Jewish Immigration Updates
Chavi writes: My given name is plain. Absolutely generic. Even my middle name is plain.
When I went to get some film developed at the local Wal-Mart, the girl behind the counter was named Amanda Edwards, and she wanted to know why I wasn’t returning my library books; turns out they were confusing her for me. During the process of conversion, I often lamented that my given name poorly defined who I really was. It was a name that attached me to my parents and my family, but it had no recognizable culture or history.
It was just another American name. Not only that, but my parents can’t even remember why they named me Amanda. As for my first name, it had beauty and grace, but my entire childhood I’d had a plaque on my wall that defined Amanda as “worthy of love” and in Biblical prose, “For God so loved the world, he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” I struggled with a Hebrew name, because I clung to the idea that I should find the Hebrew for “beloved” or “worthy of love.” My Jewish friends began calling me Chavy, and the blog I created to document and develop my academic and spiritual curiosities — Just Call me Chaviva — took on my Hebrew moniker. I had grand visions of adopting the name entirely on a day to day basis, I felt it defined me more than Amanda, despite that the two mean nearly the same thing. Chaviva Edwards. Chaviva … Edwards?
I began telling myself I needed to marry a nice Jewish boy with a great Jewish last name, I needed to come full circle. I needed to have the name to fit the mind, the heart, the soul. A name has power, it has the power to conjure feelings and ideas and thoughts about who a person is. Growing up with a generic name taught me that a person is more than a name, but that was before my Jewish soul came out. It’s taken me some time, and some patience to be okay with my given name. Let’s just say his name was very biblical, both his first and surname. Your name doesn’t sound Jewish …”
Inevitably I responded “Actually, I’m a convert.” If there’s anything that gives away that I could be a goy or a Jew by Choice, it’s my name.
I spent a long time studying names and the meaning of names and etymology when I was in high school. I’ve found that many of the converts I know have adopted their Hebrew name, choosing to blog or sign off e-mails with it. I still have dreams of becoming a Chavi Cohen or Chavi Levi or Chavi Goldenblatt or Leviweissenstein, but I still always introduce myself in person to friends, strangers and foes as “Amanda Edwards.” Until then, know me as Amanda, Chavi, or that girl who is learning what it is to have a generic name in a world where names can say so, so very much.
