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A Jewish Rose by Any Other Name: Thoughts on the Regulation of Jewish Women’s Personal Names A Jewish Rose by Any Other Name: Thoughts on the Regulation of Jewish Women’s Personal Names Omi (Naomi) Morgenstern Leissner, Independent Researcher, Jerusalem, Israel Abstract Even as individuals are granted the right to name and be named, they are acting in the context of a given society, each with its own cultural and political designs. It follows that societies are wont to regulate the area of personal names. They do so by means such as fashion and social pressure. In addition, this article argues, the institution of law is intimately, if not always obviously, tied up with personal names and naming. The focus of the article is the naming of Jewish girls. In this regard, centuries of Jewish history have produced exceedingly similar findings: compared to men’s names, which tend to line-up in long, ongoing patrilineal formation, women’s names tend to change from time to time and from place to place, and are frequently summarily discontinued. This article suggests that one of the reasons for the aforementioned “nominal” gender discrepancy is that the law has consistently considered only men’s names to be of importance, hence the dispensing of the shaping of women’s names to the more fleeting forces of fashion and so on, rather than the more enduring forces of tradition and inter-generational continuity. In other words, it is submitted that had the law attributed more to Jewish women’s names, there might have been “more to them.” 1. Introduction The Midrash tells us that, “People are called by three names: One is the name the person is called by his father and mother; one is the name people call him/her; and one is the name the person acquires for him/herself” (Tanhuma, Vayakheil 1). But even as an individual is granted the right to name and be named, s/he is acting in the context of a group, family, community, and society at large, each with its own cultural and political contours and designs. Said another way, the annals of Jewish history are built upon the names of individual Jews. It is common to cling to these names as if they embody the very lives of the personalities they once described. In practice, however, people’s names are largely a reflection as well as a product of broader societal decision-making. Indeed, scholars regard personal names as an important instrument of social control and a prime tool of the (Foucauldian) disciplining of populations.1 It follows that societies are wont to regulate the using, choosing, and changing of personal names. They do so by means ranging from the informal, such as fashion and social pressure, to the more formal, like superstitions and religious customs. This Women in Judaism: A Multidisciplinary Journal Volume 14 Number 1 (2017) ISSN 1209-9392 © 2017 Women in Judaism, Inc. All material in the journal is subject to copyright; copyright is held by the journal except where otherwise indicated. There is to be no reproduction or distribution of contents by any means without prior permission. Contents do not necessarily reflect the views of the editors. A Jewish Rose by Any Other Name: Thoughts on the Regulation of Jewish Women’s Personal Names article argues that even the institution of law is intimately, if not always obviously, tied up with personal names.2 Specifically, this article constitutes a survey of research concerning Jewish personal or first names and the laws and customs governing them, as viewed through the prism of the question of where and when Jewish women enter. In truth, the quest is not a simple one, for if the amount of research on names in general is small, and that concerning Jewish names is even smaller, only a fraction of the latter concern Jewish women in particular.3 Authors often claim to be discussing the Jewish onomasticon (list of names in use among Jews), but frequently tend at some point to include a reference or two to Jewish women’s names. In other words, as Cynthia Ozick has pointed out, “‘Jew’ means ‘male Jew.’”4 Under these circumstances, this study has allowed the spread of various sources––as listed in the accompanying bibliography––to set the contours for debate. Accordingly, this article proceeds, in chronological order, from the periods of the Tanakh and Talmud to the exiled communities living in the Diaspora during the Middle Ages and through the Emancipation.5 It will also take a look at the regulation of Jewish names during the dark age of modern anti-Semitism and the Nazi Era. It will end with the time of the Return to Zion and the emergent State of Israel, updating the findings to the present day. Ultimately, the aim is to amalgamate at least a good deal of the existing research concerning Jewish women’s personal names and naming, on the one hand, and the various laws and regulations that affect Jewish personal names and naming, on the other. With regard to the latter, this study has found that even as Jewish history is dotted with attempts by both Jews and non-Jews to denote and define Jewish names, a closer look reveals that more often than not these regulations refer only to the names of Jewish men. In terms of the former, the study has found that the minority of women who do earn a mention in historical texts are often stripped of a name. Moreover, those women who are named are found to have far fewer traditionally Jewish names than their male counterparts.6 Instead, Jewish women’s names appear to be highly influenced by the more fleeting localized and contemporaneous forces of fashion sentiment and so on. 2 Women in Judaism: A Multidisciplinary Journal Volume 14 Number 1 (2017) ISSN 1209-9392 © 2017 Women in Judaism, Inc. All material in the journal is subject to copyright; copyright is held by the journal except where otherwise indicated. There is to be no reproduction or distribution of contents by any means without prior permission. Contents do not necessarily reflect the views of the editors. A Jewish Rose by Any Other Name: Thoughts on the Regulation of Jewish Women’s Personal Names Examining these findings together suggests the possibility of their being related to one another. Specifically, it might be deduced that the law’s persistent tendency to consider only men’s names to be of importance has engendered history’s repeated failure to mention women’s names, as well as their tendency to be shaped by more fleeting forces, such as fashion, rather than more enduring forces of inter-generational continuity and so on. Simply put, had the law attributed more to Jewish women’s names, they might have played a more notable part in Jewish history and tradition. 2. The Biblical/Tanakhic Period The Tanakh all but begins with God’s commanding of Adam to name the animals, but it makes no (explicit) rulings on the naming of human beings.7 Thus, even as it is clear that the first Jew held a name, it is difficult to say when the concept of the “Jewish name” was born.8 As for the differences between the names of (Jewish) girls and boys in particular, the Tanakh is not only silent on the matter but even contains examples of unisex names. However, these are commonly considered to be “rare exceptions.”9 Scholars who have compared the given names of the two sexes have discerned some differences between them. Accordingly, just as the Deity Himself is found to bear mainly male names;10 so men have been found to bear far more theophoric names than women.11 Some scholars maintain that the male names are more likely than the female ones to connote heroic and leadership qualities.12 Others suggest that the Bible attributes little profundity to women’s names at all.13 In any case, by far the most consistent finding regarding women’s names in the Tanakh is their relative absence. More specifically, it said that of the 1,711 names contained in the Tanakh, the number of identified female names is ninety-nine.14 Furthermore, this statistic for women did not improve in time. According to one scholar: The names of women are mentioned in the Tanakh only until the period of Babylonian Diaspora. The last woman whose name is mentioned is the daughter of Zerubavel, Shlomit, mentioned in connection with the dynasty of King David. From her (end of the sixth century BCE) until the mention of the Hasmonite Queen, Alexandra Shlomtzion (about 70 AD) we have no knowledge of women’s names. The few women known to us to bear Hebrew names are Miriam the Hasmonite and the women from the New Testament, the two Miriams: Jesus’ mother and Magdalene.15 3 Women in Judaism: A Multidisciplinary Journal Volume 14 Number 1 (2017) ISSN 1209-9392 © 2017 Women in Judaism, Inc. All material in the journal is subject to copyright; copyright is held by the journal except where otherwise indicated. There is to be no reproduction or distribution of contents by any means without prior permission. Contents do not necessarily reflect the views of the editors. A Jewish Rose by Any Other Name: Thoughts on the Regulation of Jewish Women’s Personal Names In total, the number of female names found in the classical Hebrew sources is said to be less than a tenth of the number of Hebrew male names.16 To be sure, when the number of biblical characters is counted as opposed to names per se, this huge discrepancy is significantly reduced.