Raphael Ventura, January 15, 2003
It took some reading and much thinking to solve some of the problems involved in the name Behmoiras. The name is definitely unusual, to say the least.
The Hebrew language uses several honorific designations for rabbis. One of the more complex designations is "Kevod Morenu Harav, Rabbi X" where X is the given name of the rabbi, like Meir, for instance. This means "Our honored teacher and rabbi, Rabbi X". Old sources were very keen to assign honor where honor was due, and therefore, whenever there was need to mention a distinguished rabbi, they would use this formula, and not just "Rabbi X". In order to save space and time in writing (and also in verbal addresses) they abbreviated the formula into an acronym. They formed a single "word" by grouping together the initial letters of each word in the formula. This trick is quite usual in Hebraic literature. In our case, the acronym turned out to be
"KMoHaraR X".
Those same sources, when they needed to mention the name of a son of such a distinguished rabbi, initially wrote (and said) "Ben Kmoharar X", but gradually, this too became an acronym (because of its frequent use) and turned into "Bekmoharar X". Now, the word "Kevod" starts in Hebrew with the letter "Kaf", which is pronounced "K" only when it is used as an initial. Otherwise it is pronounced a strong "H", or "KH". Since in "Bekmoharar" the letter "Kaf" representing the word "Kevod" is no longer an initial, the acronym became "Bekhmoharar". Let us assume that a certain Avraam Farhi was a distinguished rabbi, and that his son was named Mordechai. The father would be referred to as Kmoharar Avraam Farhi, whereas his son would be referred to as: Mordechai Bekhmoharar Avraam Farhi meaning "Mordechai, son of our honored teacher and rabbi, Rabbi Avraam Farhi". All this existed already in the literary sources and in the spoken language among rabbis, before the introduction of our family name Behmoiras.
One should keep in mind that unlike the Moslems of the early 18th century, the Jews already used by that time both given and family names. Our ancestor was Menahem son of Isaac Ashkenazi. His family name was Ashkenazi. For reasons that will be explained in a later article, he could not keep this family name and had to get rid of it. On the other hand, he did not wish to replace it by just another family name. So he decided that, exceptionally, his family would not have a family name at all. His son Mordechai came to be known as Mordechai Bekhmoharar Menahem. The title Bekhmoharar was in order since Menahem had been made grand rabbi of Edirne. By doing this, Rabbi Menahem was not inventing something that had not been known before. He merely eliminated his family name. Hence, instead of Mordechai Bekhmoharar Menahem Ashkenazi, which would have been a perfectly adequate designation for his son at any period, he insisted that he be known as Mordechai Bekhmoharar Menahem. His grandson was named Menahem, after the grandfather. That grandson became known accordingly, as Menahem Bekhmoharar Mordechai. This was also in order, inasmuch as Mordechai had inherited the post of grand rabbi of Edirne from his father (and therefore was an "honored teacher and rabbi" on his own merit).
In general, the members of the family were known as "Y Bekhmoharar X" where Y was the given name of the person and X that of his father. The Jews of Edirne, who were accustomed to family names, had no alternative but to refer to this family as "the Bekhmoharars" just as they would say "the Farhis" or the "Gherons", though they clearly understood that in the case of our family "Bekhmoharar" was not a family name at all. This situation lasted for some 130 years.
At some period, in the mid-19th century, the next development took place. The family had already become complex, and possessed several branches. By that time, not all male descendents of the family were rabbis. Hence the title Bekhmoharar X was no longer adequate for their children. On the other hand, Bekhmoharar had become the only name by which this family was known. The time was ripe to disregard the original meaning of the acronym, and transform it into an ordinary family name. On doing so, however, they could not settle for a name "Bekhmoharar", because this is just a title, which cannot be complete and meaningful as a name, unless it is followed by the given name of the father.
Most of the branches at that period, regarded themselves as descendents of Shimeon, and therefore adopted the family name "Bekhmoharar Shimeon" which was further abbreviated into Bekhmoharash. Few branches insisted that their ancestor was Menahem; hence they became "Bekhmoharar Menahem", abbreviated to "Bekhmoharam". Once they became ordinary family names, Bekhmoharash and Bekhmoharam could not change any more, and passed intact from generation to generation, down to this day.
Behmoiras is the Latinized (French) version of Bekhmoharash, which reflects the way it was then pronounced. The versions Behmoaras and Behmuaras are merely Turkish orthographies, since modern Turkish, unlike French, does not use diphthongs and has a strictly phonetic alphabet. The modern Behmoiram is the Latinized (French) version of Bekhmoharam, and Behmoaram is its Turkish counterpart.
It is inconceivable that this unusual sequence of events, which led to the name Behmoiras as a family name, could have been duplicated elsewhere; nor are we aware of the existence of this name, anywhere in the world, before the 19th century. So, since we know who initiated the sequence as well as when, where, and why it was initiated, there remains no doubt that all past and present bearers of the name belong to one and the same family, and all are descendents of Rabbi Menahem son of Isaac Ashkenazi.
