"Try and Find Me": Name Changing and Antisemitism in the United States, 1940–60

The era after World War II is typically viewed as a “golden age” for American Jewry, a period when Jews swiftly and easily entered the American middle class, becoming indistinguishable from other descendants of white Europeans.  This narrative does not typically address, however, the struggles with antisemitism that Jews faced in their climb to middle class status. 

An explosion of legal name-changing in the years during and after World War II in New York City offers insight into Jewish struggles with antisemitism during the post-World War II era.  Between 1940 and 1960, the number of name change petitions submitted to the New York City Civil Court exploded, becoming 5 times higher than it had been in the 1920s and 1930s.  Moreover, Jews were disproportionately represented among these postwar petitioners; while representing only 15-25 percent of the New York City population, individuals with Jewish names filed 30-50 percent of name change petitions during these years.  These disproportionate numbers suggest that discrimination, and fears of discrimination, were significant parts of Jewish daily life and self-perception during and after World War II.

The growth of name changing in New York (and elsewhere) in the postwar years was accompanied by a national communal debate over antisemitism and Jewish identity.  Individuals who had changed their names pointed to the “hypocritical universities [and] polluted employment agencies” that had motivated their decisions, while their critics acknowledged the discrimination that Jews faced, but vehemently attacked what they perceived as name changers’ abandonment of the Jewish community.  This anguished, angry public debate suggests not only that American Jews struggled with antisemitism in their personal and professional lives, but that this antisemitism forced the Jewish community to redefine what it meant to be Jewish in the postwar era.