selenak: I also found out where the name "Ahasverus" came into the family. This was the fault of one Gerhard (Ahasverus) von Lehndorff, this guy, a passionate 17th century traveller (and writer of travel books) who got himself even involved with pirates once. He was actually renamed himself Ahasverus, not after Xerxes but according to his wiki entry after the eternal Jew. Being a fellow world traveller and all.
mildred_of_midgard: Per Wikipedia: "At least from the 17th century the name Ahasver has been given to the Wandering Jew, apparently adapted from Ahasuerus 'Xerxes,' the Persian king in the Book of Esther, who was not a Jew, and whose very name among medieval Jews was an exemplum of a fool. This name may have been chosen because the Book of Esther describes the Jews as a persecuted people, scattered across every province of Ahasuerus' vast empire, similar to the later Jewish diaspora in countries whose state and/or majority religions were forms of Christianity."
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Date: 2020-10-06 07:11 pm (UTC)