The Green Bubbie and I Wish You a Happy Thanksgiving

I loved the Green Bubbie's photo wishing everyone a Happy Thanksgiving.  She just took a trip out to Utah and became buddies with Smokey.

courtesy of The Green Bubbie (tm)

And now the Whole Phamily wishes you a Happy Turkey Day.

The Wolfman's Brother from 2008; handmade Turkey costume by aunt Reba

Sadly we won't be spending the holiday with Reba, my dear sister, who made these fantastic festive costumes 4 years ago.

Concealed Light, then age 5, with her aunt Reba, the best sister and aunt a girl could ever dream of!

Thankfully though, we have our special spot at the parade.
Praying that it is still accessible.

Stango at least year's parade with the cross-dressing clowns.

And we'll be missing our first cousins who normally join us at the parade.  This year they are heading to a warm spot for Thanksgiving.  As I told my sis-in-law, drink a strawberry daquiri.  Have me in mind.  I'm yotzay.

Goobers and The Wolfman's Brother, then age 4.  And Spiderman.

In case you  missed my Thanksgiving chocolate lollipop post a while back, I'll be so proud of my forward-thinking-ness when I bust these out tomorrow morning.

Gobble gobble!  

And we of course remember our brothers and sisters in Israel who are not having it easy right now.

The Whole Phamily is a network of Jewish names. Jews have only had surnames for a few hundred years. First names, on the other hand, have been around for time immemorial. It was always "child, son/daughter _of_". Like, "Isaac, son of Abraham and Sarah." On headstones, the deceased is usually commemorated by their first name, child of their parent's first name. Getting called up to the Torah is done similarly. Like it or not, our names actually do connect us to the past, present, and future. All together, they make up one greater family. The ganse mishpucha* as it were.

Is your last name Gold, Goldberg, Goldstein? Silver, Silverberg, Silverstein, Silverman? What about Field, Feldman, Feldstein? Or, Cohen, Cohane, Coen, Katz? Perhaps you have known a Fisher, Fishman, or Fish.

Do the names Shapiro, Shufro, Shafran sound familiar? Have you had a friend named Bernstein or any of the various Rosen Rosens (a tilt of the head to Fletch)?

These are all some of the very obvious Jewish names, but there are so many more. Naturally many of the original Jewish names that families took on in their homelands before arriving in North America were changed. Blobstein went to Blaine. Eisenberg became Eis. Altman became Alan.

The Whole Phamily's proprietary database will allow you to enter in your own family name and see what we have about it. Or perhaps you already know that Mullens was originally Mulinsky. Write it up and tell us that story.

Why should you care about your name, anyway?

And, what does it matter that it is a Jewish name?

Isn't your name a good name?

Don't you use it every day?

*ganse mishpucha: Yiddish phrase for "whole family"