My Jewish Name

I SHOULD'VE SAID. . . For the past six years, whenever I have to announce my name "Bush" in a store, there's been someone to say, “Any relation to . . . ?”

And I should've been saying, “Yeah, he's the stupid cousin in the family."

Instead I've been saying, kind of lamely, “No — and that's another reason I want to get him out of office, to get my name back." Tally ho!

It's usually a political and social nonstarter. Then again, all I want at that point is my credit card receipt. And world peace.

My grandfather's name was Hyman Babushkin. A very cute name that now seems postmodern. High Man Babushkin. Hymen Babushkin. Hi, Man Babushkin. Human Babushkin. Any way I spin it, the name has more pizzaz than "Bush" — which is what his sons shortened it to when they opened a pharmacy in the 1920s.

Nu, if not for anti-Semitism, I'd have a very cool postmodern name, instead of sharing one with the worst president in U.S. history. So next time I'm asked by a rabbi or Israeli tourist guide if I have a Jewish name, I'll skip the secular Jewish glower and announce, "Yeah. L.D. Babushkin, known to my friends as Eldy."

Makes me sound like an Amish elder. Or an old Jewish magazine editor. Which I am.

As for Douglas Feith, I hate him. I don't even know what he looks like and I hate him. He's now #2 on my Jewish excommunication list, after Henry Kissinger.