OCTOBER 31 • 2019 | 43
ing his original
family name in
1985 while work-
ing for the Jewish
Federation of San
Antonio.
Cohen’
s grand-
father had changed his name
from Shalom Cohen to John
Rogers to get a job in New
York during the early 1900s,
which didn’
t dissuade Cohen
and his father, Jerry Rogers,
from embracing their Jewish
identities.
“Besides being a statement
of who I am,” Cohen explains,
“it was an expression of belief
in American society that Jews
no longer had to hide their
identity.”
Already a Jewish activist
and Zionist, Cohen made the
decision when Hezbollah ter-
rorists hijacked TWA flight 847
in June 1985 and separated
Jews from the other passen-
gers.
“Who knows what I would
have done in those circum-
stances,” he says, “but I
wasn’
t in that situation, so it
was my personal protest and
statement. I’
m glad I did it.”
ry and research approaches.
This project follows two
other books. She is the
author of American Dreams
and Nazi Nightmares and
co-editor of the Norton crit-
ical edition of Betty Friedan’
s
The Feminine Mystique.
“I’
m working on another
project,
” says the mem-
ber of Kehillat Israel, a
Reconstructionist congrega-
tion in Lansing. “It has to do
with Jews who migrated to my
area and how they created new
ways of thinking of themselves
as Jews. If I extend research
to other areas, I may turn this
into a book.
”
Experiences of various
ethnic groups entered into A
Rosenberg by Any Other Name.
“
At some point, people
kept asking me about Muslim
Americans after 9/11 and
whether I was finding a lot of
name changing among them,
”
recalls the author, who earned
her bachelor’
s degree from
Columbia University, master’
s
from Washington University
in St. Louis and doctorate
from New York University.
“That was covered in the
last chapter, which I had not
anticipated writing. I did find
name changing was happening
in the Muslim community
for a brief period, and the
research helped shed light on
the relationship between Jews
and Muslims.
”
Fermaglich, who has
addressed many groups about
her book, says the best part of
her project has been hearing
all the stories, both as the
history was researched and
after the book was published
in 2018.
She was very touched to
learn, for example, how a
survivor changed his name
to commemorate a person
who helped him after World
War II.
“I would like readers to
recognize anti-Semitism as
a system that labeled Jews a
different race and denied them
jobs and education because of
their names,
” she says. “That
shaped Jewish history in a
way that people haven’
t talked
about enough.
”
Don Cohen
details
Kirsten Farmaglich will speak
from 5-6 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 3,
in the Charach Gallery at the
Jewish Community Center in
West Bloomfield. Free.
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