I did a cat review of my LJ, he wrote: A lot about the Balkans. A lot about Jews. Well, he ended up on the streak of “Jewish” posts. And now such a streak has begun. The last chord (I hope the last) in it will sound:
For some reason, it is generally accepted that before the revolution, Jews were mainly engaged in 3 things (besides participating in Jewish-Masonic machinations, this goes without saying):
A. usury
b. tavern management
V. corrupt anti-patriotic journalism.
That is, it cannot be said that there were no such people. There were, of course. Although Dostoevsky’s old pawnbroker did not seem to be Jewish, and if a typical Russian moneylender had been a representative of this ethnic group, F.M. would hardly have become delicate and recast him or her as a Nganasan or an Udmurt. But interesting evidence about the professions common among Jews was found, oddly enough, in... a short biography of an active Black Hundred member.
“Abramov handed over to the official a number of proclamations and brochures of revolutionary content, which he received from the Jewish mechanic D. Labenzi.
...
One of the main results of the department’s activities was the unification of artisans and workers on a professional basis. The following were formed: the Union of Locksmiths, the Union of Carriers, the Union of Homeowners. Their work was limited to the fight against Jewish dominance in metalworking and other crafts.”
Plumbing is hard, albeit skilled, physical work. This means that a large number of Jews were engaged in it. Well, since dominance was noted in other crafts, then only a very small number of people were left to the share of moneylenders, innkeepers and corrupt journalists.
In the comments there is a clarification of the list of typical Jewish activities before the revolution.
Craftsmen: tailors, shoemakers, mechanics for repairing metal products - locks, stoves, tinkers (repairing metal utensils), watchmakers-jewelers, glaziers, carpenters. Also doctors, most often pharmacists and dentists.
The names speak for themselves. Shor, Shornikov, Portnikov, Portnov, Gontar, Turner, Tokarsky, Shoemaker, Shoemaker, Sklyar - glazier, etc.
Shopkeepers
Homeowners
Hairdressers
Balaguls are dray drivers.
Well, small traders, of course, peddlers, like Uncle Yakov.
About Uncle Yakov
We taught this poem by Nekrasov in fourth grade. It didn't make any impression on me. Well, a merchant carries city goods and exchanges them for village ones. The teacher explained what ofenya is. Everything seems to be clear, except for one thing – what does this have to do with pears? Why does he keep yelling:
"To the pear! To the pear!"
Did these peasants pay with pears, or what? Apparently not. Somehow strangely it says:
Give him beets, potatoes, horseradish,
He will do everything you like - here you go!
God apparently gave him a good soul.
He drives and shouts, and you know:
"On the pear! On the pear!
Buy it, change it!"
I asked the teacher, she mumbled something and moved the conversation to another topic. So this question remained unclear to me and stuck in my brain like a thorn.
Ten years later I learned Polish and began to understand something. Grush – in Polish it’s just a penny, the smallest coin. But the penny is mentioned separately there.
Sboina makova
Painfully delicious -
For a penny two koma!
Another 30 years later, I came to Israel and learned that the word pears had entered Hebrew and was very widely used.
And only then did I finally understand that Uncle Yakov was a Jew, most likely from Belarus or Lithuania. Nekrasov wanted to emphasize this. That’s why “Back to the pear!”
How did he end up in the Nekrasov region?
At the end, Nekrasov writes very favorably:
May you be happy! Trade, make money
"On the pear! On the pear!
Buy it, change it!"
Probably pear (grósz) is a dialect pronunciation characteristic of a certain category of the population.
Grush - from the Polish penny, means a small coin in colloquial Hebrew. The Polish dialect of Hebrew appeared in Israel when the large Polish aliyah arrived and included many words from Polish Yiddish into Hebrew.
Uncle Yakov
«...
Feklusha the orphan stood in silence,
Watching the children chew gingerbread,
And when I saw pictures in books,
So tears welled up in my eyes.
The old man took pity and gave her the primer:
“If you are poor, then be smart!”
What an old man! you can see a kind soul!
May you be happy! Trade, make money!
"On the pear! On the pear!
Buy it, change it!”
By the way, a characteristic Jewish trait: when choosing between a treat and a book for the doll, choose the book. ;-)
In the modern world, people have a lot of stereotypes about traditional Jewish specialties. Many believe that from time immemorial Jews were engaged in usury, trade, medicine, jewelry, in other words, they had a limited range of activities. In order to understand whether this is a stereotype or a fact, you need to turn to history.
In fact, the occupations of Jews changed along with the lifestyle of Jewish communities. Initially, the land of Israel was inhabited by Semitic peoples who agriculture, cattle breeding, handicrafts.
It is probably difficult today to imagine a Jewish shepherd driving a flock, or a Jew in the guise of a tiller. However, in the 20s of the last century, Bolshevik propaganda created just such an image of the “new Soviet Jew” - a Jewish farmer. More than 200 thousand Jews were resettled in agricultural colonies in the territory Ukraine and in Crimea. So the authorities began to pursue a national policy of “indigenization” in order to stimulate national languages and cultures. Settlement projects also emerged in Belarus and the Birobidzhan National Region.
But farming and cattle breeding still turned out to be not very attractive occupations for Jews. They are characteristic of peoples who constantly live on their own land, and the Jews constantly had to move, starting in 70 AD.
It happened that, getting to distant countries and forming their own communities in them, Jews even acquired a different ethnic appearance over time. For example, Jewish community in China(city of Kaifen) enjoyed the special favor of the emperor and existed for about seven centuries. The Jews won the favor of the ruler there because they were the first to bring cotton clothing and cotton seeds to China and presented them to the emperor. Over time, Kaifeng Jews almost ceased to differ from the Chinese. Today, many residents of this area can talk about their Jewish roots.
But the real “Golden Age” for the Jews came in Spain after its conquest by the Muslims (711). The Arabs granted the Jews judicial autonomy and religious freedom. Jews excelled in trade, crafts, jewelry production, medicine and other fields. True, in 1492, after the fall of Granada, an edict was signed on the expulsion of the Jews, after which they left the country.
But the Jews turned out to be welcome settlers in Poland. Jewish merchants were valued for their capital, trade connections, and abilities. Enterprising Jews rented mills, taverns, saltworks, and fish ponds. They even began to form entire towns, which turned into shopping and craft centers. Jews felt especially comfortable there. They themselves called such towns shtetls - shtetls. As a rule, the shtetl consisted of a market square, the main synagogue, a house of study, a ritual ablution room, behind them were schools, shops, and craft workshops.
In shtetls, Jews had to learn professions tailors, blacksmiths, paramedics, musicians. Here they preserved their cultural traditions and way of life.
After the division of Poland at the end of the 18th century. Russian Empire along with the Polish lands, hundreds of shtetls were also given, which, by decree of Catherine II (1791), fell into the Jewish Pale of Settlement.
The 1917 Revolution gave Jews the opportunity to freely participate in the political, economic and cultural life of the country. Starting this year, the Pale of Settlement was officially abolished. Jews were given the opportunity to receive higher education at the best universities in the country. Many Jews appeared scientists, doctors, politicians, artists.
In the 30s of the 20th century, Jews, like representatives of all peoples of Russia without exception, were subjected to repression.
After the war, the sensational “Doctors’ Plot” happened. According to one version, it was initiated by Stalin himself. Doctors who treated the top leadership of the USSR were arrested in 1953. They were accused of treason. This event caused a wave of anti-Semitic sentiment throughout the country. Many people stopped trusting Jewish doctors, which partly forced Jews to switch to such specialties in medicine as dentist or psychotherapist.
Doctor, banker, jeweler... Stereotypes about “purely Jewish” professions emerged not so long ago, and the formation of the image of a modern Jew took place over many years under the influence of various historical events. It continues today. And who knows, perhaps in a hundred years the phrase “Jewish banker” will evoke the same incredulous smile as “Jewish tractor driver” does today.
When preparing the material, information from the thematic exhibition of the Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center was used.
Valeria Voeykova
Family names among Ashkenazi Jewry began to appear in the Middle Ages. However, most of the surnames that Ashkenazi Jews bear today originated 150 to 200 years ago.
The official recording of the names of the Jewish population by special laws began in Austria-Hungary in 1797, in various states of Germany in 1807-1834, in Russia in 1845. The overwhelming majority of Ashkenazi Jewry then lived in these countries. At the turn of the 18th-19th centuries, about 180 thousand Jews lived in the German states, about 470 thousand in Austria-Hungary (of which 300 thousand in Galicia), in Russia - about 800 thousand (of which 200 thousand in the Kingdom of Poland, 100 thousand in territory of modern Lithuania and about half a million in Ukraine and Belarus). Total – 1,450,000 people. In other countries (Holland, Romania, France, England) there lived only about 120 thousand Ashkenazi Jews. In other words, about 92% of Ashkenazi Jewry was concentrated in Germany, Austria-Hungary and Russia.
The surnames then assigned to the Jews of these three countries can be divided into ten to fifteen types. In this article we will look at one of them: surnames that reflect the professions and occupations of their dimensional carriers.
The emergence of “professional” surnames is quite natural; this type of surname is widespread among other nations: if, for example, in a small town or village a person was engaged in carpentry and was, perhaps, the only carpenter in the entire area, then he was often called that “ Carpenter." And at the moment of official consolidation of surnames, this nickname was recorded in documents and became a surname.
Most Jewish surnames of the “professional” type are created either on a German or Slavic linguistic basis, i.e. etymologized from the languages of those peoples among whom Ashkenazi Jewry was settled at the end of the 16th - beginning of the 19th centuries: Germans, Poles, Ukrainians, Belarusians, Czechs. Surnames created on the Hungarian and Romanian linguistic basis are, as a rule, of later origin and are tracings from a German or Slavic original. Thus, Schumacher (German: Schuhmacher - “shoemaker”), having moved to Romania, often changed his surname to Chobotaru (Romanian: dobotar - “shoemaker”), and Schneider (German: Schneider - “tailor”), once in Hungary, became Szabo (Hungarian szabo' – “tailor”). True, a certain part of the Hungarian and Romanian surnames could have been assigned to Jews initially, at the time of fixation of surnames in these countries, but it should be remembered that at the end of the 18th - beginning of the 19th centuries. the number of Jews in Hungary and Romania was very small.
The issue is particularly problematic with surnames formed on the basis of the Yiddish language. Often, a person known in his town or city under the Yiddish nicknames Schneider, Glaser or Koifman, when officially assigning surnames, was written in the German, “more cultural” version, as Schneider, Glaser, Kaufman. The initiative could come either from the bearer of the nickname or from the official, especially if the latter was German. However, quite often the surname was recorded in its Yiddish version, and sometimes a certain German-Yiddish hybrid was recorded. For example, Steinshleifer, where the first part of the surname Stein is given in Yiddish pronunciation, and the second shleifer in German; In German, Steinschleifer means “stone grinder.”
In a similar way, those “professional” surnames that were formed from words borrowed by Yiddish from Slavic languages were written down. Thus, a person known by the nickname “Toker” (Yiddish, toker - “turner”) was often given the surname Tokar by a Russian-speaking official.
In this article we present as a source the words from which this or that surname is derived - German, Polish, Ukrainian or Belarusian words. A Yiddish word is given only in cases where it differs significantly from the German or Slavic original.
A small number of surnames are formed on the basis of purely Russian words that have parallels in other Slavic languages (for example, Kuznets, Tailor, Glazier). Considering that at the beginning of the 19th century the number of Jews living in the Russian regions of the Russian Empire was negligible, it should be assumed that surnames formed on a Russian linguistic basis were either assigned to Jews by Russian officials in the Ukrainian, Polish, Belarusian regions of the Empire, or were chosen by the Jews themselves who wanted their surnames to “sound” in the state language.
Among Ashkenazi Jews there are also bearers of surnames derived from Hebrew words - of course, in the Ashkenazi pronunciation, which was accepted in Europe. The number of such surnames is relatively small, but many of them are very common.
Let's try to determine which surnames can be considered “Jewish”. When talking about “Jewish” surnames, we mean two types of surnames:
1. those that are found exclusively among Jews (or among non-Jews, among whose ancestors there were Jews who passed on their surnames to them);
2. those that are often found among Jews, and are generally (at least in certain countries) considered Jewish, although they are also found among non-Jews.
The first type includes surnames that indicate that their original bearers could not possibly have been non-Jews. A significant part of surnames of this type is also distinguished by the Hebrew basis on which they are formed. The number of these surnames is small, just as the number of purely “Jewish” professions was small:
Bodek (Hebrew, bodek) - A bodek is one who examines the insides of an animal to determine whether it is kosher, as required by Jewish law.
Gabai (Hebrew, gabai) – “gabai”, an elder in a synagogue.
The same type of surnames, found exclusively among Jews or persons whose ancestors included Jews, include surnames that arose from Hebrew words-nicknames given to Jews in the Jewish environment. We present Hebrew base words in Ashkenazi pronunciation.
Balagula (Hebrew, baal agolo) – cab driver.
Katsev (Hebrew, katsev) – butcher.
The second type includes most of the “professional” surnames common among Jews - surnames that are found, and sometimes even very common, among non-Jews. Thus, the surnames Gerber (German – “tanner”, “tanner”), Mahler (German: Maler – “painter”) or Fischer (German: Fischer – “fisherman”) are often found among both Jews and Germans , and the surname Stelmakh (pol.
stelmach – “wheel-driver”, “wheel-wright”), Reminik (Ukrainian repairman “threadman”) or Kravets (Polish krawiec – “tailor”), can be found among both Jews and Poles, Ukrainians, and Belarusians.
Moreover, such surnames as Fischer, Schneider, Mayer, Fleischer, Zimmerman, Shlifer, Schmukler, which in Russia, for example, are almost unambiguously considered as “Jewish”, in Germany, Austria or the Czech Republic are worn by thousands, sometimes hundreds of thousands of Germans and Czechs , and these surnames are by no means considered “Jewish”. Of course, if the surname is recorded in Yiddish and not in German form, there is every reason to consider it exclusively Jewish. On the other hand, the system of vowel sounds in German dialects is very unstable (namely, the pronunciation of vowels significantly distinguishes the phonetics of Yiddish from the phonetics of the German language), and therefore it can be assumed that a person with a “Yiddish” surname Fleischer, Schneider or Bigler may not actually have nothing to do with Jews.
It should be noted that some surnames, etymologized from European languages, mean one profession if found among Jews, and another if found among non-Jews:
Singer – Zenger – Zingerman – Zingerevich-Zingerenko (German: Singer, Sanger) – “khazan”. For non-Jews it is a singer.
Richter (German: Richter) – “dayan”. The non-Jews have a judge.
Studying the list of surnames of the second type, which are also found among non-Jews, we will see that the range of Jewish professions and occupations 150-200 years ago was very wide. Of course, we must remember that the degree of distribution of surnames can be very different: if, for example, the surname Windmüller (German Windmtiller “windmill owner”) is extremely rare, then the surnames Koifman-Kaufman (“trader”), Kirzhner-Kushnir (“ furrier”, “furrier”), Farber-Ferber (“dyer”), Shenker-Shinkar (“shinkar”, “innkeeper”), Schneider (“tailor”), Schuster (“shoemaker”) are worn by thousands of Jews. In our case, this means that 150,200 years ago there were very few windmill owners among the Jews, but there were many traders, furriers, dyers, etc.
First of all, let us note occupations related to trade and, due to historical reasons, widespread among the Jews of Europe:
Eisenkramer (German: Eisenkramer) – iron merchant.
Botvinnik-Botvinik-Botvinnikov (Ukrainian Botvinnik) – greengrocer.
Gendler (German: Handler) – merchant, trader.
The traditional field of activity was activities related to mediation, financial transactions, etc.:
Wechsler (German: Wechsler) – money changer.
Jambash – Jambashu (Romanian: geambas) – mediator.
Another traditional area of activity of Ashkenazi Jewry, mainly in Eastern European countries, was the production and sale of alcoholic beverages, maintenance of inns, taverns, etc.:
Bronfman - Bronfenmacher (from Yiddish, branfn - “vodka”) - manufacturer of vodka.
Jewish wit. Purely Jewish profession
* * *“Sema, look at these calloused hands!” This man doesn’t want to work with his head at all...
Emotional statement
Rabinovich comes to get a job.
The personnel officer asks him:
– Who would you like to work as?
- Director.
- The position is filled.
- Then chief engineer.
– This position is also filled.
- Then a foreman.
- Yes, we have a foreman.
- And the site foreman?
– We don’t need it either.
– Then what can you offer me?
- The work of a concrete worker.
- And what is it?
– Take a shovel and throw the concrete solution into the formwork.
- Excuse me, but is there a shovel with a motor?
- Excuse me, where did you see a shovel with a motor?
- Excuse me, where did you see a Jew with a shovel?
* * *Two Jews are sitting in the toilet. One asks the other:
– What do you think: is s... mental work or physical work?
– If it was physical work, I would hire a person.
* * *There are many professions that the children of Israel prefer. But, perhaps, only the synagogue is an exclusively Jewish activity. We can say that only clergy have a purely Jewish profession. The synagogue must have: a rabbi, a chazan, a shames and a shochet.
* * *Jews are traveling on a train and talking. The first Jew says:
– Do you know that the famous Khazan Rosenfeld in Odessa earned a thousand rubles in a year?
- It can not be!
Third, referring to the first:
– I know that you told the absolute truth, I just mixed it up a little: Rosenfeld lives not in Odessa, but in Kyiv. And he is not a hazan, but runs a furniture factory. And he didn’t earn a thousand rubles, but lost it when there was a fire in the warehouse in the summer.
* * *The first Hasidic rabbis were modest people, content with little, and anyone could turn to them for help or advice. Their students became venerable, respected people, and there was a whole retinue around them. It was almost impossible to get to the rebbe without greasing the doorkeepers and secretaries.
Shoemaker Chaim tried for a long time to meet the Rebbe, and finally the Rebbe himself went to his shop because the sole of his shoe had come off. While helping the rebbe put on new shoes, the shoemaker complained about the self-will of his assistants.
“I’ve known about this for a long time,” the rebbe threw up his hands, “but I can’t do anything.”
“But you can drive out this rabble and replace them with decent people.”
– How can I allow decent people to turn into rabble?! – the rabbi was indignant.
* * *The influential Hasidic rebbe spent his days giving visitors advice, predicting fate - and receiving considerable money for it. His servant grumbled that with such income he could be more generous.
- So, maybe you will do the same thing as me? – the rabbi asked mockingly.
- Giving people advice and predicting everything that comes into their heads is not a big trick, I could do that... But taking money for it with a serious face - I don’t think I could handle it.
* * *A Jewish mathematics student came to a rabbi known for his wisdom and began to ridicule him:
“All your teaching consists of short parables and teachings, but at the university they give me long lectures.” This is because holy teaching is narrow as a mouse hole, but science is wide as the sea!
“It’s said in the Babylonian Talmud,” the rabbi grinned. - “If the straight line (leg) is equal to the cubit, the diagonal (hypotenuse) is equal to the cubit with two fifths.” Wisdom does not require many words, but philosophizing cannot do without it.
* * *One unbelieving young man came to the rebbe and began to mockingly assert that there is no God.
“If you convince me that God exists, I will recognize you as a great teacher,” he told the rabbi.
“Let me tell you a story,” said the rabbi. “One day a merchant brought home small blacksmith’s bellows, gave them to his cook and said:
“If you need to fan the fire, stretch the bellows like an accordion and the flame will flare up.”
The next day the cook says:
- The bellows don't work.
To prove his words, he started working the bellows, but no fire appeared. The merchant looked into the stove, and there was not a spark, yesterday’s coals had completely gone out. Then he said to the worker:
- How do you want a fire to flare up if there isn’t one at all? There’s not even a spark left, and without it the flame can’t be fanned.” So it is with an unbeliever who does not even admit the thought that God exists,” the rabbi concluded. “If there was even a spark of faith in you, I would help you fan it, but you extinguished it in your soul a long time ago.” Therefore, I will not waste words on you.
* * *One day Rav Naftali was digging up a vegetable garden. Suddenly the shovel stumbled upon something, and he pulled out from under the ground an ancient bottle sealed with wax. He opened it and a genie jumped out.
- Oh, Naftali! - exclaimed the genie. “I spent 1000 years in this damned bottle and promised myself: whoever lets me out of it, I will serve until the end of his days!” Ask for what you want!
“Get back into the bottle,” the rabbi answered him.
The genie persuaded and seduced him for a long time, but in the end he reluctantly obeyed.
Naftali sealed the bottle tightly, tied a stone to it, went to the seashore and threw the bottle with the genie as far as possible.
- What are you doing?! - his wife attacked him. - Why did you do that? We would live like kings, this genie could fulfill all our desires!
“First of all,” the rabbi answered her, “what kind of genie is this, who in 1000 years is not even able to get out of the bottle?” Secondly, he promised to serve me until the end of my days. What if after some time it seems to him that my days are dragging on too long?
* * *One young man went to the city, studied to be an engineer and came to the conclusion that there is no God. When he came to visit his parents, the local rabbi asked him to help make a plumbing diagram.
“You know, I don’t believe in God,” the young man reminded.
“And I don’t believe in the God you don’t believe in,” the rabbi reassured him.
* * *On the way to a Shabbat service, the rebbe meets a young man who defiantly lights a cigarette. The Rebbe stops:
- You, of course, forgot that today is Saturday? - he says affectionately.
- No, I haven’t forgotten.
– Oh, you probably don’t know the law that prohibits lighting a fire on Shabbat?
“Well, come on, I know everything,” the young man objects.
The rabbi raises his eyes to the sky:
- What a righteous young man! He does not want to defile his lips with lies!
* * *Rebbe Levi Yitzchak loved to watch the people praying in the synagogue. Once, after prayer, he approached the members of the kahal and said loudly: “Hello, hello! Welcome back!" When they looked at him in bewilderment, he said: “You were so far away just recently! You, Shmul, sold hops at the fair, you, Abram, met a ship with grain at the port, and where you were, Yankel, it’s not worth talking about within the walls of our synagogue!”
* * *Rabbi Chaim of Tsanz said:
– When I was young, I hoped to save the whole world. Then he became a rabbi and hoped to save at least his entire city. Later he became a rebbe and hoped to save his students. Today everyone calls me righteous, but I think: “Maybe I can save myself?”
* * *The wealthy Jewish community of New York invited the famous cantor Moshe Halbgewax on the occasion of the holidays and raised six thousand dollars for him.
On the eve of his speech, Moshe comes to the rabbi and demands to give him three thousand in advance.
- Moshe! Tomorrow you will have six thousand! Or don't you trust us?
– I trust you, but with money in your pocket it’s much better to sing!
* * *A certain rather mediocre hazan received an invitation to a remote community on the occasion of a holiday. When he returned, he boasted that he had brought two hundred rubles.
– How is this possible? – Shames was amazed. - You eat like a sick donkey!
- Well, I took a hundred in advance. And the rabbi paid me another hundred so that I wouldn’t go to the police - the Jews there gave me a good beating!
* * *The place of Khazan became vacant in the community. There are two candidates vying for it, but both have a serious flaw: one is a drinker, the other is weak when it comes to women. They came to the rabbi and asked him to make a decision. He thought for a long time, then said:
- Take the womanizer.
“Rebbe,” a respectable member of the community objects to him indignantly, “an addiction to wine is a much lesser sin!”
- That's how it is! But they are both middle-aged, and the one who drinks more and more over the years, the one who chases women will probably give up this activity one fine day.
* * *In Yiddish, the synagogue was called “shul,” literally “school.” The duties of the minister, among other things, usually included calling parishioners to prayer in the morning. To do this, he walked around the place and knocked on the shutters - and therefore his position was often called in Yiddish “ shulklapper", from "shul" ("synagogue") + "klapn" ("knock"), in southern dialects - " shilllopper", and from this word the corresponding surname was also formed.
- Sho(y)het- from a Hebrew word meaning “one who carries out the slaughter of livestock in accordance with the requirements of Judaism.” This is a word with the suffix “-er”, in the form “ miner", penetrated into the German language (where it was applied exclusively to Jews) and in this form also became a surname. In Ukraine and Belarus, the surrounding Slavic population called livestock slaughterers with the word “slaughterer”, and from this word the surnames were formed Reznik, Reznikov, Reznichenko etc. Occasionally, the surname Reznik and derivatives are also found among Ukrainians.
- Menaker- a person who cleans the back of the carcass from veins and internal fat that are forbidden (according to the rules of kashrut) for food.
- Bo(d)dec(from the Hebrew word meaning "inspector") Spector(corrupted Polish "inspector") - a person who checks an already slaughtered animal to ensure it meets kosher conditions.
Surnames denoting religion-related professions also include some abbreviated surnames:
- Shub- “shohet u-vodek” - “cutter and checker” (in the sense of “checking the correctness of kosher meat”).
- Shur- “shohet ve-rav” - “slaughterer and rabbi.”
- Schatz- “shliach-tzibbur” - literally “messenger of the community”, this term was used to call a cantor.
- Shabad- “shliach bet-din” - “envoy of the (rabbinical) court.”
- Rock- "rosh kehillah" - "head of the community."
- Romm(originally it was Rum) - "rosh metivta", "head of the yeshiva" ("metivta" is an Aramaic term equivalent to the Hebrew word "yeshiva").
- Rabad- "rosh bet din" - "head of the (rabbinical) court."
- Dats- “dayan tzedek”, “righteous judge”.
Surnames derived from general professions
Like other nations, among Jews a significant part of surnames are derived from the names of professions or occupations.
As specifically Jewish aspects of Jewish surnames derived from the names of professions, the following points can be noted.
Firstly, the composition of the general “list” of such surnames was affected by the peculiarities of the position of Jews in the economic system of the peoples among whom the Jews lived. Therefore, among Jewish surnames there are relatively many surnames associated with trade and very few surnames associated with agriculture (Jews were predominantly urban residents).
Secondly, Jews, especially in Eastern Europe, used several languages - both Hebrew and the language (and sometimes several languages) of the surrounding population, and often also one of the Jewish languages of the diaspora (Yiddish or Ladino). In addition, Jews often had to move from one country to another (or, in multinational empires, from an area inhabited by one people to an area inhabited by another). This led to the fact that surnames from the same profession could be formed using words from different languages, and sometimes using a stem from one language and an ending from another. So, in the same city of the Russian Empire, bearers of surnames could turn out to be neighbors Hayat(Hait), Schneider, Tailor, Kravets, Kroitor, and also, say, Schneiderov And Portnov. All the surnames in this example are derived from words meaning “tailor”, but in different languages - the word “hayat” means “tailor” in Hebrew, “schneider” in Yiddish and German, “krawiec” in Polish, and “ kroitor" - in Romanian. At the same time, the surname Shneiderov is formed from a word in the Yiddish language using the Russian family ending -ov, and the surname Portnov is formed according to the usual model for Russian surnames, and many Russians have exactly the same surname. The situation is similar with surnames formed from words meaning “shoemaker” - among Jews you can meet people by the surname Sandler(from Hebrew "sandlar"), Shuster(from a German word or a Yiddish word), Shoemaker And Sapozhnikov(from the Russian word), Chizmaru(from Romanian).
In most cases, Jewish "professional" surnames are simply the name of a profession, regardless of the language from which the corresponding word is taken. However, family endings were sometimes used, especially in some areas of the Russian Empire. This is how the surnames mentioned above arose ( Sapozhnikov, Portnov, Schneiderov) and some others, for example, Botvinnikov(from the Belarusian “botvinnik” - “greengrocer”), Rybakov, Vinokurov, Glezerov(from the German “glazer” or Yiddish “glezer” - “glazier”), Kramarov(from the German “kramer” - “shopkeeper”), etc. In the last two examples, the Russian ending “-ov” is added to the German or Yiddish base. (Last names Kramer And Glaser exist in the original German-Yiddish form, without ending). Sometimes the Ukrainian formant “-enko” was also used ( Kushnirenko from the Ukrainian “kushnir” - “furrier”, Shklyarenko- from the Polish “shklyar” - “glazier”)
Sometimes the formant “-man” (“man”) was added to the surname, especially those based on Yiddish or German, and this is how surnames arose Gendlerman(from “gendler” - “trader, peddler”), Shusterman(“Shuster” - “shoemaker”), Shneiderman(“Schneider” - “tailor”), etc. However, the same formant can be directly part of the name of the profession, for example, surname Furman means “cart driver” (from the German Fuhre - “cart”), and the surname Kaufman(with options Koyfman etc.) means “merchant”, from the German kaufen (“koifn” in Yiddish).
If this profession was not the first bearer of the surname, but his father, then the German formant “-zon/son” could be used to form the surname ( Preigerzon from “preger” - “chaser”, Gleerson etc.) or the Slavic formant “-ovich” ( Blyakherovich from “blyakher” - “tinsmith”, Kushnirovich from “Kushner” - “furrier”, Khaitovich from “hayat” - “tailor” in Hebrew, etc.)
Sometimes the formant “-sky” was used to form a “professional” surname ( Kofmansky, Kotlyarsky and etc.)
Surnames derived from the names of professions cover almost the entire spectrum of Jewish economic activity. These are also the professions of artisans: tinsmith ( Bleher, Blecherman, Blyakher, and Kanegieser/Kanegiesser And Klempner), coppersmith ( Kuperschmid- from the German word, Moseonnik- from the Polish word), bookbinder ( Buchbinder), printer ( Drucker) etc., and professions such as porter ( Treger, Treyger) and water carrier ( Wasserman- from the German word, Sacagiu- from Romanian), and surnames associated with medicine ( Rofe, Roiphe- from the Hebrew word meaning "doctor", as well as Doctor, Doctors, Paramedic, Paramedics, And Shpitalnik- from the Polish word meaning “worker in a hospital for the poor”), and the surnames of the musicians ( Kleizmer- in Yiddish this word means “musician”, Musician, Zimbalist, Geiger- from the German word meaning "violinist"). There are names of the builders ( Steiner- from a German word meaning “bricklayer”, A carpenter etc.) and factory workers ( Gisser- "foundry worker" Gamarnik- "smelter" Dreyer, Drexler, Toker, Turner- “turner”). There are surnames associated with jewelry ( Goldschmid, Silberschmidt- from German words meaning “gold/silversmith”, Tsoref- from the Hebrew word meaning "jeweler" Shlifer And Steinshlifer- from the German word meaning “cutter”).
Many Jewish surnames are associated with trade - Kramer("shopkeeper"), Gendler(“trader”, often indicating specialization - Buchgendler"bookseller" Weizgendler"grain merchant" Mitzengendler"hat merchant") Magaziner(shop owner) Meckler("broker"), Factor(“intermediary”), Soyher(“merchant”, a Yiddish word of Hebrew origin), Kaufman/Koifman, Kupchik and many others.
Quite a few surnames are associated with distillation and wine trading (in Eastern Europe there were many Jews in this sector of the economy) - Vinnik, Distiller, Schenker(“shinkar”, with variations of the surname Shenkar, Weinshenker, Sheinkman and etc.), Korchmar And Kretschmer(“korchmar”, in Yiddish - “kretschmer”), Distiller(from the Romanian word meaning "distiller"), Guralnik(from a Ukrainian word also borrowed into Yiddish), Gorelik, Liquornik(from the Polish word), Breuer(from a Yiddish word) and others.
There are relatively few surnames associated with agriculture, since Jews in Europe were predominantly urban dwellers. Nevertheless, there are still such names - Boyer("peasant"), Ackerman("farmer") Rolnik(from the Polish word meaning "peasant"), Schaefer("shepherd").
Surnames derived from the names of professions were common among Jews in all countries. Thus, among Jews in Arab countries such surnames were common as Albahri("sailor"), Amar("builder"), Aseraf(“as-saraf” means “money changer” in Arabic), Albaz("falconer"), Hadad("blacksmith"), Asayag(“as-sayag”, “jeweler”), Faraj("healer"), Fahima("coal merchant"), Najjar("a carpenter"), Sebag(“dyer”), etc. A common surname among Jews in the Middle East Turge(e)man means "translator". Crimeans have surnames such as Bakshi(Turkic word meaning “teacher”), Biberji(“growing pepper”), Penergy(cheese maker), etc., Jews in the territory of the former Ottoman Empire - along with surnames based on the Arabic language - have such Turkic-language surnames as Kababchi(“kebab seller”), Kundarchi("shoemaker"), Saachi("watchmaker"), Tanakci("tinsmith").
