What Do You Name a Baby Born During the Covid-19 Pandemic?

Posted by JewishMom on Jun 15, 2020 in Current Events, Inspiration, Israel, Jewish Moms, Motherhood, My life | 6 comments

At an event last week, I met a mom named Aliza Harel and her adorable newborn son Amishav.
The name Amishav, I found out, isn’t only unusual, it’s unique. To the best of Aliza’s knowledge, Amishav (meaning “My people have returned home”) is the first Amishav ever.
Aliza told me that she and her husband, Yisrael, chose this unique name because Amishav was born on Shabbat, a day when Jews leave behind the mad weekday rush of the outside world and return home.
It’s also a reference to the Jewish people returning home, to Israel. As she did at the age of 5 with her family from the US, and as her mother-in-law did from Iraq and her father-in-law did from Afghanistan.

Aliza with her husband Yisrael and their sons Ohr David and Amishav

But when I heard the name Amishav, what immediately popped into my mind was something completely different.
I thought how Amishav was the perfect name for a baby, like this one, born in the midst of the Covid-19 crisis.
Because over the last few months, the human race has been forced to return home. By corona lockdowns. And more recently, by riot curfews. And as if that wasn’t enough, in New York last week there were tornado warnings, and further south on the East Coast, there were flash floods.
Over and over, it seems, Hashem is telling us–Amishav, return home, my people! To your spouse, to your children, to yourself, to Me.

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