BEINASH (pron: bay-nash) often mispronounced ‘buy-nash’, ‘bay-nish’ or ‘b’nash (rhymes with panache) sometimes butchered to ‘beenash’ or mocked as ‘danish’.

The name was originally Beinashovitz but the English spelling is tenuous because at the time of the name’s transfer into English from Yiddish it was hardly a comfortable circumstance of choice or demand on the part of the titleholder.

I’ve found online 16th century Polish tax records with the almost exact spelling which would make sense since my father’s family are from that part of the world, more or less. There are other signs along the way I’ve picked up that spark some recognition of possible connection: there’s an Austrian police chief who was the subject of an Egon Schiele painting named Beinisch, there’s an Israeli supreme court judge named Beinisch, a famous LA bakery named Benesh, a Czech Prime Minister named Benes (pron: Benesh). I’m not claiming relation to any of these luminaries merely an indication of original geographic and linguistic origin.

According to the Museum of the Jewish Diaspora in Tel Aviv the name was perhaps a generic name given to Yeshiva students ‘ ben yeshiva’ (son of the Yeshiva) …ben yish…benish…which I know my Father’s family were. If you break the name down into it’s phonetic Hebrew it translates as ‘ ben ish’ (son of man) which is as generic as one can get.

The reason for looking into the geographic origin of my family name was to discover if there actually is any meaning in it for me. Or was it just assigned at some point in time? Like the color blue was given the name blue. I was trying to understand what the name meant by where it came from and who else had it and once knowing this I could perhaps decide if it related personally to me. Well, I haven’t really cleared that up - it’s a name shared by Jews and non-Jews. There are Austrians and Poles and Czechs with some version of the name. And here I am a South African Jew living in America…so at best I can deduce that the name itself doesn’t have any metaphysical relation to me as a person…

All I know for sure, though, is that when my Grandfather got off the boat from Lithuania to South Africa in the mid 1920’s he lopped of the ‘ovitz’ and become Maurice Isaac Beinash and much later Zaida (Grandfather) Maurice, but that’s another story…

by Adam Beinash
Studio City, CA