Beit Hatfutsot - The Museum of the Jewish People: Soon to be called by this new name - See 653 traveler reviews, 323 candid photos, and great deals for Tel Aviv, Israel, at Tripadvisor. In any case, they too are patronyms that became the source of family names. We can classify them into the following types: A patronymic (derived from a male personal name of an ancestor). An example is Delrahim, a family name composed of two words: del, the Farsi term for “heart”, and rahim, which in the same language means “merciful”, thus the literary translation of Delrahim is “merciful heart”. Prayer hall at Sha’ar Ha-Shamayim synagogue, Cairo, Egypt, 1979 Photo: Micha Bar-Am, Israel – The Oster Visual Documentation Center, Beit Hatfutsot. Abrahams, Abrams, Abramov, Abramoff, Abramsky, Abramovitch, Abramesku, Abrahms/zon, Abrampur, Abramzada, Barhumi, Barami, Ben Avraham, Avrahami. Generally it is the basic given name plus an additional suffix indicating relationship or “belonging to”: Soros, Edels, Richles, Zipres, or the ending kin as Sorotskin, Rivkin, Laikin, Haikin, Mirkin, Zipkin; the diminutive in as in Rivlin, Beilin; other forms are Shprinzak (Shprinze), those ending in man(n) (indicating husband of X) Esterman, Perlman. “Names and Naming”, The YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe (New York, 2008), pp 1248-1251 • Eshel, Moshe Haninah, Family Names in Israel שמות משפחה בישראל (Haifa 1967) • Hanks, Patrick (ed.) Curating My Family Story is an annual workshop series held at The Contemporary Jewish Museum in collaboration with Beit Hatfutsot – The Museum of The Jewish People – in Tel Aviv, Israel. A patronym is basically the use of a father’s or grandfather’s given name as the hereditary family surname. In particular, in the 1950s this tendency was officially encouraged for those in government and military service as well as for athletes and others representing the newly established State of Israel. Not only the profession or trade is noted but also the material used by the craftsman and possibly the implements employed as well as the distribution of the finished product. Family names are a quite modern phenomena – becoming widespread only the recent 200 years. Please check at least one newsletter name, Registration has been failed, please try again later, These are the Names of the Children of Israel in Egypt, The Jews of Afghanistan: Family Names and Origins, Additional Databases by the Museum of the Jewish People, Live! After the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, there was an increase of Jews choosing Hebraicized family names. Online Tour of the Museum of the Jewish People, Tours for Christian and Interfaith Groups. Additional surnames based on occupations or terms from the Jewish tradition include Somech, a title designating an assistant cantor in the synagogue; Tefillin; Hanukkah; Dayanzada; More Tzedek; Rodef Shalom; and Urshalimi, derived from Urshalim, the Farsi version of Yerushalaim – the Hebrew name of Jerusalem. Taking the given biblical name Abraham as an example (Stahl, Origin, p. 179ff), the family name may be the basic form of the given name Abraham or it may be the name plus a prefix or suffix that indicates “son” or “belonging to”, e.g. Come to explore your family story Latin America and Spain. After immigrating to Israel, several families changed their surname. 155-290 [Hebrew]. Many of the new family names are based on a male ancestor’s personal name. Stahl (Origin: 175-176) has identified over thirty basic words in Yiddish that were used either individually (Grin) or in combination (Grinberg) to create most of these Jewish sounding names: The terms can be divided into the following groups: colors: roit, roth (red), grin, gruen (green), weiss (white), schwartz (black), gelb, gel (yellow), blau, blaub (blue); nature: bach (stream), berg (mountain), stein (stone), stern (star), thal, tal (valley, dale), wasser (water); metals and precious gems: gold (gold), zilber (silver), kupfer, cooper (copper), eisen (iron), diamante (diamond), rubin (ruby), perl (pearl); plants: boim, baum (tree), wald (forest), blatt (leaf), blum, bloom, blit (flower), roiz, ros, roz (rose); material: holtz (wood), gluz, glas (glass), wein (wine); physical traits: shein, shen (beautiful), lang (tall, long), grois, gross (large, great); klein (short) + mann (man). For example, the given name Abraham served as basis for a number of surnames, among them Abrahamian, Abraimian, Abrahimzada and Abrahampur. Beit Hatfutsot - The Museum of the Jewish People: A family museum - See 653 traveler reviews, 323 candid photos, and great deals for Tel Aviv, Israel, at Tripadvisor. There are also some names of a Greek and Aramaic origin. Beit Hatfutsot - The Museum of the Jewish People: A family museum - See 653 traveler reviews, 323 candid photos, and great deals for Tel Aviv, Israel, at Tripadvisor. Online Tour of the Museum of the Jewish People, Tours for Christian and Interfaith Groups. Sometimes these names when written in Hebrew will add two apostrophes (gershayim) before the last letter indicating that it is an abbreviation. During the 20th century, there was a tendency in Israel to create Hebrew forms of traditional family names as an expression of identification with the Zionist renaissance of the Jewish people. The ancient given names have been added various suffixes common to the Farsi language, such as “-yan”, which denotes the plural form of Iranian surnames, or “-zada”, which means “son”, and “pur”, another term for “son”. Animal surnames are very often those that were derived from vernacular patronymics, i.e. Yehudah whom Jacob compared to a lion (Gen 49:9) produced the Yiddish name Leib (“lion”), engendering surnames like Leibovitch, Leibeles, Laybl, Leibinson. In certain countries, weddings were not always registered at the government office, subsequently children born of this union were given the maternal family name. In 1959, the World Jewish Congress decided to build a museum that would serve both as an educational and cultural center for world Jewry. For example, Mofazazkar, which denotes a type of “jeweler”, was abbreviated to Mofaz, and Nimordi, which originally was a nickname meaning “not dead”, was replaced by the name Nimrodi. If the committee was not certain of an etymology, it hedged the explanation by noting that it was “probable” or “possible”. This information is based on family tree no.5494, as recorded at the Douglas E.Goldman Jewish Genealogy Center at Beit Hatfutsot – The Museum of the Jewish People. The male personal names are for the most part Hebrew names, either biblical or post biblical Hebrew. Example of their data bases are Jewish Communities, Visual Documentation, Jewish Music, Family Names, and is their Jewish Genealogy Center, which is the only center of its kind in the world. Coordinator and Founder of My Family Story, and Facilitator for Latin America and Spain [email protected] +972-3-745-7906 . The institute in Israel was named in honor of Dr. Nahum Goldmann, founder and president of the World Jewish Congress.. Abba Kovner, one of the founders of Beit Hatfutsot, proposed the original concept of the museum's permanent core exhibition. Ben HaRav, Shalita –She-yihyeh Leorekh Yamin Tovim Amen); cantor (Chazan, Zinger, Schulzinger, Cantor, Meshoyrer, Soloway, Soloveitchik); teacher (Melamed, Lehrer, Mualem, Morenu, Mor, Mula; Darshan, Maggid, Be{he}lfer); ritual slaughterers (Shohet , Schecter, Shub Treiber, Menaker); scholar (Zehnwirt, Talmud, Mishnayos); Scribes (Sofer, Schreiber, Sass- acronym for sofer stam- scribe of religious texts- sefer torah, tefilin and mezuzot); and frequenters of the communal prayer (Shulman, Tsenter – tenth person to the minyan, Tillimzoger -a Psalms sayer, Schatz – Sheliah tsibor, Kaddishman); administrator (Nagid, Gabbai, Shames, Shkolnik, Parnas); others: (Dayyan, Tokayer – who blows the shofar, Somech.who helps the cantor, Wekker who wakes people to prayer, Shulklopper who bangs on the door of the synagogue or on its bench). A geographic name or toponymic (town, city, region or country), sometimes called a habitational name – A high percentage of Jewish surnames are based on place names (toponyms). Nature (plants and animals) – Surnames of plants are very often Ornamental names e.g. Interestingly many of these professions were the same in different diaspora, e.g. Beit Hatfutsot - The Museum of the Jewish People: Sad - See 653 traveler reviews, 323 candid photos, and great deals for Tel Aviv, Israel, at Tripadvisor. Visit the renewed museum: explore brand new exhibitions, children's gallery and programs telling the amazing story of the Jewish people | Museum in Tel Aviv Levian extended family, Mashhad, Iran, 1950 The Oster Visual Documentation Center, Beit Hatfutsot, courtesy of the Association of Former Residents of Mashhad in Israel, Shoshani family, Hamadan, Iran, 1910s The Oster Visual Documentation Center, Beit Hatfutsot, courtesy of Eli Levi, Israel, Rassek family, Hamadan, Iran, 1927 The Oster Visual Documentation Center, Beit Hatfutsot, courtesy of Moshe Rassek, Israel. Selected Bibliography: • Ariel, Avraham, The Book of Names- 200 Most Popular Surnames in Israel • (1997) in Hebrew. The Raphael and Georgette Cohen Collection of Family Trees from Meknes, Morocco - consisting of 22,000+ individual names organized in family trees - was recently donated to the Douglas E. Goldman Jewish Genealogy Center at Beit Hatefusot in Tel Aviv.http://www.bh.org.il/database-about.aspx?genealo • Beider, Alexander, A Dictionary of Jewish Surnames from Galicia (Bergenfield, 2004) • Beider, Alexander, A Dictionary of Jewish Surnames from the Kingdom of Poland, (Teaneck 1996) • Beider, Alexander, A Dictionary of Jewish Surnames from the Russian Empire (2nd edition) (Bergenfield ,2008) • Beider, A. Time (day, month, season, or Jewish holy day) – There is a small number of names that that are related to different periods of time like days of the week Sontag, Montag, Mitttwoch, Freitag and Ben Sheshet, Ben Shabbat; Hebrew month names: Kislev, Nisan , Sivan, Tammuz; seasons of the year: Spring, Sommer, Herbst, Winter or Jewish holiday: Yomtov, Bondi. They reflect the wanderings of our people. Shoshani family, Hamadan, Iran, 1910s The Oster Visual Documentation Center, Beit Hatfutsot, courtesy of Eli Levi, Israel. A personal characteristic – This form of surnames like the following physical characteristics tells us about the individual first name bearer. An artificial (or ornamental) name, that is a made-up name often in compound with two roots – These surnames are basically an Ashkenazic phenomenon, created artificially by local authorities and individuals in an effort to provide family names. The family tree of Beit Ha'Lachmi, Ofer | Beit hatfutsot maintains A huge database of over 5 million people in detailed family trees. Alternately, a patronym can be based on a shortened nickname or kinnui, e.g. There are many tens of thousands of hereditary family names in the Meni De-Shalit Database of Jewish Family Names at Beit Hatfutsot – The Museum of the Jewish People. History. Lineage (priestly, Levitical, convert) – Primary among lineage names are those associated with the traditional Israelite priesthood the kohanim, descended from Aaron the first High Priest and the older brother of Moses. Most Sephardic surnames were chosen after the Expulsion of 1492 as a means of maintaining community identity, while most Ashkenazic (East European and Germany) surnames were taken between the years 1787-1830s as part of governmental policies to register their Jewish subjects. Very often there is more than one plausible explanation for a family name. Levian extended family, Mashhad, Iran, 1950 The Oster Visual Documentation Center, Beit Hatfutsot, courtesy of the Association of Former Residents of Mashhad in Israel. The names can be localities like towns (Galinsky