(JTA) -- Christian Goldenbaum is used to people doing a double take after he introduces himself. Almost every single day while living abroad in New York, London and Jerusalem, the 28-year-old São Paulo native was asked “How come a guy named Goldenbaum gets a name like Christian?”
Several times, religious Jews have expressed discomfort with his name — an Orthodox rabbi once insisted on calling him by his Hebrew name, Avraham, and his grandmother’s second husband would call him “the boy” growing up to avoid saying his first name. Another time, an elderly Israeli man demanded he change his name.
“He was very obviously very aggressive. He was basically saying, ‘You’re not one of us with this name,’” Goldenbaum recalled.
The post When Christian is Jewish: Living a Jewish life with a non-Jewish name appeared first on WND.
