Episode 73 – Part two of our series exploring Jewish Names and Identity, with special guest Kirsten Fermaglich, Professor of History and Jewish Studies at Michigan State University and author of A Rosenberg by Any Other Name: A History of Jewish Name Changing in America . We discuss how it became common after WWII for…
Episode 72 – Part 1 of a two-part series on Jewish names and identity. Jennifer and Mallory speak with sociolinguist Dr. Iman M. Nick, author of Personal Names, Hitler, and The Holocaust: A Socio-onomastic Study of Genocide and Nazi Germany. Dr. Nick is president of the Germanic Society for Forensic Linguistics, and the Editor-in-Chief of…
My parents unknowingly named me after the popular Yiddishism, “shayna maidel.” My name is Shana Medel, pronounced Shah-nah Muh-dell. Over the years, it has been butchered by one too many people to count — teachers performing roll call, congregant members at my bat mitzvah, the announcer at my college graduation and even my first boyfriend….
