Without any preamble, lead-in or introduction, the book bluntly begins by naming names: “Now these are the names of the children of Israel who came to Egypt; each man and his household came with Jacob: Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah; Issachar, Zebulun, and Benjamin; Dan, Naphtali, Gad, and Asher.” Accordingly, the second book of the Bible, called “Exodus” in English, is known in Hebrew as “Shemot,” or “Names.”
Aaron Demsky, professor emeritus of Bar-Ilan University’s Department of Jewish History and Contemporary Jewry, has dedicated his professional life to the study of Jewish names – given names, surnames, Biblical names, Second Temple period names, Diaspora names, and place names mentioned in the Bible. Unbeknown to most of us, the study of names itself has a name, “onomastics,” and Prof. Demsky has made Jewish onomastics a recognized and widely respected field of Jewish history and social studies.
Demsky made aliyah with his family from New York in 1965. Having studied at both Columbia University and the Jewish Theological Seminary, he received his doctorate from Hebrew University in Jerusalem, and taught at Bar-Ilan University for 40 years in the department of Jewish history. In 1991, he founded and now directs the Project for the Study of Jewish Names at Bar-Ilan University, and has organized 14 biennial conferences, which have brought together scholars from all over the world, in all aspects of research focusing on Jewish names.
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