The always-worth-reading David Greenberg on the passing of John Morton Blum, who is somehow in my academic family tree (Blum was one of David M. Kennedy’s advisors, I think).
As is often the case I want to quibble a little with David, who writes, “John Morton Blum—who always used the very Jewish-sounding “Morton” in his professional byline”—to me, the “Morton” made the name sound less, rather than more, Jewish. As someone who doesn’t professionally use his middle name, I sometimes think about these things.
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5 comments
October 22, 2011 at 3:00 pm
Sandwichman
My uncle Morton was a rabbi. Just sayin’
October 22, 2011 at 3:08 pm
ari
It never occurred to me that Blum was Jewish (though it seems rather obvious in retrospect). He arrived at Yale in 1957? That mustn’t have been easy.
October 22, 2011 at 4:23 pm
undergrad
From a David Kennedy lecture in 2007: “Among my other students there was in a manner of speaking was George W Bush, who was an undergraduate at the time I was a graduate student, and though I have absolutely no memory of them what so ever, it turns out that I was the Chief Grader in a course that he took from my great mentor John Morton Blum. So when George Bush was elected president in 2000, Blum called me up and he said Kennedy, he said I have checked your records here, and in the year that George W Bush took my course, you were the Chief Grader and I went to the registrar’s office and I looked in, you gave him a grade of 82 which in Yale terms in those day B above or B minus. The story bears on my right to be speaking to here today. And he said he could not possibly deserve that 82, the fix must have but and somehow, and you gave him a grade he didn’t deserve, and that’s why he passed my course and if you didn’t give him the grade he really deserved, he would have flunked by the course he would have flunked out of Yale, he wouldn’t be the president of United States today and I am holding you personally responsible. “
October 22, 2011 at 8:44 pm
Vance Maverick
To follow on that tangent — and another recent post — when did the name Morton “become Jewish”, so to speak? Browsing Wikipedia, I see a number of WASPy seeming Mortons from the 19th century, such as this guy — and then the better-known Mortons, of the 20th century (like this guy) seem to be mainly Jewish.
Was it possibly adopted because of a phonetic resemblance to a traditional Hebrew name? (Was that true of Irving, which seemingly did the same?)
October 31, 2011 at 6:23 pm
Western Dave
Morton seems like it makes it less Jewish to me than just John Blum. Of course, John makes it much less Jewish than Jon Blum or Jonathan Blum. What kind of Jew spells his name with an h? (I mean besides in regular names like Hymie or Herschel, or any of my other dead and buried relatives from that generation) but J-O-H-N that;s a goyishe spelling if I ever saw one.).
God I’m glad you guys are back.