- The Hesh
My Older Daughter
This is my older daughter.
Her name at birth was Bracha Tikva Rosenwasser.
Bracha is a Hebrew word meaning "blessing." It was also my grandmother's name.
Tikva is a Hebrew word meaning "hope." It is part of the Israeli national anthem, "Hatikvah," which means "The Hope."
So my daughter's name can be taken to mean "Blessing of Hope."
She was born on October 2, 1989, at Beth Israel Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts.
Her mother's name at time of the birth was Melissa Diane Ancell. She had not taken my last name when we got married. Today, after getting divorced and remarried roughly three decades ago, her name is Melissa A. Kurtzer.
My legal name (all stage names and online monikers notwithstanding) is Heshy Rosenwasser.
Bracha's last name, appearing on her birth certificate, is my last name.
In 1994, at the time she was being registered for school, her mother registered her under her stepfather's last name. Thus my daughter became known as "Bracha Kurtzer." This, even though her stepfather never legally adopted her and her last name still remained Rosenwasser on all her documentation.
She called herself "Bracha Kurtzer" throughout her childhood and adolescence. That's how she became known to friends and family, and in school.
When she got married, she took the opportunity to change her legal name to "Bracha Kurtzer Gross," her stepfather's last name and her husband's last name.
This, of course, is her prerogative, and legal right as an adult.
However, the name on her birth certificate remains Bracha Tikva Rosenwasser.
Neither she, nor her mother, nor her stepfather, nor her husband can change the facts of her birth, any more than they can change her DNA.
She is, and will always remain, my daughter.
That is all.