ABSTRACT
On March 19, 1994 a family reunion took place in Givat Haim, a kibbutz about half way between Tel Aviv and Haifa. Such meetings are not unprecedented these days; a few weeks earlier eighty-five members of the Rothschild family, all descendants of Maier Amshel had assembled in Frankfurt. Family, even extended family, meetings are of concern mainly to those immediately involved. With some well-known exceptions Jews received family names in the German language areas of Central Europe less than two hundred years ago. In other cases the family name is so frequent that research is virtually impossible. There are about a hundred Rothschilds in the Tel Aviv telephone directory and their total numbers have to be counted in the thousands. When the first group of halutzim, graduates of Ellguth reached Palestine in 1938, they went first to Givat Haim, the very kibbutz in which the reunion took place.
