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It could be worse.  My family name could be Hitler.  Or Biden-trump.  Khameini. Torquemada.  Or, shudder, Obama.

At least with Epstein, upon introduction, after the familiar momentary pause, the slight smirk, and the question:  “Any relation?” I can answer, “Yes.  Thanks for asking.  We are related to Baruch Halevi Epstein from Pinsk, the author of the Torah Temimah, and his father, Yechiel Michel Epstein, the author of the Aruch Hashulchan.  But why are you asking me now?  Are you studying Tosefes Bracha or Baruch She’amar?”

Another pause.  “Uh, no.  I was thinking of Jeffrey Epstein, the sexual predator.”  “Oh,” I say, withdrawing my hand and, not too surreptitiously, rubbing it against my pants leg.  “No, I try to steer clear of that stuff.  And of people who immerse themselves in it.”  And I walk away.

Sometimes that works.

Other times:  “Oh, yeah.  Cousin Jeff.  Not close.  Just weddings and bar mitzvahs.  Man–those orgies! Don’t ask.”  And they walk away.

That works pretty well, too.  But not at job interviews.

Actually, Epstein is a habitational name, derived from the German town of Eppstein, located in Hesse.  So like Warshavski (from Warsaw), Prager (from Prague), Wilner or Wilensky (from Vilna), and Berliner (possibly from London), people with that surname are not necessarily from the same family.  The aforementioned Baruch Epstein claimed in a memoir that his family name was originally Benveniste, changed en masse by exiles from Spain in 1492 who found a hospitable shelter in Eppstein.

Of course, anyone who lived in or near Eppstein could adopt the name, especially when Jews in German-speaking lands were required to take fixed surnames in the 18th–19th centuries. It is one of the oldest Ashkenazi surnames, appearing in records as early as the 14th century.  Many Epsteins (the ones I, being among them, consider authentic) are Levites, tracing their (our) lineage to the biblical tribe of Levi.  The Pinsk branch were Levites.  There was also an Eppstein in Bavaria, from which some Epsteins originated, but we Hesse Epsteins disdain them.  Bavaria is OK if you are a pastry or a house-painter, but the origin lacks gravitas.

Remarkably, not a single story in all the accumulated press coverage of Jeffrey Epstein discloses whether he was a Levite.  And if you are feeling sorry for us Jewish Epsteins, consider the fact that there are a number of non-Jewish Epsteins who derived from those towns.  To have to bear the burden without all the benefits of being Jewish is hard to imagine.  Anyway, the surname is borne by many, many unrelated families.

It is also possible that my Epstein line derives from a town called Zablutov, in eastern Galicia, formerly part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and, before that, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.

Jewish families in this region often adopted surnames in the late 18th to early 19th century, when the Austrian Empire required fixed family names.  Those who chose, to the dismay of some of their descendants, “Epstein,” probably did not originate in either of the Eppsteins, nor were they emigrants who passed through Eppstein on the way from Spain.  Their lines formed independently, the name chosen (ironically) by people seeking prestige names associated with Rabbinic families.  Sometimes, the name was assigned by Austrian clerks from a list of identifiably Jewish surnames:  Cohen, Levi, Epstein.

“Epstein” was already a respected rabbinic name by the 18th century, so it is no surprise that it was sometimes adopted by families who had no genealogical connection to the “original” German Epsteins.  These folks were probably not related to the Pinsk Epsteins, but they were likely followers of the Hasidic dynasties of Vizhnitz, Chortkov, or Kossov.  So . . . two possibilities, both sources of pride.

And the next time anyone asks, I am going to tell them this entire story.  Don’t say that you haven’t been warned.

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)