history – Page 2 – From Under the Fig Tree

Naming names

joselitOctober 26, 2010November 16, 2017Leave a comment

Who among us doesn't have a relative whose name was changed at Ellis Island? Rare, indeed, is the American Jew whose surname is the same as that of his or her European and Israeli cousins. Normative rather than exceptional, the immigrant's acquisition of a new name seems to be as American a phenomenon as, well, apple pie.

But now, in an article published by Dara Horn in Azure magazine, we're told that the changing-of-the-name is itself a bube mayse, an urban legend, a fabrication of the immigrant mind. It simply didn't happen, or, if it did, these flights of onomastic invention took place well before Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe even came to the New World. By Horn's lights, name change had little, if anything, to do with tone deaf inspectors at Ellis Island.

"Ellis Island Medical Exam." Flickr creative commons photo by jjprojects.

In an imaginative and extended riff, Horn not only denies the historicity of name changing but also claims that the whole thing, from start to finish, is a tall tale of expiation, projection and apology. Having so readily turned their backs on the Old World in their eagerness to become one with the New, Jewish immigrants, she claims, made the whole thing up. It's all one big mea culpa for our sins.

"By inventing a story that depicts their name change as beyond their control ... these immigrants sent a powerful message to future generations: I did not shed my Jewish identity intentionally. And despite the values of the country in which we are living I hope that you won't, either," she writes.

When I shared the latest news with my students, they were taken aback, even baffled. And not just baffled. Suddenly they were cast adrift, floating free of family stories that had once anchored them. Only a few days earlier, one of my students had written lovingly and at great length about how his great grandfather's name had been changed by an official at Ellis Island, and now he was being told that his forbear had made it all up. Who to believe? Dara Horn or grandpa?

The choice is not an easy one. Maybe it's easy for Horn to throw down the gauntlet, come what may. But where does that leave the rest of us who cherish the stories of how Smilensky became Smith, and Zabarsky became Zabar?

Is an Ancient Menagerie Pagan or Jewish?

joselitOctober 5, 2010November 16, 2017Leave a comment

This article, which first appeared in the Forward's blog The Arty Semite , is part of a cross-posting partnership with the Forward.

By Menachem Wecker

Though it features illustrations of a menagerie of animals that carry Jewish symbolism, an ancient Roman mosaic discovered in Lod, Israel, in 1996, is not a religious work, according to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where the fourth-century artifact is on exhibit for the first time until April 3, 2011.

Lod Mosaic as displayed — Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

According to the museum's press release, "because the mosaic's imagery has no overt religious content, it cannot be determined whether the owner was a pagan, a Jew, or a Christian."

But virtually all of the animals depicted in the work — birds, bulls, a deer, a donkey, ducks, an elephant, fish, gazelles, a giraffe, hares, leopards, lions, a sea monster, a snake, peacocks, a rhino and a tiger — carry Jewish symbolism.

According to Shlomo Pesach Toperoff, author of The Animal Kingdom in Jewish Thought, the following animals carry biblical and rabbinic symbolism: donkeys (transportation, redeeming firstborn donkeys per Exodus 13:13, symbol of Issachar), birds (the mother must be shooed before accessing the eggs, doves as peace symbols), elephants (per Berakhot 56b, a wonderful sign when seen in dreams), fish (eaten on Rosh Hashanah to symbolize multiplying), gazelles (frequent appearances in Song of Songs, its speed idealized in Ethics of the Fathers), harts and hinds (symbol of Naphtali), bulls (the Red Heifer), leopards (a character in Daniel's dream, cited in the same part of Ethics of the Fathers as the gazelle), sea monsters (the Leviathan, a Talmudic regular), lions (tribe of Judah), peacocks (brought by King Solomon from Tarshish) and serpents (Edenic embodiment of evil, symbol of Dan).

Hares are sometimes depicted in scenes of Esau returning from the hunt in haggadahs, according to Marc Michael Epstein, professor of religion and Jewish studies at Vassar College and author of the book Dreams of Subversion in Medieval Jewish Art and Literature, which examines animal references in medieval art.

The Torah is referred to as a "loving doe" in the Shavuot prayers, Epstein adds, and hare hunts appear in haggadahs.

The ducks, giraffes, rhinos and tigers stand alone, but shouldn't 13 of 17 be compelling enough?
...continue reading "Is an Ancient Menagerie Pagan or Jewish?"

Eavesdropping on history 1

joselitAugust 27, 2010November 16, 20171 Comment

Earlier today, while riding the Metro, I overheard the following mother-daughter conversation:

Mother: "Do you remember, dear, who was the very first president to live in the White House?"

Daughter: "Yeah. John-something-or-other."

Who says history isn't alive and well in the U.S.?

Image: The first U.S. president to live in the White House. Source: Wikipedia.