Otto Zalman Ogman

Zalman Asher ben HaRav Esther u-Vinyamin Tzvi

Remarks by Benj for Otto Zalmans Naming Covenant 23 February 2012 30 Shvat 5772

Otto Zalman, You were born during the week of Shabbat Shkalim, when we read from the Torah about how each Israelite made a contribution to support the community. Weve named you for two great men in our family, each of whom, in their own way, dedicated themselves to the people around them and their wider communities. Youre named Otto after my great-grandfather, your great-great-grandfather, Otto Hirsch, whose life circumstances led him on a far different journey than he would have expected. Originally a lawyer and statesman on various affairs in his home city of Stuttgart in southern Germany, he also invested his energy in the vitality of the local community, serving as president of the High Council of the Jewish Community of Wrttemberg and founding the Jdisches Lehrhaus in Stuttgart think of Hebrew College. In these roles, his approach to Judaism sought deeper meanings and humane understandings while being somewhat flexible on the details. My grandfather likes to tell the story of a young teacher in an outlying town caught playing soccer with his students on Shabbat afternoon by a conservative member of the High Council. The teacher was ordered to take the train into Stuttgart and report to the Council president for censure. He arrived at your great-great-grandfathers office, bracing himself for rebuke, but Otto greeted him warmly. Come in, tell me all about what youre doing with your students Im so far from the classroom these days. And dont worry about what brought you here! In another measure of what it means to be in this family that youre joining, we later realized that the young teacher was Ottos third cousin as was the Council member who first reported him. Otto is primarily remembered for his role trying to hold together the Jewish community and to save lives during the insanity of the Nazi regime. In 1933 he became the founding executive director of the Reichsvertretung der Deutschen Juden, an umbrella organization for all of the Jewish communities, synagogues, and institutions in the country. He worked tirelessly with his friend and RDJ president Rabbi Leo Baeck to save Jewish lives, securing destinations for Jewish emigrants, while staying in Germany himself to keep the gears moving. While he sent his children to the safety of England and the United States, he himself refused to go as long as any other Jews remained alive and in danger. Although he was eventually arrested and killed by the Nazis, his legacy lives on in many ways, including an award given in his memory each year by the city of Stuttgart to a local figure who has worked to promote tolerance and co-existence. His partnership with Leo Baeck began a multigenerational friendship which we hope you will bring into a sixth generation with the arrival next month, God willing, of your friend the child of Ben Dreyfus and Rabbi Elizabeth Richman.

Otto, we pray that you could live in a world where you never experience or witness such horrors in your own life. But we also recognize how broken the world remains today, and we hope that in your way and on your issues, you will follow in your great-great-great-grandfathers footsteps, with the dedication and confidence to stand up to authority yes, even ours to seek justice for all, and to connect deeply with those around you along the way.

Otto comes from a German root meaning treasure or wealth. Weve rendered it into Hebrew as Asher happy or content following the lead of Pirkei Avot in playing off the homophones ashir, which means wealthy and ashir, which means happy. May your happiness ever be a source of wealth for you. Today is also Rosh Hodesh Adar. We say, Mi sheh-nikhnas Adar, marbim bsimchah, with the arrival of the month of Adar, we increase our happiness. You have already brought us a great deal of joy. We hope that with the name Asher you will have a joyful life.

Your great-grandfather Saul Ogman, whose Jewish name Zalman you have, understood all this. Poppa Saul cared deeply for his family and worked hard to save and ensure them access to the college education he never had, earning the title Toilet Paper King of Westchester County for the industrial paper goods business he founded and continued to manage long after he had technically retired. Poppa Saul was an exquisite conversationalist and an incredible listener, full of curiosity. He could and did talk to anyone and everyone, being fully present across boundaries of age, culture and language. Traveling the world, he particularly enjoyed connecting with the children in each place he and your Great-grandma Lila would visit. Your Mama remembers how every time she came to visit, he would have saved up articles and news clippings connected to her school work and social activism to discuss together. Sometimes bewildered or baffled by her choices, he constantly pushed himself to grow through seeing the world through her eyes, understanding her values and commitments. He was also the life of the party. I remember meeting Poppa Saul for the first time, and barely getting him to say anything with a straight face the whole time. When he arrived for a visit, Poppa would promptly stock the snack drawer (and the liquor cabinet!). He could also be counted on to let the kids have free reign to run, climb, and jump around the paper goods warehouse. Poppa Sauls connections to Judaism and music were intertwined, from the days he used to sing in an Orthodox boys choir to the one night a year hed go to shul to usher and to listen to Kol Nidre on Yom Kippur to his pride several years before he passed away, when he asked your Mama Emma to chant the El maleh rachamim at his funeral. Zalman, from your great-grandfather Saul may you learn to be intimate, playful and present, with curiosity for everyone you meet and the drive to fulfill your dreams.

From the moment we started planning our wedding, friends kept asking what wed do about last names, and while we played with creating some portmanteau, we felt too close to the families our names connect us to, to give them up. At the same time, hyphenation would be pretty unwieldy. While you are small and will yet grow big, three last names seems like too many. Your three-times great-grandfather Charley was the only Ogman to come to America and by quirks of marriage and naming, your Mama and Uncle Noah are the only people in our generation to have his name. Weve named you Ogman to carry on that heritage. Should you be blessed, God willing, with brothers or sisters, we hope to give them others of our last names.

In closing, I have one more thought about your namesake Otto and the blessing we are about to give you. Some people find it strange that the parents blessing for sons invokes Josephs sons Ephraim and Menashe rather than the patriarchs we might expect. Explanations abound, but my favorite points out that Ephraim and Menashe were the first brothers in the Bible who didnt fight, but loved each other as brothers. Your great-great-grandfather and his brother Theo were similar, so close that they built a duplex house together in hopes that their children would grow up more like siblings than like cousins.

Zalman Asher, Otto Zalman. May you learn much from your forebears: love of family and community; dedication to doing what is just and right in the world; a mind for math, music, philosophy and law. And most importantly, may you grow up to be yourself, to leave your own impression on this world.

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May the Divine make you like Ephraim and Menashe And your very own sacred self. May the Divine bless you and guard you. May the Divine face you to light you up with grace. May the Divine face you, turning towards you to give you peace.