by the British accomplices of the Arab occupiers of Hebron) were Holocaust victims as well. That doesn’t even take into account the unrecognized “not halachically Jewish” victims of the over-six million in 1933-1945 at the hands of the Germans and their accomplices.

#SillySaturday: Don’t Let Camille Fool Anyone

 

I just want to warn everybody about Camille: she hurts Momma on a frequent basis, and steals kisses from me! - Reilly

Commentary: An Example Of Why Even Records Of Persecuted And Deceased Relatives Matter

 

Adela Saposnik y Andrelevich de Zelasco was an Andrelevich whom immigrated to Argentina. A few other Andrulevich, Andrelevich, etc. family members also immigrated to South America—some having done so as openly Jewish, though most (as far as I know) did so as Crypto Jews.

This hopefully gives me a clue to what happened to my cousin Rochla Andrelewitz, as perhaps Lila was a sibling of Rochla. I haven’t newly seen any records that I can ascertain are about Rochla, although this discovery absolutely was unexpected and very much needed. 

Some of our own branches did use Andrelewicz, Andrelevich, etc.; and there was one instance in which my great-grandaunt Alice gave her mother’s name as “Andrewicz”. More often than not, however, we used “Andrulewicz”, “Andrulevich”, etc.; and we were among the Crypto-Jewish branches (One relative, as I mentioned last year, was betrayed by maternal—Staskiel/“Shackel”—cousins of his when he tried to pass for a Pole. Because of them, as they were witnesses at his naturalization and were among the only ones who could’ve known about it outside of us, he faced employment discrimination.). 

Even when the discoveries hurt or do not involve relatives whom were living at the time,  I feel vindicated seeing that we are Jewish as I discovered—especially since quite a few people have had chutzpah g’dolah to deny my Jewishness to my face, and my family does not need what we endured denied.

By the way I still do not know what happened to Great-Granddad’s rape-conceived sibling. All that I know is that, that poor child keeps going in and out of the record; and because he or she was among three born and living children when Great-Grandaunt Regina was born, he or she was forcibly conceived in or about September 1907. Great-Grandaunt Regina was born on March 31, 1909; and she is mentioned as one of two born and living children on the 1910 census.  

Great-Grandaunt Alice** is then mentioned as one of three living children of four born on her birth certificate in June 1910. When Great-Granduncle Stanley is mentioned in November of next year, he is mentioned as one of five children living and born. When Great-Granduncle Jankie (secular name “John”) is mentioned almost two years later, he was mentioned as one of five born and living—and at that point, of course, there should’ve been six mentioned as having been born. 

PS That’s why I also get angry regarding the rabbis whom would deny DNA testing over “mamzerut”.  Shlomo HaMelekh was technically a “mamzer”, as his mother was a rape-taken wife whose first child died because of his father’s (David’s) sin. As יהוה has rachamim on the mamzerim and their descendants (including myself, as I have known and ascertained mamzerut in at least one line*), so can the rabbis.

*That specifically-referenced mamzerut was such a shame to my mother’s paternal grandmother (Alice Marie Reilly Allen), that she concocted the bubbe meise that the adulterous ancestor (John Allan) was some distant great-granduncle of her children—and her maternal grandfather (João Ferin, later John McCoy) was an Anusi bin hagolim b’Sefarad. As far as I know, her husband (Edgar Joseph Allen) was fully gentile; and she was nonetheless ashamed of his mamzerut (His Conley grandmother was born a Coleman and could’ve been Jewish, although I have not seen evidence that she was even an Irish Huguenot—and some Irish were actually Crypto-Jewish Catholics or Hugenots. 

(Of course, one DeBoy cousin publicly expressed her anger in a comment on this blog when I found that out about one of our Farrell ancestors, and I publicly in turn responded. As she publicly commented, she could take the public response. If she continues to have a problem with it, perhaps she can talk to יהוה about why Farrells asked that flowers be omitted in their obituaries. I have simcha in being Jewish—and too bad if she doesn’t have any simcha.)

**She was at least in the secular sense named partly for her mother. We are mixed Ashkenazi Sefardi, and finding such minhag l’kanot among us is not unusual.

#SillySaturday: Either way, no silent night if Rei’s too close to Santa Penguin for Cam’s comfort!

 A few minutes before…

Afterward, when Reilly dared to just walk in the family room…