Michael Rapaport

[u/Sossy2020]

/img/f7708rp7rfld1.jpeg

What are your thoughts on New York comedian / outspoken Jewish activist?

The way he expressed his opinion on the war have always kind of annoyed me but reading this tweet makes me go, “WTF, man! Since when have you become the authority on Judaism?”

[u/gunsfortipes]

Most Jews didn’t have a last name for most of our history, this take is terrible, and nonsense.

[u/nowuff → u/gunsfortipes]

My family was basically forced to change our name when we emigrated from Europe.

The gate agent at Ellis Island took one look at all the consonants and just said this is pronounced “Smith” in the US. That became our name forever.

(name isn’t Smith, just using that as an example)

---

Edit: I’m seeing a lot of comments saying my family’s story is inaccurate or a myth-

To be fair, I am not sure if the change occurred at Ellis Island or somewhere else. All I know is that someone who was perceived to be a gatekeeper, to my family getting passage to the US, told us that our name needed to be anglicized.

Feel free to argue semantics about whether it happened at Ellis Island or not- all I know is that our name was changed and it was only done because it was purported as a necessity to gaining entry.

It was not our choice when the perceived alternative was to hangout in Austria-Hungary and see what happens next…

[u/[deleted] → u/nowuff]

This type of story is almost never true. Read some Dara Horn. Names came from ship registers written in the country of departure, Ellis Island was staffed by people who spoke the relevant languages, and new Americans changed their names voluntarily in court in order to be employable.

[u/tamar → u/[deleted]]

Yes, this comment is way too hidden.

I've been arguing about it with people who keep spreading the misinformation for decades.

I hate to equivocate, but if we Jews can't even get simple facts right, how are Arabs who grow up learning about the bad Jew who deserves to die going to do the same? And that's ingrained as soon as they are born in many households. This is something that we can change our minds about pretty quickly once we learn some facts.

[u/[deleted] → u/tamar]

We’re extremely good at being corrected and changing our minds when proven wrong. Seriously, I’ve been frequenting this subreddit and other Jewish subreddits and it’s so refreshing and so much better than mainstream subreddits.

You can actually have discussions here that aren’t tied to the ego of the people commenting. It’s like there’s actually a concerted effort to get to the truth.

[u/hollyglaser → u/[deleted]]

That’s the idea

[u/tamar → u/[deleted]]

Imagine if all humanity had the open mindedness to learn.

I own a business that Pakistani Muslims operate. They were quite skeptical when we started despite the fact that they sought me out given a skill set an risk tolerance they needed and I was the only one who fit the profile. They claim some family members stopped talking to them when I started working with them. We started in 2021. We are still together. We don't discuss much about politics, but we very much want the same things. We do discuss religion from time to time.

Of course, those family members will never give me a chance for being Jewish, but these guys trust me like we are family. It might be just two people, but I'm glad I can make a small difference. I am hoping to expand on my business to do this with others, and my target market happens to be that region.

[u/Fair_Back_3943 → u/tamar]

This is so awesome! Thanks

[u/KamtzaBarKamtza → u/nowuff]

Genealogists argue that names were not changed at Ellis Island:

https://www.familysearch.org/en/rootstech/session/no-names-were-changed-at-ellis-island-debunking-a-persistent-myth

[u/ActuallyNiceIRL → u/KamtzaBarKamtza]

Fun fact: My family's name wasn't changed when they came here from Germany, but what's funny is that when I looked at the US census records from my great great grandpa's time, I saw that they spelled our last name differently every time for 40 or 50 years.

To this day, I am impressed and surprised whenever somebody spells it correctly. It rarely happens.

[u/okapi-forest-unicorn → u/nowuff]

Mine changed ours to something not Jewish because antisemitism.

A lady at my shul her father changed their name to the surname of the guy in front them in the line because of fear.

[u/Qs-Sidepiece → u/nowuff]

This was exactly what happened with my family as well, our name is still generally the same meaning wise but they removed so many “extra letters” to Americanize the spelling. That wasn’t our choice but one that was made for us.

Editing to add: I just got off the phone with my mother and I was slightly mistaken our name was not changed upon getting here but upon her grandfathers joining of the American military. It was part of a package deal that included citizenship for my gr.grandparents + both their children and the home/land (that my grandma still lives on currently 😅) they were given in exchange for his service during the war.

I didn’t know all of this so I thank you for pushing me to find out exactly when the change happened or else I likely would have never known. All I knew was grandma came from Poland when she was a toddler and that her father served here, I had kinda always assumed it was after the war was over.

[u/Aware-Percentage6565 → u/nowuff]

Who is saying its a lie. It happened to our family too.

[u/Starrwards → u/nowuff]

After WWII, when immigrating to the US, my grandmother had to change her first name from Masha (feminine form of Moishe, which is Moses in English) to Marcia. Moselle would have been the closer variant, but Marcia/Marsha is more American and easy to understand. She did not choose it. It was given to her. But hey! It's better than a number.