Left to right: Governor Josh Green of Hawaii, Governor-elect Josh Stein of North Carolina and Governor Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania. Photo by Patrick T. Fallon/Al Drago/David Paul Morris/Getty Images

By Benyamin Cohen November 6, 2024

Josh Stein, the attorney general of North Carolina, was elected Tuesday as the first Jewish governor of the Tar Heel state. The win means that, along with Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro and Hawaii Governor Josh Green, 6% percent of United States governors are now Jews named Josh.

“Finally,” said The West Wing actor Joshua Malina, who volunteered for the Harris-Walz campaign, “some news that’s good for the Joshes.”

It should come as no surprise that men named Josh are in roles of leadership, considering their Biblical namesake. “The name Joshua literally means ‘God’s salvation.’ It’s a tall order to live up to,” said Rabbi Joshua Lesser, rabbi emeritus of Congregation Bet Haverim, an Atlanta Reconstructionist synagogue.

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Lesser sees Joshua, who took over after the death of Moses, as representative of the “next generation of leadership,” just like the three relatively young governors named Josh, who are all in their 50s.

Like Moses splitting the Red Sea and shepherding the Jewish people from enslavement to freedom, Joshua “leads the Jewish people in a similar moment of transition,” Lesser said. He’s referring to Joshua splitting the Jordan River and fighting the battle of Jericho, the story of which became a popular song in Black churches.

The biggest lesson that modern-day leaders can learn from the Joshua of the Bible is “to be able to see what is possible and what is positive when everybody else is seeing what is negative and what is destructive,” said Lesser. He shared the story of the 10 spies in the Book of Numbers. While the Jewish people sojourned in the desert, the spies traveled ahead to Israel to get the lay of the land. “They came back and said, ‘It’s horrible, we can’t go there,’” Lesser said. “But it was the biblical Joshua who was able to say there’s a way we can do this.”

More Maxes, fewer Joshes

Josh Maxey, 33, the executive director of Bet Mishpachah, an LGBTQ+ synagogue in Washington, D.C., said that his parents named him after the biblical leader “because they wanted me to go through life being a leader in the community. The name is powerful.”

He added: “Whenever I am lost or need encouragement, I’ll often pick up the Book of Joshua.”

“In particular, I’ll look to my favorite verse — chapter one, verse nine — which talks about not having fear, having courage and recognizing that God is with us. And that no matter what we’re going through, we can always rely and trust that God is with us to face whatever trials that we are going through.”

Maxey said he is thinking about this verse the day after the presidential election, which will see former President Donald Trump return to office. “It’s a reminder that we may not know what the future will hold,” Maxey said. “But the one thing that we can hold on to is that we’re not alone, and that our faith and our values and what we believe as a Jewish people will always be there. We just need to trust in that.”

Rabbi Joshua Hammerman, 67, said that when he was growing up, “Josh was an unusual name, but now Josh is as much a part of the mainstream culture as Lender’s Bagels.” The rabbi emeritus of Temple Beth El, in Stamford, Connecticut, is proud of his fellow Joshes who have made it to their governor’s mansions, and said it’s “pretty impressive” they won in states other than California and New York, which both have large Jewish populations.

The name Josh peaked in popularity in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when Governors Green, Shapiro and Stein were born. It is now at its lowest level of popularity in more than half a century.

“I name a lot of Maxes,” said Rabbi Josh Heller of Congregation B’nai Torah in Sandy Springs, Georgia. “I don’t see a lot of Irvings anymore. All the old Jewish guy names. But give it some time. In 20 years, we will remember the great Joshes of today and want to name our kids after them.”

Before we hung up the phone, Heller pointed out that Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp is term-limited in 2026, and jokingly suggested he may toss his own hat in the ring. “It may as well be a Jewish Josh,” he said.

Asked what his campaign slogan would be, he was quick with a reply: “Less ham in the grits!”

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