“But that’s Yiddish. Don’t you have a Hebrew name?” she pressed

E

ven before first grade, I’d never liked my name. And my inexperienced teacher exacerbated that dislike on my very first day of school.

She smiled at us as she scanned our eager faces and asked us our names. “Zelda,” I announced when my turn came. Her nostrils flared, and a barely discernable frown flashed on her young cheeks, but I saw it all.

“But that’s Yiddish. Don’t you have a Hebrew name?” she pressed.

I didn’t. How I longed to have a pretty, Israeli-sounding name like Yael or Ayala! In kindergarten, I would look around enviously at my friends Aviva, Tamar, and Batsheva sitting in our little chairs. I would even have been happy with Miriam, Esther, or Naomi. And now, in first grade, my teacher had officially confirmed that my name was unattractive in her eyes, too.

I didn’t cry when I got home. But my father sensed that I was troubled. What happened to his exuberant little girl on her first day of school? Where were her smiles? Her chattering and prattling? So I told him.

He took my hand and led me to the book-lined dining room, sat me down at the table, and took out a Chumash.

“If you’d like, Zeldaleh, we can look for a similar Hebrew name in the Torah.” He turned the pages and exclaimed, “How about Zilpah, one of Yaakov Avinu’s wives?”

I rejected that name outright.