Why did a people known as “Hebrews” become known as “Jews”?

Yehudi, Play!

Have you ever met someone named Yehudi? It’s the Hebrew word for “Jew.” We know it as the name of our people, but it’s an unusual first name.

I recently read about the violinist Yehudi Menuhin, a descendant of the Chabad rebbes. He was born in the United States in 1916. Through his father, Moshe Menuhin, he was descended from both the Tzemach Tzedek and Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev.

His parents recognized his extraordinary musical ability when he was just three and immediately hired a violin teacher. At seven, they introduced him to the conductor of the San Francisco Symphony, who asked him what he could play.

“Whatever you’d like,” the boy replied.

The conductor was so impressed that he turned to Menuhin’s parents. “When is he available? I want him to play with the full orchestra next week.”

So, at the age of seven, Menuhin was performing as a violin soloist. He became known as a child prodigy and played for thousands of people around the world.

In a 1938 letter, the Previous Rebbe explains how a talent can run in a family without passing directly from parent to child. A grandfather may have a remarkable gift for music that none of his children share, only for it to reappear three or four generations later.

He gives Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev as an example. His wonderful gift for music reappeared generations later in the child prodigy Yehudi Menuhin. In the same letter, the Previous Rebbe also hints that the Rebbe inherited the Tzemach Tzedek’s aptitude for engineering. (Igrot Kodesh Admur HaRayatz, vol. 4, p. 382.)

During World War II, Menuhin was asked to travel to Europe to perform for American troops fighting there. After the war, General Eisenhower asked him to accompany Allied soldiers as they went from one concentration camp to another and play for the exhausted, starving Jewish survivors.

Menuhin visited Buchenwald, Dachau, Auschwitz, Majdanek, and other camps. He spoke with the survivors, played for them, and wept with them.

He gave five hundred concerts in the camps. Money raised from visitors who came to hear him was donated to help Jews who had been left homeless. Over the years, he also performed to benefit Jewish institutions around the world. He died in 1999.

But how did he get the name Yehudi? Doesn’t it sound a little too Jewish?

Menuhin told the story himself. While his mother was pregnant with him, she and her husband were looking for an apartment. After a long search, they thought they had finally found the right place. They liked what they saw. Then, as the landlady walked them out, she said:

“You’ll be glad to know that I don’t accept Jews.”

They were stunned. They told the landlady they were Jewish, left, and found another apartment.

His mother was so shaken that she vowed to give her child a name that would announce his Jewish identity to the world. She would call him Yehudi.

A Jew Believes

So where did the name Yehudi come from?

This week’s Torah portion introduces us to the original name of the Jewish people: Ivri, or Hebrew. “The fugitive came and told Abram the Hebrew,” the Torah says (Lech Lecha, Genesis 14:13). Rashi explains that Abraham was called Ivri because he came from the other side—eiver—of the Euphrates River.

Abraham’s descendants came to be known by the same name. When Joseph asked Pharaoh’s chief cupbearer to mention him to Pharaoh, he said, “I was stolen from the land of the Hebrews” (Vayeshev, Genesis 40:15). So the Land of Israel was known then as “the land of the Hebrews.”

Later, in the Book of Exodus, G-d sent Moses to Pharaoh to lead the Jewish people out of Egypt. He told Moses to say:

“The L-rd, G-d of the Hebrews, has sent me to you” (Va’eira, Exodus 7:16).

G-d Himself used that name. Throughout the Bible, the Jewish people are called Hebrews. From the time of Jacob, they were also called the Children of Israel, and G-d was called the G-d of Israel. But other nations still knew them mainly as Hebrews.

When, then, did we become known as Jews? The Book of Esther is the first place in the Bible where Yehudi is used as a name for the Jewish people as a whole:

“There was a Jewish man in Shushan, the capital, and his name was Mordechai.”

The verse goes on to call him a Benjaminite. Mordechai belonged to the tribe of Benjamin, yet he was introduced first as a Yehudi, a Jew.

But why give up the name Hebrew? It identified us as descendants of Abraham and was a source of pride. It recalled the man who risked his life to spread belief in one G-d and to oppose idolatry. Why replace a name that meant so much?

The Previous Rebbe explains that during the era of the kingdoms of Judah and Israel, the ten tribes abandoned Torah observance and began worshipping idols. Gradually, there were two kinds of Hebrews: those who believed in G-d and those who worshipped idols. (Likkutei Dibburim, vol. 3, selection 21, p. 45 and onward.)

We see this in the story of Jonah, which we read as the haftarah at the Yom Kippur afternoon service. When the passengers on the ship discovered that Jonah was the reason for the storm at sea, they asked what people he belonged to. He answered:

“I am a Hebrew, and I revere the L-rd, G-d of heaven” (Jonah 1:9).

The Previous Rebbe points out that Jonah didn’t stop at “I am a Hebrew.” He felt he had to explain that he revered G-d. At the time, calling yourself a Hebrew didn’t necessarily say anything about your faith. Some Hebrews believed in G-d; others worshipped idols.

Over time, the Jewish people felt they had no choice but to give up the name that connected them to Abraham, painful as that was, and adopt the name Yehudi. It came from the kingdom of Judah, whose people had remained faithful to G-d, and became the name for a member of the Jewish people who believed in Him.

The Rebbe takes this a step further. He often quotes the Talmud’s statement that anyone who rejects idolatry is called a Yehudi (Megillah 13a). He also connects Yehudi to hoda’ah, meaning acknowledgment: a Jew acknowledges the truth of the entire Torah.

The name “Hebrew” connects us to Abraham. The name “Yehudi” expresses our faith in G-d and the Torah. Menuhin’s mother chose it so the world would know her son was Jewish. It is the name we all share—and one we can carry with pride.