For Jews whose names end with -ian

We've been so focused on all the Schwartzes, Rosenthals and Bernsteins out there that you'd think we thought all North American Jews came over on the same boat to Ellis Island from the same shtetl in Poland in 1905.  But we were recently thinking about our very nice Persian (and Jewish) childhood friend Jenny whose family moved to our East Coast suburb in the early 80s  (what did we know about the Revolution back then?  We were just kids).  They since moved out to California, and we hadn't heard much about her, but we always knew that the Persian community in Great Neck, Long Island, was strong and growing.

This past July's W magazine ran a very lovely piece about the Persian community in Beverly Hills.  And we thought our 20 person shabbat dinners on the Upper West Side were something to write home about!  According to this article, families can host shabbat dinners for upwards of 60 people.  Now that's a lot of rice and chicken.  Not to mention the crystal and silver.  Does it all get handwashed?

 The community is family-oriented, tight-knit, and encourages their girls to marry young (which doesn't surprise us realizing now that another Persian friend, Debby, married just out of high school.  We were all very surprised, as the typical friend in our suburban high school setting was heading off to college at that point)

The names of the Persian families are so interesting.  Some have the -ian suffix.  Last weekend we met a young Israeli woman whose last name is Elitzur.  This name, meaning god-rock-stone-strength, was Hebraicized from the Persian name Elyasian by her grandfather when they immigrated from Iran.  She had the knowledge that, actually, their family name originated from "Ben Eliyahu" which translates into the son of Elijah.  

And let us not forget the greatest Jewish queen of all, Queen Esther, who was Persian through and through.  Soon enough Purim will be here and we will celebrate her sacrifice of marrying the non Jewish kind Acheshverosh that saved the Jewish people from destruction at the hands of a Jew-hating empire.