jewish surnames

[trebinjac]

Is that Erez Markovich Serb?

[Arik]

Is that Erez Markovich Serb?

All players except Roberts are Israeli born, maybe Markovich's parents or grandparents from Serbia

[goga78]

The family name ending -ich is quite common with Jewish names. It means that this person is the son of the person whose name is constituting that particular last name. Markovich means son of Mark, Abramowich means the son of Abram (Abraham) etc. The origin is rather Polish-Ukrainian-Belorussian. It's just a coincidence that in former Yugoslav republics you also have the same ending of family names. It's like -ov or -ev in Russian. Just another Slavic variation of family name endings.
Actually, these names have been given to Jews but they are not really Jewish. Depending on the region people were living in, they got names according to the language of that particular region. F.e. family names like Borowski are common among Jews with Polish roots (not Catholic Polish but with their ancestry coming to Poland and bein registered there in such a manner), Graumann is rather German, Abramovich like I said above, Furmanov is Russian but it's a derivate from Furman, which is German, of course.

Of course, Markovich's ancestry has a chance to be stemming from Serbia, Croatia etc. but the chance is slim. After all, there have been only a few dozens of thousands of Jews living in those countries, whereas there were (combined) over 7 mio. Jews living in Poland and the former Soviet Union (before Holocaust).

Actually, if you take a look at the Israeli roster, you can very well tell where the family roots of the particular players are:


Dror Hagag
Yotam Halperin - Europe (Eastern Europe)
Lior Eliyahu - Middle East, Turkey, North Africa (Sephardic Jew)
Erez Markovich - European, as explained above
Jeron Roberts - non-Jewish, English name
Guy Pniny
Meir Tapiro - rather Europe, a variation of German Shapiro, probably Romanian
Matan Naor
Ido Kozikaro
Yaniv Green - Europe (Germany [Grün], probably shifting to Poland)
Amit Tamir
Moran Roth - Europe (Germany, Eastern Europe)

Moshe Mizrahi - Middle East, probably Arabic country
Tal Burstein - Germany
Zvi Sherf - Germany
David Bluthenthal - Germany
Lior Lubin - Russia
Sharon Sasson - probably North Africa, Tunisia

All these players are Jewish, it's just that their names vary accordingly to the countries where their ancestors were living in.

Btw, Ruben Wolkowyski - Poland, a common Polish Jewsih name (he has Jewish roots, as actually do Tiago Splitter and Carlos Delfino (mother)).

The list can go on :-)

I hope this helps, despite being a bit offtopic :-)

[trebinjac]

Carlos Delfino is a Jew ! Did not know that. Anyway Mark is not typical Jewish name to me.

[elaj]

Carlos Delfino is a Jew ! Did not know that. Anyway Mark is not typical Jewish name to me.

Having Jewish roots doesn't make you a Jew.

[trebinjac]

Then what?

[elaj]

Then what?

So, If I have Catholic roots, does that make me a Catholic by default?

[trebinjac]

Most often. But you of course can change later in life. Being Jew has nothing to do with religion .

[insider]

Most often. But you of course can change later in life. Being Jew has nothing to do with religion .

What do you mean? Isn't jewdaism a religion?

[trebinjac]

But they are also orthodox Jews and i do not think Einstein practiced Jewish religion but yet it did not keep Jews from offering him post of Israeli president.

[Joško Poljak Fan]

moved to united nations forum, for obvious reasons.

...and try not to follow the path those threads went in the past, if possible. thanks

[goga78]

Matiz, you are right.

But I cannot simply open such a discussion at another place. It has to be within context

Mark (Marc) isn't a Jewish name but it is quite common among Jews, much more common than among non-Jews.

Following the law of the Halacha, a person is a Jew if he/she does have a Jewish mother. Resultingly, Delfino is a Jew. But his mother could as well be not a religious person, while his father could be a devoted Catholic who has baptized his son upon his birth. I'm not that into the family matters of the Delfinos :-)
On the other hand, having jewish roots doen't translate into being Jewish. F.e., if your grandfather is Jewish, you have Jewish roots, but you aren't Jewish, unless you have a Jewish mother or have converted (undergone the giyur procedure).
Trebinjac is right, but not fully. Being a Jew refers to both, the nation and the religion. In so far, it certainly has to do with religion, but it cannot be compared with religions like Islam or Christianity. Whereas the former are transnational, Jews have used to be one nation with one religion, while not doing any missionary work. Thus it has remained a community of one nation with one religion to a large extent, although some Jews abandoned their religion and some non-Jews have converted to Judaism because of personal reasons.

[ziv]

balkan jews is an intersting issue by itself.
most of them were originated in spain (of the 1492 decree) and since there are some diffrances in the judaism practiced in europe and as opposed under muslim (and spanish) regims this differences were remain afterwards (even untill nowdays). so the balkan area had a mixed population of "european" jews and jews with spanish roots (even today called "spaniards" in israel). northern parts of ex-yugoslavia and inland mostly (basiclly area under austo-hungarian control at the time) with european oriented. for example, israel minister of justice till recently was born in novisad and he's "hungarian oriented" and not of spanish roots.
jews from the cosatl line, from fyrom, albania and to the west bulgaria and greece to the south are almost all "spaniards".
well, the relation is - as far as i remember most of them didn't adopt tipycal yugoslavian names (ich's and stuff...) so most jews with "ich" names are originted in poland.

[qiangdade]

Btw, Ruben Wolkowyski - Poland, a common Polish Jewsih name (he has Jewish roots, as actually do Tiago Splitter and Carlos Delfino (mother)).

The list can go on :-)

I hope this helps, despite being a bit offtopic :-)

I thought Splitter had german roots being born and raised in Blumenau/Brazil a clearly german name of a city where the greater part of the population has german surnames (including the mayor).

[goga78]

I thought Splitter had german roots being born and raised in Blumenau/Brazil a clearly german name of a city where the greater part of the population has german surnames (including the mayor).

Interesting. Actually, his Jewish grandfather's name is different. I don't quite remember, whether he's from Poland or Germany. In any case, Tiago Splitter himself is a Catholic. But he gave this info to the journalist (calling names and places of living), when Tau came to play Maccabi in Tel-Aviv in the Top 16 of last season. Unfortunately, I have deleted the bookmark of this article, but you can google it up.