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91-544: Lurie is often a Jewish surname , but also an Irish and English surname . The name is sometimes transliterated from/to other languages as Lurye , Luriye and Lure (from Russian), Lourié (in French). Other variants include: Lurey , Loria , Luria , Luri , Luryi , Lurier, Laurie , Lourie , Laurier . Jewish surname Jewish surnames are family names used by Jews and those of Jewish origin. Jewish surnames are thought to be of comparatively recent origin;

182-405: A kinnui -like system, sometimes choosing between already existing ones (such as Pizarro/Pissarro, Mendes, Fonseca, Calle, Fernandes or Rodrígues); even given names (for example, de Jesus or de Miguel). Julio Caro Baroja , supporting José Leite de Vasconcelos ' thesis in his "Anthroponymy Portuguesa, 4" argues, for example, that the surnames related to calle ( English : "street"), that would be

273-624: A December 2006 opinion lifting all rabbinic prohibitions on homosexual conduct (the opinion held that only male-male anal sex was forbidden by the Bible and that this remained prohibited). Conservative Judaism also made a number of changes to the role of women in Judaism including counting women in a minyan , permitting women to chant from the Torah, and ordaining women as rabbis . The Conservative approach to halakhic interpretation can be seen in

364-467: A common object or tool of a profession: e.g., Hammer for a blacksmith, Feder ("quill") for a scribe, and Lein ("linen") for a dealer in cloth; Balsam a dealer in Balsam. There are other occupational names that are more distinctively related to Jewish culture and religious roles: Dayan (Jewish religious judge in a Beth din); Parnass, Derus, Gabbay, Singer, Cantor , Voorsanger , Chazan , Cantarini , from

455-487: A community recognizes a certain judicial system to resolve its disputes and interpret its laws." Given this covenantal relationship, rabbis are charged with connecting their contemporary community with the traditions and precedents of the past. When presented with contemporary issues, rabbis go through a halakhic process to find an answer. The classical approach has permitted new rulings regarding modern technology. For example, some of these rulings guide Jewish observers about

546-469: A complete enumeration of the rules of interpretation current in his day, but that they omitted from their collections many rules which were then followed." Akiva devoted his attention particularly to the grammatical and exegetical rules, while Ishmael developed the logical. The rules laid down by one school were frequently rejected by another because the principles that guided them in their respective formulations were essentially different. According to Akiva,

637-1547: A false patronymic was the first Israeli Prime Minister , David Ben-Gurion , whose original family name was Grünberg,"green mountain" in German, but adopted the name "Ben-Gurion" ("son of the lion cub"), not "Ben-Avigdor" (his father's name). Most of the Jews in Iran had no permanent surnames before Reza Shah . After surnames became mandatory, many Persian Jews employed job related names as their surnames. Many Jews worked in non-Muslim professions like goldsmith, silversmith, dealers of coins, money changing and seller of spirits. Others engaged in medicine, silk manufacturing and weaving, locksmith, tailors, shoe makers, merchants of second hand items. Many other Jews were engaged in jewelry trading, opium and wine manufacturing, musicians, dancers, scavengers, peddlers and other professions that were generally deemed non-respectful. Many Jews adopted these professions as their surnames, such as Abrishami (silk maker), Almasi (diamond maker), Boloorian (crystal maker), Dehghan (wealthy farmer), Fallah (farmer), Zarrinkoob, Javaherian, Gohari (gold seller), Noghrehforosh (silversmith), Mesforosh (coppersmith), Sarraf, Sarrafan, Sarraf Nezhad, Banki (money changer), Zargar, Zarshenas (goldsmith), Hakakian or Hakkakian (connected with raw material, finished product or implements associated with that trade) for example Roya Hakakian. Jews in Iran also employed

728-614: A patronymic surname, became common throughout the Iberian peninsula. Among the Jews of Spain and Portugal, it had the hidden meaning "the lion of Israel is on high." A well-known Arias was the humanist and Hebraist Benito Arias Montano . Sephardic Jews who settled in Wallachia , Romania, coming from Trani , Italy, in the 1700s began to adopt Mitrani as their surname with a reference to their city. The Ḥen family appears to have adopted

819-586: A prohibition in order to maintain the Jewish system as a whole. This was part of the basis for Esther 's relationship with Ahasuerus (Xeres). For general usage of takkanaot in Jewish history see the article Takkanah . For examples of this being used in Conservative Judaism, see Conservative halakha . The antiquity of the rules can be determined only by the dates of the authorities who quote them; in general, they cannot safely be declared older than

910-410: A provision mandating fixed legal surnames for Sephardic Jews, but it was not until the 17th and 18th centuries that the rest of Europe followed suit. The Kingdom of Prussia began sequentially requiring Jews in its eastern provinces to adopt surnames in the 1790s, an edict affirmed by Napoleon Bonaparte following his invasion of Prussia in 1812. Surnames were derived from a variety of sources, such as

1001-408: A rabbinic posek ("he who makes a statement", "decisor") proposes an additional interpretation of a law, that interpretation may be considered binding for the posek's questioner or immediate community. Depending on the stature of the posek and the quality of the decision, an interpretation may also be gradually accepted by other rabbis and members of other Jewish communities. Under this system there

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1092-560: A replacement for the traditional Hebrew patronymic form. A popular form to create a new family name using Jewish patronymics sometimes related to poetic Zionist themes, such as ben Ami ("son of my people"), or ben Artzi ("son of my country"), and sometimes related to the Israeli landscape, such as bar Ilan ("son of the trees"). Others have created Hebrew names based on phonetic similarity with their original family name: Golda Meyersohn became Golda Meir . Another famous person who used

1183-618: A secular occupation or place names. The majority of Jewish surnames used today developed in the past three hundred years. Historically, Jews used Hebrew patronymic names. In the Jewish patronymic system the first name is followed by either ben- or bat- ("son of" and "daughter of," respectively), and then the father's name. ( Bar- , "son of" in Aramaic , is also seen.) Permanent family surnames exist today but only gained popularity among Sephardic Jews in Iberia and elsewhere as early as

1274-426: A self-evident trust that their pattern of life and belief now conformed to the sacred patterns and beliefs presented by scripture and tradition". According to an analysis by Jewish scholar Jeffrey Rubenstein of Michael Berger's book Rabbinic Authority , the authority that rabbis hold "derives not from the institutional or personal authority of the sages but from a communal decision to recognize that authority, much as

1365-885: A translation of the name of their home village, Gracia, near Barcelona . Indeed, among the Sephardi the tendency to adopt family names from localities is largely developed; hence were derived such names as Espinosa , Gerondi , Cavalleria , De La Torre , del Monte , Lousada , and Villa Real . The name Sasportas deserves special attention, as it is really the Balearic dialectal form of La Porta . Many families, especially among New Christians (Jewish converts to Catholicism) and Crypto-Jews , but not restricted to them, took Spanish and Portuguese family names, sometimes using translations (such as Vidal or de Vidas for Hayyim , Lobos for Zev , de Paz for Shalom , and de la Cruz or Espírito Santo for Ruah ); phonetic similarities according to

1456-588: A water tap (which is permissible by halakha ) than lighting a fire (which is not permissible), and therefore permitted on Shabbat. The reformative Judaism in some cases explicitly interprets halakha to take into account its view of contemporary society. For instance, most Conservative rabbis extend the application of certain Jewish obligations and permissible activities to women (see below ). Within certain Jewish communities, formal organized bodies do exist. Within Modern Orthodox Judaism , there

1547-405: Is a tension between the relevance of earlier and later authorities in constraining Halakhic interpretation and innovation. On the one hand, there is a principle in halakha not to overrule a specific law from an earlier era, after it is accepted by the community as a law or vow , unless supported by another, relevant earlier precedent; see list below. On the other hand, another principle recognizes

1638-455: Is actually counter-productive. They propose that Judaism has entered a phase of ethical monotheism, and that the laws of Judaism are only remnants of an earlier stage of religious evolution, and need not be followed. This is considered wrong, and even heretical , by Orthodox and Conservative Judaism. Humanistic Jews value the Torah as a historical, political, and sociological text written by their ancestors. They do not believe "that every word of

1729-547: Is an evolving concept and that the traditional halakhic system is incapable of producing a code of conduct that is meaningful for, and acceptable to, the vast majority of contemporary Jews. Reconstructionist founder Mordecai Kaplan believed that "Jewish life [is] meaningless without Jewish law.", and one of the planks of the Society for the Jewish Renascence, of which Kaplan was one of the founders, stated: "We accept

1820-550: Is another Sephardi Jewish last name and is derived from the root word Torah ( תּוֹרָה ‎) in Hebrew; Avinbruch or Auerbach corresponding to Ibn Baruch ; and Beizaee, corresponding to Iza (Hebrew root for "God is perfection"). Hagen corresponds to Hassan or Hazan ; and the like. Biblical names often take curious forms in the Iberian records, Isaac appearing as Acaz , Cohen as Coffen or Coffe, Yom-Ṭob as Bondia , Ẓemaḥ as Crescas and/or Cresquez . Arias ,

1911-680: Is between the Written Law, laws written in the Hebrew Bible , and the Oral Law, laws which are believed to have been transmitted orally prior to their later compilation in texts such as the Mishnah, Talmud, and rabbinic codes. Commandments are divided into positive and negative commands, which are treated differently in terms of divine and human punishment. Positive commandments require an action to be performed and are considered to bring

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2002-524: Is considered to be a true teaching, even if it is not the true teaching in according to the heavens. For instance, Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik believes that the job of a halakhic decisor is to apply halakha − which exists in an ideal realm−to people's lived experiences. Moshe Shmuel Glasner , the chief rabbi of Cluj ( Klausenberg in German or קלויזנבורג in Yiddish) stated that the Oral Torah

2093-759: Is derived from the Hebrew root halakh – "to walk" or "to go". Taken literally, therefore, halakha translates as "the way to walk", rather than "law". The word halakha refers to the corpus of rabbinic legal texts, or to the overall system of religious law. The term may also be related to Akkadian ilku , a property tax, rendered in Aramaic as halakh , designating one or several obligations. It may be descended from hypothetical reconstructed Proto-Semitic root *halak- meaning "to go", which also has descendants in Akkadian, Arabic, Aramaic, and Ugaritic. Halakha

2184-684: Is no one committee or leader, but Modern US-based Orthodox rabbis generally agree with the views set by consensus by the leaders of the Rabbinical Council of America . Within Conservative Judaism , the Rabbinical Assembly has an official Committee on Jewish Law and Standards . Note that takkanot (plural of takkanah ) in general do not affect or restrict observance of Torah mitzvot . (Sometimes takkanah refers to either gezeirot or takkanot .) However,

2275-439: Is normative and binding, and is developed as a partnership between people and God based on Sinaitic Torah. While there are a wide variety of Conservative views, a common belief is that halakha is, and has always been, an evolving process subject to interpretation by rabbis in every time period. See Conservative Judaism, Beliefs . Reconstructionist Judaism holds that halakha is normative and binding, while also believing that it

2366-475: Is often contrasted with aggadah ("the telling"), the diverse corpus of rabbinic exegetical , narrative, philosophical, mystical, and other "non-legal" texts. At the same time, since writers of halakha may draw upon the aggadic and even mystical literature, a dynamic interchange occurs between the genres. Halakha also does not include the parts of the Torah not related to commandments. Halakha constitutes

2457-565: Is part of these New Christian families that emerge around the time due to persecution. Members adopted the Portuguese last name of Nunes da Costa and the Curiel family were ennobled by João IV of Portugal June 14, 1641. Jews have historically used Hebrew patronymic names. While permanent family surnames started appearing among Sephardic Jews in Iberia and elsewhere as early as the 10th or 11th century, they did not spread widely to

2548-553: Is so loose that not attending synagogue may lead them to drop it altogether, their rabbi may give them a dispensation to drive there and back; and more recently in its decision prohibiting the taking of evidence on mamzer status on the grounds that implementing such a status is immoral. The CJLS has also held that the Talmudic concept of Kavod HaBriyot permits lifting rabbinic decrees (as distinct from carving narrow exceptions) on grounds of human dignity, and used this principle in

2639-422: Is still seen as binding. Conservative Jews use modern methods of historical study to learn how Jewish law has changed over time, and are, in some cases, willing to change Jewish law in the present. A key practical difference between Conservative and Orthodox approaches is that Conservative Judaism holds that its rabbinical body's powers are not limited to reconsidering later precedents based on earlier sources, but

2730-768: Is the name of a Prague family that settled in the Netherlands before going over to England. The name Gordon may in some cases be derived from the Russian Grodno but is also said to have been adopted by Jews in the Russian Empire in honor of Lord George Gordon (1751–1793), a Scottish nobleman who converted to Judaism in 1787 in Birmingham. From Poland have come names such as Polano , Pollock , Polack , Polak , Pollak , Poole , Pool , and Polk . The names Altschul or Altschuler are derived from

2821-665: The Frankfurter Judengasse gave rise to the names of some of the best known of Jewish families: Rothschild ("red shield "), Schwarzschild ("black shield"), Adler ("eagle"), Ganz or Gans (" goose "), Strauß (" ostrich "), and Ochs ("ox"). Some names may seem to be derived artificially, but can also refer to towns, e.g., Birnbaum (translated into " Peartree "), Rosenberg , Kornberg , Sommerfeld , Grünberg (hence Greenberg ), Goldberg , and Rubinstein / Rubenstein . The English Crawcour (cf. Siegfried Kracauer ) comes from Cracow , while van Praag (h)

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2912-466: The shofar on Shabbat, or taking the lulav and etrog on Shabbat. These examples of takkanot which may be executed out of caution lest some might otherwise carry the mentioned items between home and the synagogue, thus inadvertently violating a Sabbath melakha . Another rare and limited form of takkanah involved overriding Torah prohibitions. In some cases, the Sages allowed the temporary violation of

3003-865: The Altschul ("old school/synagogue") of Prague. Sephardic surnames, as already mentioned, are almost invariably local, as Almanzi , Arwa and Aruesti (from Hervas ), Bejarano (from Bejar ), Castro , Carvajal , Espinosa /Spinoza, Silva , Leon , Navarro , Robles , Sevilla (Spanish), and Almeida , Carvallo , Lisbona , Miranda , Paiva , Pimentel , Porto , Pieba and Verdugo (Portuguese). Many Italian names are also of this class, as Alatino , Di Cori (from Cori ), Genovese (from Genoa ), Meldola , Montefiore , Mortara , Pisa , Rizzolo , Romanelli (with its variants Romanin , Romain , Romayne , and Romanel ), Sonnino , Vitalis (from Jaim or Chaim and its variants Vidal, Vidale and Vidas); Verdugo and its variants Berdugo, Bardogo, Paradiso an anagram for

3094-616: The Ashkenazic Jews of Germany or Eastern Europe until later. However, Non-Ashkenazi Jews who had immigrated to what was considered Ashkenaz (such as Sephardic Jews who fled the Inquisition) would often keep their surnames and/or Ashkenazize them (e.g., "Melamad" was kept; "Leoni" would be Ashkenazized to " Leib "), and some of the already-settled Jews in communities in large cities (such as Prague or Frankfurt am Main ) began to adopt various surnames. Surnames derived from

3185-531: The Committee on Jewish Law and Standards (CJLS) is empowered to override Biblical and Taanitic prohibitions by takkanah (decree) when perceived to be inconsistent with modern requirements or views of ethics. The CJLS has used this power on a number of occasions, most famously in the "driving teshuva", which says that if someone is unable to walk to any synagogue on the Sabbath, and their commitment to observance

3276-646: The Edict of Tolerance , the Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II issued a decree called Das Patent über die Judennamen which compelled the Jews to adopt German surnames. Prussia did so soon after, beginning with Silesia : the city of Breslau in 1790, the Breslau administrative region in 1791, the Liegnitz region in 1794. In 1812, when Napoleon had occupied much of Prussia, surname adoption

3367-566: The Jewish diaspora , Jews lacked a single judicial hierarchy or appellate review process for halakha . According to some scholars, the words halakha and sharia both mean literally "the path to follow". The fiqh literature parallels rabbinical law developed in the Talmud , with fatwas being analogous to rabbinic responsa . According to the Talmud ( Tractate Makot ), 613 mitzvot are in

3458-545: The Shabbat and holidays). Through the ages, various rabbinical authorities have classified some of the 613 commandments in many ways. A different approach divides the laws into a different set of categories: The development of halakha in the period before the Maccabees , which has been described as the formative period in the history of its development, is shrouded in obscurity. Historian Yitzhak Baer argued that there

3549-554: The tanna ("repeater") to whom they are first ascribed. It is certain, however, that the seven middot ("measurements", and referring to [good] behavior) of Hillel and the thirteen of Ishmael are earlier than the time of Hillel himself, who was the first to transmit them. The Talmud gives no information concerning the origin of the middot, although the Geonim ("Sages") regarded them as Sinaitic ( Law given to Moses at Sinai ). The middot seem to have been first laid down as abstract rules by

3640-469: The "divine" authority of halakha , traditional Jews have greater reluctance to change, not only the laws themselves but also other customs and habits, than traditional Rabbinical Judaism did prior to the advent of Reform in the 19th century. Orthodox Jews believe that halakha is a religious system whose core represents the revealed will of God. Although Orthodox Judaism acknowledges that rabbis have made many decisions and decrees regarding Jewish Law where

3731-535: The "sacred" name, used only in religious connections, grew commensurately. Among the Sephardim , this practice was common long before the exile from Spain , and probably became still more common as a result of the example of the conversos , who upon adopting Christianity accepted in most cases the family names of their godfathers. Among the Ashkenazim , whose isolation from the mainstream majority population in

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3822-456: The "traditionalist" wing believe that the halakha represents a personal starting-point, holding that each Jew is obligated to interpret the Torah, Talmud and other Jewish works for themselves, and this interpretation will create separate commandments for each person. Those in the liberal and classical wings of Reform believe that in this day and era, most Jewish religious rituals are no longer necessary, and many hold that following most Jewish laws

3913-465: The 10th or 11th century and did not spread widely to the Ashkenazic Jews of Germany or Eastern Europe until the 18th and 19th centuries, where the adoption of German surnames was imposed in exchange for Jewish emancipation . European nations gradually undertook legal endeavors with the aim of enforcing permanent surnames in the Jewish populations. Part of the Alhambra Decree of 1492 contained

4004-496: The CJLS's acceptance of Rabbi Elie Kaplan Spitz's responsum decreeing the biblical category of mamzer as "inoperative." The CJLS adopted the responsum's view that the "morality which we learn through the larger, unfolding narrative of our tradition" informs the application of Mosaic law. The responsum cited several examples of how the rabbinic sages declined to enforce punishments explicitly mandated by Torah law. The examples include

4095-625: The Halakhic process, a religious-ethical system of legal reasoning. Rabbis generally base their opinions on the primary sources of halakha as well as on precedent set by previous rabbinic opinions. The major sources and genre of halakha consulted include: In antiquity, the Sanhedrin functioned essentially as the Supreme Court and legislature (in the US judicial system) for Judaism, and had

4186-401: The Hebrew honorific title " ben kavod rabbi ," which signifies "son of the honorable rabbi", Benmohel (one variant of which is Mahler ), son of one who performed circumcision , the sacred rite of Abraham. A number of Arabic names are of similar origin: Al-Fakhkhar , a potter; Mocatta , a mason or possibly a soldier ( Al-Muḳatil ). Halakha Historically, widespread observance of

4277-474: The Hebrew patronymic form (ben or bas/bat with the father's name) is still used in Jewish religious and cultural life. It is used in the synagogue and in documents in Jewish law , such as the ketubah (marriage contract). Surnames were not unknown among the Jews of the Middle Ages, and as Jews began to mingle more with their fellow citizens, the practice of using or adopting civic surnames in addition to

4368-496: The Noahide Laws. They are a set of imperatives which, according to the Talmud, were given by God to the "children of Noah" – that is, all of humanity. Despite its internal rigidity, halakha has a degree of flexibility in finding solutions to modern problems that are not explicitly mentioned in the Torah. From the very beginnings of Rabbinic Judaism, halakhic inquiry allowed for a "sense of continuity between past and present,

4459-465: The Orthodox views that halakha was given at Sinai, Orthodox thought (and especially modern Orthodox thought) encourages debate, allows for disagreement, and encourages rabbis to enact decisions based on contemporary needs. Rabbi Moshe Feinstein says in his introduction to his collection of responsa that a rabbi who studies the texts carefully is required to provide a halakhic decision. That decision

4550-419: The Talmud states that in exceptional cases, the Sages had the authority to "uproot matters from the Torah". In Talmudic and classical Halakhic literature, this authority refers to the authority to prohibit some things that would otherwise be Biblically sanctioned ( shev v'al ta'aseh , "thou shall stay seated and not do"). Rabbis may rule that a specific mitzvah from the Torah should not be performed, e. g., blowing

4641-460: The Torah is true, or even morally correct, just because the Torah is old". The Torah is both disagreed with and questioned. Humanistic Jews believe that the entire Jewish experience, and not only the Torah, should be studied as a source for Jewish behavior and ethical values. Some Jews believe that gentiles are bound by a subset of halakha called the Seven Laws of Noah , also referred to as

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4732-815: The Torah, 248 positive ("thou shalt") mitzvot and 365 negative ("thou shalt not") mitzvot , supplemented by seven mitzvot legislated by the rabbis of antiquity. Currently, many of the 613 commandments cannot be performed until the building of the Temple in Jerusalem and the universal resettlement of the Jewish people in the Land of Israel by the Messiah. According to one count, only 369 can be kept, meaning that 40% of mitzvot are not possible to perform. Rabbinic Judaism divides laws into categories: This division between revealed and rabbinic commandments may influence

4823-876: The addition of -jee , thus Benjamin into Benmajee , Abraham into Abrajee , David into Dawoodjee , Jacob into Akkoobjee . Another frequent source for Jewish and German-Jewish surnames is the names of trades and occupations; such names as Kaufmann and Marchant ("merchant") became prominent. Others of the same kind are: Bialasik, Banks , Brauer, Breyer, and Brower ("brewer"); Spielmann ("musician"); Gerber ("tanner"); Goldschmit (Goldsmith); Silverschmit (Silversmith); Steinschneider ("stonecutter"); Graveur ("engraver"); Shoemark or Schumacher ("shoemaker"); Schuster ("cobbler"); Schneider , Schneiders , and Snyders ("tailor"; in Hebrew חייט ‎, Chait /Khait (and at times Hyatt )); Wechsler ("money-changer"); Zimmermann ("Carpenter"). Related, and likewise generically German, names are derived metonymically for

4914-409: The application of a law to new situations, but do not consider such applications as constituting a "change" in halakha . For example, many Orthodox rulings concerning electricity are derived from rulings concerning fire, as closing an electrical circuit may cause a spark. In contrast, Conservative poskim consider that switching on electrical equipment is physically and chemically more like turning on

5005-483: The authoritative, canonical text which is recorded in the Hebrew Bible . Under contemporary Israeli law , certain areas of Israeli family and personal status law are, for Jews, under the authority of the rabbinic courts, so they are treated according to halakha . Some minor differences in halakha are found among Ashkenazi Jews , Mizrahi Jews , Sephardi Jews , Yemenite , Ethiopian and other Jewish communities which historically lived in isolation. The word halakha

5096-468: The days of the Sanhedrin, however, no body or authority has been generally regarded as having the authority to create universally recognized precedents. As a result, halakha has developed in a somewhat different fashion from Anglo-American legal systems with a Supreme Court able to provide universally accepted precedents. Generally, Halakhic arguments are effectively, yet unofficially, peer-reviewed. When

5187-417: The divine language of the Torah is distinguished from the speech of men by the fact that in the former no word or sound is superfluous. Some scholars have observed a similarity between these rabbinic rules of interpretation and the hermeneutics of ancient Hellenistic culture. For example, Saul Lieberman argues that the names of rabbi Ishmael's middot (e. g., kal vahomer , a combination of the archaic form of

5278-616: The end of the 18th century after the Partition of Poland and later after the Congress of Vienna the Russian Empire acquired a large number of Jews who did not use surnames. They, too, were required to adopt surnames during the 19th century. In medieval France the use of Biblical names appears to have been more extended, judging by the elaborate lists at the end of Gross's Gallia Judaica . True surnames occurred, especially in

5369-786: The equivalent in something like a ghetto, are of Jewish origin. This is the case with Alonso Calle, treasurer on the first voyage of Christopher Columbus to the Americas, who was one of the settlers of Sephardic origin who comprised the crew. Some Sephardic or Hidden/Undeclared Jews for fear of persecution or worse felt compelled to anglicize their names (For example, the original, Italianate Principe thus became Prins in early Amsterdam, and Prince in England or early America later on). Anglicized Sephardic families were also known to have intermixed with similar Christian surname communities and family groupings, often later converting. The Curiel family

5460-458: The eternity of Torah be understood [properly], for the changes in the generations and their opinions, situation and material and moral condition requires changes in their laws, decrees and improvements. The view held by Conservative Judaism is that the Torah is not the word of God in a literal sense. However, the Torah is still held as mankind's record of its understanding of God's revelation, and thus still has divine authority. Therefore, halakha

5551-463: The family history. The majority of Middle Age surname adoption came from place names (for example Shapiro , from Shpira, Speyer , a Rhenanian city known for its famous Jewish community in the 11th century), often a town name, typically the birthplace of the founder of a rabbinical or other dynasty. These names would permutate to various forms as families moved, such as the original Welsch becoming Wallach, Wlock, or Block. Since these surnames did not have

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5642-601: The first known Jewish family names date to the Middle Ages , in the 10th and 11th centuries. Jews have some of the largest varieties of surnames among any ethnic group, owing to the geographically diverse Jewish diaspora , as well as cultural assimilation and the recent trend toward Hebraization of surnames . Some traditional surnames relate to Jewish history or roles within the religion, such as Cohen ("priest"), Levi , Shulman ("synagogue-man"), Sofer ("scribe"), or Kantor (" cantor "), while many others relate to

5733-462: The halakha, which is rooted in the Talmud, as the norm of Jewish life, availing ourselves, at the same time, of the method implicit therein to interpret and develop the body of Jewish Law in accordance with the actual conditions and spiritual needs of modern life." Reform Judaism holds that modern views of how the Torah and rabbinic law developed imply that the body of rabbinic Jewish law is no longer normative (seen as binding) on Jews today. Those in

5824-475: The importance of a rule, its enforcement and the nature of its ongoing interpretation. Halakhic authorities may disagree on which laws fall into which categories or the circumstances (if any) under which prior rabbinic rulings can be re-examined by contemporary rabbis, but all Halakhic Jews hold that both categories exist and that the first category is immutable, with exceptions only for life-saving and similar emergency circumstances. A second classical distinction

5915-597: The lands where they lived was more complete, the use of surnames only started to become common in most places in the eighteenth century. On the other hand, the use of surnames became common very early among the Arabic-speaking Jews, who carried the custom into the Iberian Peninsula (modern Spain and Portugal). Among Sephardi Jews are found such names as Abeldano , corresponding to Ibn el-Danan ; Abencabre , corresponding to Ibn Zabara ; Tongay

6006-725: The largest number. Some refer to well-known cities as Speyer (in the Middle Ages Spira) (hence Shapira or Shapiro ), Posen (hence Posner and Posener , as well as Pozner ), Berlin (hence Berliner and Berlinsky ), Breslau (anglicised to " Bresslaw "), Bingen , Cassel (cf. David Cassel ), Treves (whence, according to some authorities, originated the very popular Alsatian name of Dreyfus ), Dresden , Fulda (hence Foulde ), and Oppenheim ; others, to less familiar towns, like Auerbach , Bischoffsheim , Utting am Ammersee (hence Utting), Hildesheim ( Hildesheimer ), Landshuth , Sulzberg . House signs such as those in

6097-551: The laws of the Torah is first in evidence beginning in the second century BCE. In the Jewish diaspora , halakha served many Jewish communities as an enforceable avenue of law – both civil and religious , since no differentiation of them exists in classical Judaism. Since the Jewish Enlightenment ( Haskalah ) and Jewish emancipation , some have come to view the halakha as less binding in day-to-day life, because it relies on rabbinic interpretation, as opposed to

6188-512: The name of the matriarch of the family were adopted by some households. For example, the surname Rivkes is derived from the female name Rivkeh, the Yiddish form of Rebecca , so the surname literally means "Rivka's". The Slavic language-influenced counterpart is Rivkin . Other surnames came from the man's trade such as Metzger (butcher) or Becker (baker), and a few derived from personal attributes, such as Joffe (beautiful), or special events in

6279-515: The official status that modern ones do, often the old surname would be dropped and a new one adopted after the family moved their household. Many surnames in the Netherlands derived from the German versions. For example, Waal derived from Wahl and Voorzanger (Chazan) derived from Vorsänger. The process of assigning permanent surnames to Jewish families (most of which are still used to this day) began in Austria. On July 23, 1787, five years after

6370-463: The performer closer to God. Negative commandments (traditionally 365 in number) forbid a specific action, and violations create a distance from God. A further division is made between chukim ("decrees" – laws without obvious explanation, such as shatnez , the law prohibiting wearing clothing made of mixtures of linen and wool), mishpatim ("judgements" – laws with obvious social implications) and eduyot ("testimonies" or "commemorations", such as

6461-683: The personal names of ancestors, place names, and occupations. In the 18th century, a custom developed amongst the Eastern European Jews of the Austro-Hungarian and Russian Empires where surnames began being passed from mother to son as opposed from father to son, but the trend seems to have died out by the early 20th century. An exception was members of the Cohanim (priestly caste) and Levites (descendants of Levi) who performed certain religious duties, who had always appended

6552-551: The power to administer binding law, including both received law and its own rabbinic decrees, on all Jews—rulings of the Sanhedrin became halakha ; see Oral law . That court ceased to function in its full mode in 40 CE. Today, the authoritative application of Jewish law is left to the local rabbi, and the local rabbinical courts, with only local applicability. In branches of Judaism that follow halakha , lay individuals make numerous ad-hoc decisions but are regarded as not having authority to decide certain issues definitively. Since

6643-713: The practical application of the 613 mitzvot ("commandments") in the Torah, as developed through discussion and debate in the classical rabbinic literature , especially the Mishnah and the Talmud (the " Oral Torah "), and as codified in the Mishneh Torah and Shulchan Aruch . Because halakha is developed and applied by various halakhic authorities rather than one sole "official voice", different individuals and communities may well have different answers to halakhic questions. With few exceptions, controversies are not settled through authoritative structures because during

6734-515: The proper use of electricity on the Sabbath and holidays. Often, as to the applicability of the law in any given situation, the proviso is to "consult your local rabbi or posek ". This notion lends rabbis a certain degree of local authority; however, for more complex questions the issue is passed on to higher rabbis who will then issue a teshuva , which is a responsa that is binding. Indeed, rabbis will continuously issue different opinions and will constantly review each other's work so as to maintain

6825-963: The race of Japhet and from the Tribe of Levite ). The purpose of Levian at the end is to distinguish from Muslim Jafar nezhad (From the race of Japhet). Many Jews employed the Turkish suffix -chi (meaning "merchant of") to denote their profession. Examples of such include Abrishamchi (silk merchant), Saatchi (watch seller), Talachi (gold seller), Noghrechi (silver seller), Arakchi (merchant of alcoholic drinks), Meschi (copper merchant), Aeenechi (merchant of mirrors), etc. Many modern Jewish surnames are toponyms , names derived from place names. There are general names like Deutsch , Frank , Franco , Frankel , and more localized ones from almost every European country. The Netherlands has contributed Leuwarden , Neumegen , Limburg , van Thal , and various other vans , as van Ryn ( Rhine ), etc. Germany has contributed

6916-433: The race of Japhet). Levite and Kohanim surnames became Lavi, Lavaee, Lavi Zadeh, Lavaeeian, Kohan, Kohan pour (son of a Kohen), etc. Many Persian last names consisted of three parts in order to distinguish from other families with similar last names. Some Persian Jewish families that had similar surnames to their Muslim neighbors added a second surname at the end of their last names. As an example Jafar nezhad Levian (From

7007-409: The responsibility and authority of later authorities, and especially the posek handling a then-current question. In addition, the halakha embodies a wide range of principles that permit judicial discretion and deviation (Ben-Menahem). Notwithstanding the potential for innovation, rabbis and Jewish communities differ greatly on how they make changes in halakha . Notably, poskim frequently extend

7098-414: The son of or daughter of patronymics, using Persian suffixes such as -pour (son of), -zadeh (born of), -nezhad (from the race of) and -ian (from the group of). Some examples of these names include Davoud pour (son of David), Davoud nezhad (from the seed of David), Davoud zadeh (born of David), Rabbi pour (son of a rabbi), Rabbi zadeh (born of a rabbi), Yaghoub pour (son of Jacob) and Jafar nezhad (from

7189-529: The south, like Farissol, Bonet, Barron, Lafitte; but as a rule local designations were popular, such as "Samson of Sens", etc. Many immigrants to modern Israel change their names to Hebrew names, to erase remnants of exiled life still surviving in family names from other languages. This phenomenon is especially common among Ashkenazic Jewish immigrants to Israel , because most of their surnames were taken recently, and many were imposed by authorities in Europe as

7280-700: The surnames Cohen and Levi respectively (modern spelling in English may vary), which were usually preceded by ha- meaning "the" in Hebrew. These names are seen in many various forms today, all coming from this root. For example, the name Levine in English-speaking countries, the name Löw in Germanic countries and the names Levi, Lévai, or Lévay in Hungary, Europe, or America. Although Ashkenazi Jews now use European or modern-Hebrew surnames for everyday life,

7371-410: The synagogue officials who were so called; Shochet , Schaechter , Schechter , from the ritual slaughterer (also Schub or Shub: Hebrew acronym for shochet u-bodek , ritual slaughterer and kosher meat inspector); Shadkun , a marriage-broker; Rabe , Rabinowitz , Rabinovich , Rabinowicz , and Rabbinovitz , rabbis (occasionally Anglicized to Robinson or Robbins ); Behar /Bahar, abbreviation of

7462-456: The teachers of Hillel, though they were not immediately recognized by all as valid and binding. Different schools interpreted and modified them, restricted or expanded them, in various ways. Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Ishmael and their scholars especially contributed to the development or establishment of these rules. "It must be borne in mind, however, that neither Hillel, Ishmael, nor [a contemporary of theirs named] Eliezer ben Jose sought to give

7553-401: The trial of the accused adulteress ( sotah ), the "law of breaking the neck of the heifer," and the application of the death penalty for the "rebellious child." Kaplan Spitz argues that the punishment of the mamzer has been effectively inoperative for nearly two thousand years due to deliberate rabbinic inaction. Further he suggested that the rabbis have long regarded the punishment declared by

7644-409: The truest sense of halakha . Overall, this process allows rabbis to maintain connection of traditional Jewish law to modern life. Of course, the degree of flexibility depends on the sect of Judaism, with Reform being the most flexible, Conservative somewhat in the middle, and Orthodox being much more stringent and rigid. Modern critics, however, have charged that with the rise of movements that challenge

7735-562: The utmost accuracy and care. The most widely accepted codes of Jewish law are known as Mishneh Torah and the Shulchan Aruch . Orthodox Judaism has a range of opinions on the circumstances and extent to which change is permissible. Haredi Jews generally hold that even minhagim (customs) must be retained, and existing precedents cannot be reconsidered. Modern Orthodox authorities are more inclined to permit limited changes in customs and some reconsideration of precedent. Despite

7826-573: The word diaspora (dispersion). Even in the East there are names of these last two classes, Barron (from BarOn ), Galante , Veneziani , though there are a few Arabic names like Alfandari and Ḥaggis; Greek, as Galipapa and Pappo ; and a few Turkish, as Jamila , Gungur , Bilbil, and Sabad . Going still farther east, the curious custom which prevails among the Bene Israel may be mentioned of changing Biblical names to similar Hindu names with

7917-715: The word for "straw" and the word for "clay" – "straw and clay", referring to the obvious [means of making a mud brick]) are Hebrew translations of Greek terms, although the methods of those middot are not Greek in origin. Orthodox Judaism holds that halakha is the divine law as laid out in the Torah (five books of Moses), rabbinical laws, rabbinical decrees, and customs combined. The rabbis, who made many additions and interpretations of Jewish Law, did so only in accordance with regulations they believe were given for this purpose to Moses on Mount Sinai , see Deuteronomy 17:11 . See Orthodox Judaism, Beliefs about Jewish law and tradition . Conservative Judaism holds that halakha

8008-528: The written Torah itself is nonspecific, they did so only in accordance with regulations received by Moses on Mount Sinai (see Deuteronomy 5:8–13 ). These regulations were transmitted orally until shortly after the destruction of the Second Temple . They were then recorded in the Mishnah, and explained in the Talmud and commentaries throughout history up until the present day. Orthodox Judaism believes that subsequent interpretations have been derived with

8099-555: Was an oral tradition by design, to allow for the creative application of halakha to each time period, and even enabling halakha to evolve. He writes: Thus, whoever has due regard for the truth will conclude that the reason the [proper] interpretation of the Torah was transmitted orally and forbidden to be written down was not to make [the Torah] unchanging and not to tie the hands of the sages of every generation from interpreting Scripture according to their understanding. Only in this way can

8190-409: Was little pure academic legal activity at this period and that many of the laws originating at this time were produced by a means of neighbourly good conduct rules in a similar way as carried out by Greeks in the age of Solon . For example, the first chapter of Bava Kamma , contains a formulation of the law of torts worded in the first person. The boundaries of Jewish law are determined through

8281-457: Was mandated for the unoccupied parts; and Jews in the rest of Prussia adopted surnames in 1845. Napoleon also, in a decree of July 20, 1808, insisted upon the Jews adopting fixed names. His decree covered all lands west of the Rhine; and many other parts of Germany required surname-adoption within a few years. The city of Hamburg was the last German state to complete the process, in 1849. At

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