We are the Rosenbergs. Or rather, we were the Rosenbergs. As of Thursday, the fourth day of Chanukah, we are now the Kohns. How and why did that happen? First, some background.
I was privileged to know my paternal grandfather, Yishai Rosenberg, and often spent many shabbosim with him and my grandmother in their home in Montreal during the years we both lived there. After my grandparents made aliyah to Tveryah, they would then visit twice a year and spend Yomim Tovim with our family.
My grandfather was my link to the mysterious world of the “old country,” and I loved to hear all the beautiful Shabbos zemiros, divrei Torah and “Jewish jokes” he would share. He spent his retirement years learning diligently in Kolel Rabbi Meir Ba’al Ha’nes and passed away in 2000.
It was always mentioned that our original family name before WWII was not Rosenberg, but Kohn. We are Kohanim, so it made sense. Over the years I’d made a few attempts to research and confirm that fact, but it was not so simple. I did not have much information to work with, and it was pre-internet so research options were limited. So I let it be and moved on.
As my children grew up, and I had a Yishai Rosenberg of my own, it started to bother me: My Zaidy was the only male survivor of his family, so there were no other Kohns in his line of the family. How could I allow our family name that identified us as Kohanim for generations to become another casualty of the Holocaust?
Then I realized—I actually have an opportunity. My grandparents only had two sons. My uncle currently has no male Rosenberg grandchildren, so it’s just me and my brother who can potentially resume the Kohn legacy. If only I would be able to confirm with 100% certainty that his name was Kohn—perhaps we can change our family name back to what it was?
I resumed my online search and came to many frustrating dead ends. Since the name change happened in the DP camps, I had to search an earlier and more murky period. I had my grandfather’s Auschwitz prisoner number from his Canadian immigration papers, but unfortunately there were no records of this ID from the Auschwitz archives (90% of the records there were burned as the Nazis abandoned the camp). After digging some more, I finally found what I was looking for—a list of Jewish residents in the Nyiregyhaza ghetto that had my Zaidy’s name, his parents and siblings all living at the same address. There it was—the Kohn family. One final piece was getting his birth certificate. This was no easy feat since I did not have his real birthdate. With a few possible guesses of what it might be based on his Hebrew birthday, I was able to obtain a copy of his lost birth certificate from the Hungarian consulate. The mystery was solved and the name confirmed.
My grandfather Yishai (Jeno) Kohn was born in Debrecin in 1926 to a poor chasidic family. He grew up in Nyiregyhaza, Hungary, near Debrecin, with his parents, three sisters and an only brother (he had two other brothers that passed away as infants). Yishai was a diligent bachur and was sent away from home to learn in various yeshivas in the region. He was also creative and adventurous. When the Nazis came to his hometown a little after Pesach in 1944, they sent all the Jews on trains to Auschwitz. My grandfather’s parents and younger brother were sent to the gas chambers, but he and his sisters survived in a series of miracles, chesed and ingenuity (for another time).
After the war, during many transits through DP camps, it seems he purchased a few different identity cards, presumably to obtain extra daily food rations as well as to place his name on the lists of several transports leaving Europe (he was apparently an opportunist and pretty savvy). On the advice and blessing of the Klausenberger rebbe who was then in the Föhrenwald DP camp, my Zaidy applied and was accepted for a Canadian visa under the assumed name Jeno Rosenberg with a birthday that was several years younger than he actually was, presumably so he could join a children’s transport leaving to Canada. He eventually made his way to Montreal, where he married my grandmother, set up a family using the new family name “Rosenberg” and was well known in the Montreal Lubavitch community.
We had many family discussions about changing our family name. It was not going to be simple to just assume a new last name. What about pending high school and college applications? Passports and driver’s licenses? Friends and coworkers? The list goes on. Over the course of many months, we came to a consensus that we were ready to undo the “fake” identity assumed because of the carnage of Hitler’s evil design. The opportunity for this change was now. We filed the paperwork.
I’m not naive to think that we’ll be able to just drop the Rosenberg name cold turkey. It’s everywhere. My tefillin bag, seforim, email address, wall art, every online profile under the sun. But we’re playing the long game. It’s a generational process. I’m looking forward, b’ezrat Hashem, to my children’s children being full-fledged Kohns from birth and resuming the legacy that was lost under such tragic circumstances.
On the morning of the fourth day of Chanukah, 2022, our family gathered on Zoom at the virtual courtroom. Sensing our emotions on this momentous occasion and appreciating the historical significance of our motivation, the judge choked up crying and had to leave the room for a moment to regain her composure. We completed the formal name change process in the New Jersey courts, and we are now the Kohns! We are deeply grateful to Hashem for giving us the opportunity to take this enormous step forward, reconnect to our past and reassume the family name our ancestors have held for generations.
Moshe and Faye Kohn (formerly Rosenberg) live in Teaneck and are part of the Beth Aaron and Chabad communities. Moshe is the director of ChabadOne at Chabad.org, and Faye is the middle school director of academics at RYNJ. Their children, Shai, Avi, Freida and Shayna, study at YU, TABC, RYNJ and Yeshivat Noam.
