“Your Hebrew name?” the head of the yeshiva asked, pencil and paper poised to take it down for my aliyah, the honor of reciting Torah blessings. It was my third week at his school, a place where I’d reluctantly agreed to study for a semester in a city where fully welcoming options for Jews like me were almost nonexistent.
“Erela,” I replied. My American tongue wrapped awkwardly around the “resh” — the Hebrew r that’s notoriously difficult for English speakers to manage. My parents hadn’t thought about that when choosing the name, nor the fact that “Erela” is an obscure variation on “Lion of God” that most people would hear as “Ariella” and I’d have to correct. But I digress.
“Bat?” he continued, referring to the Hebrew naming tradition of including one’s parents in the name.
“Ephraim v’Yehudit,” I answered.
My dad got his Hebrew name, Ephraim, the old-fashioned way, as a Jewish child born to two Jewish parents. My mom got hers from me a few years ago. I was starting rabbinical school and for the first time in my life was in an environment where people used their full Hebrew names with regularity. My mom happens to have an English name, Judith, that has a Hebrew equivalent: Yehudit. Ironically, it means “female Jew.”
I say ironically because my mom is a Quaker.
