by Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz
My father’s name is Kantrowitz. He changed it to Kaye in 1942.
At the dyke bar in Portland I tell my best Jewish friend that I’m thinking about taking back my mother’s maiden name. “Kaye is a made up name,” I say, “It has no history.” Amy, historian, tells me, “Just because a history isn’t pretty doesn’t mean it isn’t history.”
Kaye is both history and closet. History is a kind of closet. Kaye is Kantrowitz Kaminsky Keminetsky Kowalsky Klutz Korelowich Ka… (think about asking every Jew you know: what was your name?)
adopted from Nice Jewish Girls: A Lesbian Anthology
by Rabbi Zeise Wild Wolf
by Kiera Aviya Koester
by Sylvia Rothchild
by Troim Katz-Blacker Handler
by Mara Benjamin
by Maxine Silverman
by Sophia Batsheva Rosenberg
by Rachel S. Havrelock
by Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz
by Ann Klaff Lontein
by Esther Gerstenfeld Radick
by Phyllis Pacheco
by Karen Alkalay-Gut
by Seena Candy Sweet
by Rabbi Leila Gal Berner
poetry by Zelda