Hillel? Need opinions from Jews and Christians.

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I'm an evangelical Christian and DH is Jewish. To put it mildly, neither church nor synagogue have been particularly chuffed with us.

We'd like to call our (still unborn) DS Hillel. He was a rabbi around the time of Jesus, and his teaching underlies much of what Jesus says when he pisses off the religious authorities in the New Testament. In other words, perfect

To Jews - is this name OK for a child who won't be officially Jewish himself*? Or is it offensive?

To Christians - if I hadn't explained the origins of the name, would you have understood why we'd chosen this name?

To everyone - is the name Hillel Cohen* asking for antisemitism?

• ie because I'm not ** Our surname isn't Cohen, but it's similarly recognisably Jewish

On a serious note, though, I am no way worried by having a Jewish surname. But DS won't be officially Jewish himself (to be properly Jewish you need a Jewish mum) so I wondered whether Hillel Cohen might be confusing or misleading. And I wondered whether anyone, Jewish or otherise, might have a problem with that.

I didn't know about the Hillel from Red Hot Chilli Peppers Thanks for pointing it out. I was probably geekily stuck into the theology textbook when he died.

In your position I'd go for Joseph

We could. But it wouldn't be hugely original.

I'd only ever heard of Hillel as in Hillel Slovak - I assumed from the name he was Jewish and of Eastern European descent. Not sure what that adds to your situation, but I can't see why you shouldn't choose the name if you like it.

From a Christian background here. Never heard of Hillel I would assume it was a Jewish name and that you were a wholly jewish family. If I knew you well enough to know that you were not jewish then I would think that you were Trying Very Hard to be accepted. For myself in a mixed marriage with a very jewish surname, I'd want a much plainer first name.

I think that if you want to reflect his joint heritage, you should give your son a less obviously Jewish name. Can't think of anything at the moment - I'll get back to you!

(to be properly Jewish you need a Jewish mum)

Yes, I know. I always thought that was a bit odd, tbh. Then again, I come from a very patriarchal background. In ancient times, it was also believed that sin came down through the male line, I believe the two concepts are related, but my brain is a bit mushy nowadays.

I think that it's really up to you what you name your baby and you shouldn't pay too much attention to what anyone else thinks. I think that there might be a bigger issue if you wanted to call him Moshe or something that is undeniably extremely Jewish. You could always name him Christian (tongue in cheek.)

Trying Very Hard? Yes, I can see how that might appear, especially as it seems that Rabbi Hillel isn't a household name amongst many Jews.

Someone here must have a defintive answer for why Jewishness is passed down the female line. Anyone?

I ike the idea of Hillel Christian Cohen No, honestly.

ooops like

there is nothing more sensible than a matrilineal descent if you ask me

• proof that the child is part of that lineage as it emerges from the womb far stronger than patriarchal proof after all

I'm intrigued by Jewishness passing down the maternal line. You'd assume it was because you can be sure of who the mother is and so be sure of Jewish lineage. But you only need to convert for the Jewishness to continue. So it doesn't appear to be to do with geneology?

No opinion on Hillel except I keep reading it as Halal which would, at least, be religiously neutral I'd probably assume Jewishness anyway if an indentifiably Jewish surname. But wouldn't think anything beyond that really

google-mojo

"Jewishness is not in our DNA. It is in our soul. The reason it is passed down through the maternal line is not just because it is easier to identify who your mother is. It is because the soul identity is more directly shaped by the mother than the father.

Jewishness is not in our DNA From a purely physical perspective, a child is more directly connected to their mother. The father's contribution to the production of a child is instantaneous and remote. The mother, on the other hand, gives her very self to the child . The child is conceived inside the mother, develops inside the mother, is sustained and nourished by the mother, and is born from the mother.

This is not to say that a father and child are not intimately attached. Of course they are. But as deep and essential as the bond between father and child may be, the child's actual body was never a part of her father's body. But she was a part of her mother. Every child begins as an extension of their mother's body.

This is a simple fact. It doesn't mean she will be closer to her mother, or more similar to her mother, or follow her mother's ways. We are not discussing the emotional bond between parent and child, but rather the natural physical bond. There is a more direct physical link between mother and child, because a child starts off as a part of her mother.

The body and its workings are a mirror image of the workings of the soul. The physical world is a parallel of the spiritual world. And so, the direct physical link between mother and child is a reflection of a soul link between them. While the father's soul contributes to the identity of the child's soul, it is the mother's soul that actually defines it. If the mother has a Jewish soul, the child does too.

If the mother is not Jewish but the father is, his Jewish soul will not be extended to the child. There may be a spark of Jewishness there, but if it was not gestated in a Jewish mother, the child will have to go through conversion for their Jewishness to be activated.

Jewishness is passed down by the mother because being Jewish is a spiritual identity, it defines our very being. And our very being we get from our mother, both in body and in soul."

More Google-mojo

Mitochondrial DNA

DNA is present inside the nucleus of every cell of our body but it is the DNA of the cell?s mitochondria that has been most commonly used to construct evolutionary trees.
Mitochondrial DNA ? maternal DNA ? is used to construct evolutionary trees.

  Mitochondria have their own genome of about 16,500 bp that exists outside of the cell nucleus. Each contains 13 protein coding genes, 22 tRNAs and 2 rRNAs.

  They are present in large numbers in each cell, so fewer samples are required.

  *They have a higher rate of substitution (mutations where one nucleotide is replaced with another) than nuclear DNA making it easier to resolve differences between closely related individuals.

  *They are inherited only from the mother, which allows tracing of a direct genetic line.

  *They don?t recombine. The process of recombination in nuclear DNA (except the Y chromosome) mixes sections of DNA from the mother and the father creating a garbled genetic history.

-- so it seems there was an inkling of science there too.

Hillel always makes me think of Hillel House, which was a Jewish education place (I think for adults) near where I grew up.

Am loving Christian Cohen.

Could you call him Avigdor? I always wanted a son called Avigdor.

following on MrsSchadenfreude, in the US every college campus has a Hillel which is a non-synagogue based education house. So, in the US the name would be strongly associated with Judaism, but also might be a bit like naming your child after a building of sorts... The connotation I bring to it as a Christian married to a Jew (and always on a college campus as a prof.) is of a warm, welcoming place for people of some or no Jewish background to feel more welcome than they often do in temple. So, quite nice, really.

I'd think a Hillel Cohen was a frum Jew. And when it became apparent he wasn't, I'd think it was weird that he had such an aggressively Jewish name but he wasn't Jewish (incidentally, in the Reform and Liberal traditions, one Jewish parent confers Jewish identity, so they would consider your son to be Jewish).

It's a shame my surname isn't really Cohen (just to recap, I used Cohen as an example of an unambiguously Jewish surname) and doesn't start with C. Christian Cohen just sounds so wonderful, and alliterates so perfectly.

But really interesting discussion here. I'm enjoying watching this thread unfold. And still very much keeping an open mind as to whether I want to call him Hillel, too.

Given that the Hillel Houses spring to mind for so many people - what does that sound like?

at my uni Hillel House was accomodation halls for Jewish students

Couldn't help googling Christian Cohen - they exist

Wow, they do!

Whereas I'm still not sure about Hillel, I think Christian is now a must as a middle name. DH loves the idea too!