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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