Shortly thereafter, whether out of fear, a desire to assimilate or a combination of both, they changed our family name from Rosenberg to Ross. My parents were different from the immigrants who landed on Ellis Island and had their names changed by an immigration bureaucrat. My mother and father voluntarily gave up their identity and a measure of pride for an Anglicized name.
Growing up a German-Jewish kid in the Bronx in the 1940s, a time when Americans were dying in a war fought in part to save Jews from the hated Nazis, was difficult. Even my new name failed to protect me from bigotry; the neighborhood bullies knew a “sheenie” when they saw one.
The bullying only intensified the shame I felt about my family’s religious and ethnic background. I spent much of my youth denying my roots and vying for my peers’ acceptance as “Tom Ross.” Today I look back and wonder what kind of life I might have led if my parents had kept our family name.
In the ’50s, I doubt Tom Rosenberg would have been accepted as a pledge by Theta Chi, a predominantly Christian fraternity at my college. He probably would have pledged a Jewish fraternity or had the self-confidence and conviction to ignore the Greek system altogether. Tom Rosenberg might have married a Jewish woman, stayed in the East and maintained closer ties to his Jewish family.
As it was, I moved west to San Francisco. Only after I married and became a father did I begin to acknowledge my Jewish heritage.
My first wife, a liberal Methodist, insisted that I stop running from Judaism. For years we attended both a Unitarian church and a Jewish temple. Her open-minded attitude set the tone in our household and was passed on to our three kids. As a family, we celebrated Christmas and went to temple on the High Holidays. But even though my wife and I were careful to teach our kids tolerance, their exposure to either religion was minimal. Most weekends, we took the kids on ski trips, rationalizing that the majesty of the Sierra was enough of a spiritual experience.
So last year, when I decided to tell my children that I was legally changing my name back to Rosenberg, I wondered how they would react. We were in a restaurant celebrating the publication of my first novel. After they toasted my tenacity for staying with fiction for some 30 years, I made my announcement: “I want to be remembered by the name I was born with.”
I explained that the kind of discrimination and stereotyping still evident today had made me rethink the years I’d spent denying my family’s history, years that I’d been ashamed to talk about with them. The present political climate–the initiatives attacking social services for immigrants, bilingual education, affirmative action–made me want to shout “I’m an immigrant!” My children were silent for a moment before they smiled, leaned over and hugged me.
The memories of my years of denial continued to dog me as I told friends and family that I planned to change my name. The rabbi at the Reform temple that I belong to with my second wife suggested I go a step further. “Have you thought of taking a Hebrew first name?” he asked.
He must have seen the shocked look on my face. I wondered, is he suggesting I become more religious, more Jewish? “What’s involved?” I asked hesitatingly.
The rabbi explained that the ceremony would be simple and private, just for family and friends. I would make a few remarks about why I had selected my name, and then he would say a blessing.
It took me a moment to grasp the significance of what the rabbi was proposing. He saw my name change as a chance to do more than reclaim a piece of my family’s history; it was an opportunity to renew my commitment to Jewish ideals. I realized it was also a way to give my kids the sense of pride in their heritage that they had missed out on as children.
A few months later I stood at the pulpit in front of an open, lighted ark, flanked by my wife and the rabbi. Before me stood my children, holding their children. I had scribbled a few notes for my talk, but felt too emotional to use them. I held on to the lectern for support and winged it.
“Every time I step into a temple, I’m reminded that Judaism has survived for 4,000 years. It’s survived because it’s a positive religion. My parents, your grandparents, changed their name out of fear. I’m changing it back out of pride. I chose the name Tikvah because it means hope.”
