Long History of Jews changing their Names to Blend In
cont,d. If you were going abroad to Italy, Germany, Russia, there to live and engage in business, would you cast about for a changed name immediately? Of course not. Your name is part of you, and you have your own opinion of an alias.
The Jew, however, has his own name among his own people, regardless of what “cover name” the world may know him by, and, therefore, he changes his outside name quite coolly. So the Jew may be Simon son of Benjamin in the privacy of the Jewish circle, while to the world he may be Mortimer Alexander.When Moses is changed to Mortimer, and Nathan to Norton, and Isadore to Irving (as for example Irving Berlin, whose relatives, however, still know him as “Izzy”), the concealment of Jewishness in a country where so much is done by print, must be regarded as a probable motive.
When “Mr. Lee Jackson” is proposed for the club there would seem to be no reason, as far as reading goes, why anything unusual about Mr. Jackson should be surmised, until you know that Mr. Jackson is really Mr. Jacobs.
The Jewish Encyclopedia contains interesting information on this matter of derivatives.
Asher is shaded off into Archer, Ansell, Asherson.
Baruch is touched up into Benedict, Beniton, Berthold.Benjamin becomes Lopez, Seef, Wolf (this is translation).
David becomes Davis, Davison, Davies, Davidson.
Isaac becomes Sachs, Saxe, Sace, Seckel.
Jacob becomes Jackson, Jacobi, Jacobus, Jacof, Kaplan, Kauffmann, Marchant, Merchant.
Jonah becomes by quite simple changes, Jones and Joseph, Jonas.
Judah (the true Jewish name) becomes Jewell, Leo, Leon, Lionel, Lyon, Leoni, Judith.
Levi becomes Leopold, Levine, Lewis, Loewe, Low, Lowy.
Moses becomes Moritz, Moss, Mortimer, Max, Mack, Moskin, Mosse.
Solomon becomes Salmon, Salome, Sloman,
Reuben Abraham Cohen is a perfectly good name, and he does not scruple at a little deceit to obtain it, so he painted on a window of his store, R. A. Le Cán, which, when set off with a borrowed coat of arms, looks sufficiently Frenchified for even observant boobs among the Gentiles.
Similarly a Mr. Barondesky may blossom out as Barondes or La Baron.
The same may be said with reference to Kaplan, a very common name. Charlie Chaplin’s name was, in all probability, Caplan, or Kaplan. Non-Jews have read of Charlie as a “poor English boy.”
There is the Rev. Stephen S. Wise''. He is an actor, the less effective because he essays a part in which sincerity is requisite. ''This Rabbi, whose vocal exercise exhausts his other powers, was born in Hungary, his family name being Weisz'. Sometimes this name is Germanized to Weiss.
The list of Jews in public life whose names are not Jewish would be a long one. Louis Marshall, head of the American Jewish Committee, what could his old family name have been before it was changed for the name of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States?
Mr. Selwyn’s name, now so widely known in motion pictures, was originally Schlesinger. Some of the Schlesingers become Sinclairs, but Selwyn made a really good choice for a man in the show business. A rabbi whose real name was Posnansky became Posner.
There is also much complaint among the stricter observers of the Jewish ritual requirements that the word “Kosher” is greatly misused, that indeed it covers a multitude of sins. “Kosher” has come to signify, in some places, little more than a commercial advertisement designed to attract Jewish trade.
It must be conceded, however, that the tendency to mislabel men and things is deep set in Jewish character. Jews are great coiners of catchwords that are not true, inventors of slogans that do not move. we are giving the name of “liberalism” to looseness. We are dignifying with names that do not correctly name, many subversive movements. We are living in an era of false labels, whose danger is recognized by all who observe the various underground currents which move through all sections of society. Socialism itself is no longer what its name signifies; the name has been seized and used to label anarchy.
Judaistic influence creeping into the Christian church has kept the apostolic labels, but thoroughly destroyed the apostolic content; the disruptive work has gone on quietly and unhindered, because often as the people looked, the same label was there—as the same old merchant’s name stays on the store the Jews have bought and cheapened. But it is all a part of the Jewish practice of setting up a label pretending one thing, while quite another thing really exists.Take anti-Semitism. That is a label which the Jews have industriously pasted up everywhere.
[THE DEARBORN INDEPENDENT, issue of 12 November 1921]
Sauce: https://prepareforchange.net/2020/06/11/the-gentle-art-of-changing-jewish-names/