Dutch-Colonies-L Archives

From: "willem rabbeljee" <>
Subject: Re: Is Moes Jewish
Date: Mon, 04 Oct 1999 16:01:00 +0200

Hello Visraela,
Looking at your -beautiful- given name, could easily lead to the assumption
that one of your ancestors did indeed remove the 's' out of the name. (Lets
be honest and historically correct: Jews, even in the Netherlands, were
discriminated, especially when they were poor, hard workers).
But you should also know that MOES is and was a known Dutch surname; I've
heard the name quite often in the area where I was born (Groningen in the
north of the Netherlands).
The word 'moes' means 'stewed fruit or vegetables' as well as 'pulp' or
'jelly'. It can also be used figuratively: to beat a persons face to jelly!
The name was used and known in the Middle ages and 17th century as well,
although it was used in a broader sense for:
- the food
- the meal
- dinner
- stewed fruit/vegetables; pulp
- fillet (especially: a fillet of salmon)

The name good be written those days as moes, mues or mois.

Interesting to know -and maybe the word can be found in old Dutch documents-
is the word 'Moesdeel'. Knowing that the noun 'deel' means 'part', you can
understand that this word indicates: the sharing, distribution of the food.
But, it also was a word used at a division of a property, meaning 'the part
of the provisions being the rightful share of the woman'.

But, concerning this changing of surnames: it indeed wasn't unusual for jews
to change their names. MEYER/MEIER (and various compositions with -MEYER)
for instance was a known and frequently used Dutch surname -and even a given
name- adopted frequently by Jewish citizens. VAN GELDER is another example.

I will promise you Visraela that I will try to find something more about
this phenomena in our library and come back on this.

Kindest regards,
Willem

--
W.P.Rabbelier
mailto:
mailto:

This thread:

• Re: Is Moes Jewish by "willem rabbeljee" <>