The Daily Show with Jonathan Leibowitz
Jon Stewart a relic of antisemitism? Ron Rosenbaum thinks so.
“Dear Jon Stewart,” he writes in Slate, “I want you to change your name. Back to Leibowitz.” He is referring to Stewart’s birth moniker, Jonathan Stuart Leibowitz.
Many of us have stories about how our family names were hacked into Americanized semblances of the original after our ancestors left their old countries. My great-grandfather’s Rosenzweig became Rosen to fit on a New York boxing marquis, or so goes the family lore. Yarrow, my married name, might have once been Yarovetsky outside of Kiev at the turn of the century, but now, nobody knows for sure.
Rosenbaum is looking for high profile Jews, namely Stewart, to “reject the rejection of their ancestry and the WASP-ification of their names.”
Rosenbaum appeals to Stewart’s knack for stripping the pretenses from the personas of celebrities and political big shots on his show, then asks that he turn this strategy on himself by reclaiming his ethnic name. Rosenbaum goes on to say that Stewart asserts his Jewishness in every other discernible way in the name of comedy — his bar mitzvah referencing, bubbe-teasing, occasionally Yiddish-accented joshes pander to tribe members and the seculars alike.
Stewart was named the most trusted man in news in a recent Time magazine poll, though their 9,409-person sample of voters seems too small call Stewart the new Walter Cronkite.
Will Stewart make the switch? Slate has offered him a forum. We’ll keep you posted.
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we still need 300 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Only 300 more gifts needed by April 30
