Today’s word of the day, thanks to The New York Times, is pseudonym. Pseudonym means “a fictitious name used especially by an author to conceal their identity; pen name” (https://www.dictionary.com/browse/pseudonym). Merriam-Webster says, “Pseudonym, has its origins in the Greek word pseudōnymos, which means ‘bearing a false name.’ Greek speakers formed their word by combining pseud-, meaning ‘false,’ and onyma, meaning ‘name.’ French speakers adopted the Greek word as pseudonyme, and English speakers later modified the French word into pseudonym. Many celebrated authors have used pseudonyms. Samuel Clemens wrote under the pseudonym ‘Mark Twain,’ Charles Lutwidge Dodgson assumed the pseudonym ‘Lewis Carroll,’ and Mary Ann Evans used ‘George Eliot’ as her pseudonym” (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pseudonym).

The word entered the language in “1828, in part a back-formation from pseudonymous, in part from German pseudonym and French pseudonym (adj.), from Greek pseudōnymos ‘having a false name, under a false name,’ from pseudēs ‘false’ (see pseudo-) + onyma, Aeolic dialectal variant of onoma ‘name’ (from PIE root *no-men- ‘name’).
“’Possibly a dictionary word’ at first [Barnhart]. Fowler calls it ‘a queer out-of-the-way term for an everyday thing.’ Properly in reference to made-up names; the name of an actual author or person of reputation affixed to a work he or she did not write is an allonym. An author’s actual name affixed to his or her own work is an autonym (1867)” (https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=pseudonym). During all my years of the study of literature, I have never heard the words allonym or autonym.

Pseudonym may be considered, “in part,” a backformation from pseudonymous because the adjective entered the language in “1706, from Modern Latin pseudonymus, from Greek pseudōnymos ‘falsely named, falsely called’” (ibid.). A backformation is “a word formed by subtraction of a real or supposed affix from an already existing longer word (such as burgle from burglar)” (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/back-formation).

According to On This Day, on this date in 1948, “Arabs blow up Jewish synagogue Hurvat Rabbi Yehudah he-Hasid” (https://www.onthisday.com/events/may/27).

The Hurva Synagogue (“The Ruin Synagogue), also known as the Hurvat Rabbi Yehudah he-Hasid (“Ruin of Rabbi Judah the Pious”), is a synagogue in the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem, in Israel. The name refers to a Jewish rabbi who, around 1700, traveled throughout Germany and Poland, from one Jewish community to another, preaching repentance and asceticism (the practice of denying oneself physical pleasures as a form of spiritual discipline). He gathered followers and then led them to Israel. When gathered together in Italy, before leaving for Israel, the group included about 1500 people, but many of them died during the journey (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judah_HeHasid_(Jerusalem)).

“The group arrived in Jerusalem on October 14, 1700. At that time, about 200 Ashkenazi and about 1,000 Sephardi Jews lived in the city, mostly on charities from the Jewish diaspora. The sudden influx of between 500 and 1,000 Ashkenazim  produced a crisis: the local community was unable to help such a large group. In addition, some of the newcomers were suspected to be Sabbateans, whom the local Jews viewed with hostility. The situation grew worse when Judah He-Hasid died within days of his arrival to Jerusalem. He is buried on the Mount of Olives (ibid.) Sabbateans “were a variety of Jewish followers, disciples, and believers in Sabbatai Zevi (1626–1676), a Sephardic Jewish rabbi and Kabbalist who was proclaimed to be the Jewish Messiah in 1666 by Nathan of Gaza” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabbateans).

The Jews who stayed in Jerusalem built a small community, including a small synagogue. They wanted to build a larger synagogue, but that cost money. They borrowed money from Arab leaders. As the project progressed, it got be more expensive than they thought it would be (like the Bullet Train in California). Eventually, the Arab leaders got tired of the Jews’ not repaying them, so they burnt the temple to the ground, along with everything in it, and the Ashkenazim were banned from the city until the loan was repaid: “Over the course of time, shops were built in the courtyard and the synagogue was left desolate, in a pile of rubble. It thus became known as the ‘Ruin of Rabbi Judah heHasid’” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurva_Synagogue). A century later the debt was cancelled.

Another group of ascetic Jews emigrated to Jerusalem in the 19^th century and eventually wanted to build a new synagogue on the site of the ruin. With the help of contributions from around the Jewish diaspora, the new synagogue was finally completed in 1864: “From 1864 onwards, the Hurva Synagogue was considered the most beautiful and most important synagogue in the Land of Israel. It was described as “the glory of the Old City” and the ‘most striking edifice in all of Palestine’. It also housed part of the Etz Chaim Yeshiva, the largest yeshiva [a traditional educational institution for the study of Rabbinic literature] in Jerusalem. It was a focal point of Jewish spiritual life in the city and was the site of the installation of the Ashkenazic chief rabbis of both Palestine and Jerusalem” (ibid.).

Then, in 1948, during the Arab-Israeli War, Jordanian legionnaires took over the synagogue and blew it up.

Israel retook the Jewish Quarter after the 1967 Six-Day War, but it took Jewish leaders almost 40 years to decide on how to rebuild the synagogue. Eventually, it was rebuilt, with the dedication coming in March of 2010. But even that was not without controversy. Arab leaders objected, saying that a reopening of the Hurva Synagogue was a precursor to building a Third Temple on the Temple Mount, destroying Muslim sites on the Temple Mount (ibid.).

But in 2003, before the new synagogue was begun, archaeologists did some digging, and they found evidence of previous uses of the site. For instance, they found evidence of mikvehs, ritual baths, from the 1^st century AD. They even found evidence of settlement from as long ago as 800 BC.

By the way, when the Perushim, the Jewish ascetics, rebuilt the temple in the 19^th century, they actually named it Beis Yaakov Synagogue. For them, the name Hurva Synagogue was a pseudonym.

Today’s image is the “Exterior of the Hurva Synagogue, Old City, Jerusalem. Attribution for use of this image: Chesdovi (London, UK)” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurva_Synagogue#/media/File:Hurva_31_May_2010.JPG).