Ol’ Benzion was born in 1910, when an Israeli state wasn’t even on the distant horizon, or much more than an imaginary “Promised Land” told of in the Old Testament, in a time when European Jews had spent centuries being persecuted from the Russian Empire to the UK, and were still being bounced from pillar to post with a lot of pogroms in between. Some got lucky, like the Rothschilds, but a lot more did not. Many were just killed for being Jewish. Many more were thrown out of cities and towns on the whim of racists.
That was the reality for European Jews in 1910. Benzion’s parents simply named him after their own dream, at a time when that dream was as far off to them as waking up on the moon would have been. It would have been a way to keep a symbol of something they longed for – security and safety – in their environment in a time when there was precious little of that for them and their kind. Also, I don’t know if you’ve seen some of those old-timey names yourself, Zebedee, but Benzion is infinitely better than some others I’ve heard.
I’m not Jewish and never have been, but even this goy knows that much about their history. Laugh your ass off all you want, but there’s more to the story.
Ol’ Benzion was born in 1910, when an Israeli state wasn’t even on the distant horizon, or much more than an imaginary “Promised Land” told of in the Old Testament, in a time when European Jews had spent centuries being persecuted from the Russian Empire to the UK, and were still being bounced from pillar to post with a lot of pogroms in between. Some got lucky, like the Rothschilds, but a lot more did not. Many were just killed for being Jewish. Many more were thrown out of cities and towns on the whim of racists.
That was the reality for European Jews in 1910. Benzion’s parents simply named him after their own dream, at a time when that dream was as far off to them as waking up on the moon would have been. It would have been a way to keep a symbol of something they longed for – security and safety – in their environment in a time when there was precious little of that for them and their kind. Also, I don’t know if you’ve seen some of those old-timey names yourself, Zebedee, but Benzion is infinitely better than some others I’ve heard.
I’m not Jewish and never have been, but even this goy knows that much about their history. Laugh your ass off all you want, but there’s more to the story.