On Being Yozi

By Asi Gal

It took me a while to respond to Ari’s crying concerning his name. I was preoccupied what with writing the nerd piece while Ari was working hard proving that he is a nerd without writing a piece specifically about that topic.

So your name has a problematic pronunciation. Thanks for clearing that up in five different paragraphs. It sure is rough. Tons of Bosnian kids are shedding tears of pain over that, and dysentery. That is the troublesome pronunciation of your name and their severe, life-endangering, bloody and mucusy diarrhea. But since I am not too worried about the troubles of such Bosnian kids (hell, we just elected a prime minister who’s only goal so far has been not having a stroke) I will share why I have little to no sympathy for you.

My name, as many Jewish names, consists of two names, Asi and Yozi.

As you cry about the not-exactly-correct meaning of your name You are not Arie - a lion, you are Ari, which means bold. You ignorant, whiny, sexy idiot. Try having a name that has no meaning.

To many Americans named Bill or Biff or, at best, Chuck, not having any meaning to your name seems perfectly reasonable. Yet the Jews, not unlike the Africans, have meaning to their names. For example, Ehud means loveable. The irony is killing me.

You lived in a country full of Stanleys while you had a meaningful name. I, on the other hand, live in a country full of “my name means the strongest tree in the forest” while my own name is meaningless.

For the most part, people think Asi a nickname derived from Assaf, which means “collected.” Assaf is a beautiful name - the name of high-ranking people. Asi, on the other hand, is the name of soccer players and one drunk film maker. I am neither. Though being drunk gets me closer to the latter.

One time, in my 7th grade art class, the teacher told us to draw a representation of our names. After twenty minutes, the first of which consisted of me writing my name inside a big circle and another 19 minutes spent wondering if Arnie Becker can outwit Michael Kuzak in court, the teacher came over and immediately questioned my non-drawing. I informed her that I couldn’t draw anything since my name has no meaning. To which she offered the suggestion that I could depict roads collecting into my name, as Assaf would imply. A beautiful idea, I thought to myself. If only my name was Assaf.

The next year, another one of my teachers politely complimented me that Assaf is a beautiful name. Then impolitely queried as to why I must ruin it. My immediate response was, “Well, being a woman is a beautiful thing, why do you ruin it?” But, I kept quiet because although I am Asi and not Assaf, I am still not some ars soccer player.
In other languages my name means “lucky” (Australian) or “new bride” (Korean) or “bum” (German). I like to think that I’m a bit of all three.

As I mentioned before, my middle name is Yozi - a Romanian name. Normally, this would not constitute a problem. Many people have a middle name that had previously belonged to their grandfather or something along those lines. Usually, when you find out that someone has such a name you mock him “Hey Vladim, you dirty, Russian boy” and what not. Everyone has a good laugh, the boy cries and just maybe, to young Vladim’s probably horror, it even becomes the source of a nickname – like “Vlad” or “dirty Russian boy.”

For me, I was hit hard by the Romanian surprise on one of the first day of high school when the teacher, taking attendance, called out for a “Yozi Gal.” This is how I learned that my first name is Yozi. Asi, it turned out, was the middle name. In fact, I am Yozi Gal. No nickname, just a plain old Romanian kid called Yozi.

Immediately the loud calls of “Yozzzzzzzzzzziiiiiiiiiiii!” followed me, emitted from the mouth of every nerd in school (though, I did take great comfort in realizing that they were much nerdier than me. Like Ahab discovering a whale nut more obsessed than himself). And, in the army, where I served with the local soccer arsim, there was no escaping the name.

After many years I finally learned to accept it. Yozi is my grandfather’s name and I loved him very much. Some people even say it’s a cool name. There was this one cute girl in particular who would playfully call me Yujin, which I loved, just as one loves any meaningless American-Jewish name. Like Eugene from Brighton Beach.

And that’s me, a non-ars, somewhat nerdish boy and a Romanian name to prove it.

On the plus side, however, when I’ll be a D.J. I’ll get to call myself Yo-Z. How cool is that?

Not very. Not very.