April 25, 2018
How and Why Jews Hebraized Their Family Names at the Founding of Israel
By Philologos"If there is no overriding reason for the Major to retain an awkward-sounding German name that our people finds hard to pronounce, . . . he [should] change it to a Hebrew one."
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In connection with Martin Kramer’s Mosaic essay, “The May 1948 Vote that Made the State of Israel,” Robert Licht has written to point out that Kramer refers to each of six senior figures in the Jewish leadership of British-mandate Palestine by two different family names: a Hebrew name that they took for themselves soon before or not long after Israel’s establishment, and their former name. (The six are: Golda Meir, formerly Meyerson; Israel’s first foreign minister Moshe Sharett, formerly Shertok; its first military chief-of-staff Yigal Yadin, formerly Sukenik; its first minister of education and third president Zalman Shazar, formerly Rubashov; its first minister of justice Pinhas Rozen, formerly Rosenblueth; and its first ambassador to the United States, Eliyahu Eilat, formerly Epstein.)
Mr. Licht’s question is this: