Family Crests and Jewish Genealogy
from the internet
by Judith Romney Wegner
Crests are a sociological phenomenon. In general, having a family crest is not a Jewish "thing," (unless you want to go back to the Bible, to the twelve tribes of Israel 3,000 years ago, who -- so says the book of Numbers (2:10) -- lined up in military formation each following its standard on the long march from Egypt to the Promised Land -- and each standard must obviously have had its own emblem, e.g. the Lion of Judah). But in the sense that we think of today, crests go back to the Middle Ages and the European feudal system , when only nobility and knights had crests. The Jews, of course, stood, both socially and legally, completely outside the feudal system: they were neither nobles nor knights, but they weren't peasants either -- they were an anomalous social group, geneally perceived as "belonging" to the king, who could do what he liked with them.
Some very old and uppercrust Jewish families do have crests -- like for instance the Rothschilds. Their name is routinely mispronounced by English speakers -- who wrongly split it up into ROTHS plus CHILD; but in actuality it is ROTH plus SCHILD (rhymes with "chilled") -- which are two German words, meaning RED SHIELD. So that's their crest. However, they originally got both their name and their crest from the fact that an early ancestor name lived in a house with a Red Shield painted on its door. Back then, they didn't always have street names and never had street numbers -- so emblems were painted or hung to identify the house, in this case the House of the Red Shield. Later, this becomes the "HOUSE (i.e. dynasty) of ROTHSCHILD."
by A.M Fox
Strictly, the term "crest" refers to the device worn atop the helmet of an armoured knight and incorporated in his armorial bearings; it is a solecism to refer to the bearings or "shield" as the crest. In this strict sense Jewish families were unlikely to have crests during the age of chivalry, since they were not warriors and were not considered noble. However, with increasing emancipation and assimilation many Jewish families have become ennobled, particularly in England with its long tradition of religious acceptance and the significance of an hereditary upper chamber, so that Jewish heraldry is a reality. If one wants to commit a solecism one might call the "Shield of David" a crest - or the rot (red) schild (shield) displayed outside the house of Mayer Amschel Rothschild in the eighteenth century, although the shield originally went with the house rather than the family. Certainly there are close links between heraldry and genealogy - since a full blazon is in fact a symbolic family tree, at least in European (in France at least one could only bear arms if all one's sixteen ggg-parents had done so - the Proof of Seize Quarterings") and much of English heraldry. There is no reason why any Jewish family that wants one should not acquire armorial bearings or even a crest - the College of Heralds in England makes a handsome living out of emblazonment and there are also comparable authorities in Ireland and South Africa.
[Editor's note: An authentic family crest for a given surname would normally consist of graphics typically representing both "sides of the family" and should not be taken by descendants generations later. Whatever you wish to conclude from this little article, don't ever pay someone to provide you with "your authentic" family crest. It won't be your's. My final offering is this little lampoon suggested by a fellow genealogist: Our family crest should depict Zelig at his treadle sewing machine representing his trade as a schneider (tailor) and that of his sons. A push-cart should represent the many descendants who sell their products or services for a living, and finally, representing the black sheep every family must have, an illustration of an unnamed descendant the alleged horse-thief, being run out of town. Sorry, this is what you get when your editor works on the newsletter on the first of April. :-)]
For a view of the Mayoff crest, Click here
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