From Zuckerman to Yachnovich to Jackson

Or "How did you get the name Jackson?"

Esther and Hillel Zuckerman were the grandparents of my father, Harry Jackson. In fact, my father was named Hillel Tzvee after his grandfather. They lived in Berezino, a shtetl in Minsk Province (Minska gubernia) in Belarus or “White Russia”. When Hillel died, Esther moved on, fearful that her two children might be snatched up, drafted, for twenty five years by the Russian army. She ended up in Kurenets where she changed her name to Yachnovich, a name that sounded less Jewish and more Russian, a ploy she thought would put the army off the track. Yachna, her mother’s name, was the inspiration for the change.

According to the family tree, Esther’s son, Moishe Zuckerman Yachnovich married Doba and they raised eleven children which included five sons, four of whom will immigrate to America to avoid the Russian draft and to search for a better life. Those four Yachnovich sons, Louis, Joseph, Harry, and Sam will become Jacksons. So, how did that come about?

That’s easy to explain about Joseph and Sam---they simply took the name Jackson that Louis and Harry who preceded them had already changed to. But the changes by Louis and Harry become the stuff of romance and family myths.

Let’s start with Louis. Dad says Louis’s name was changed to Jackson by an immigration officer at Ellis Island who told Louis that Yachnovich was too hard to pronounce or didn’t sound American. That action was legal at that time and there are enough stories by immigrants to believe that that actually happened. However, another family member checked the immigration records and found 1) no evidence of a name change at Ellis Island and 2) after Louis had been in America for a short time, he applied for a name change at an immigration office somewhere in the Pittsburgh area. So much for Dad’s version.

Now Dad explains his name change. He told me and Evy that at the Philadelphia port, the immigration officer told him that Hillel Yachnovich was not American enough. Dad explained that his brother was Louis Jackson. “Well” the officer said, “then your name is Harry Jackson.” But in his oral history Dad says that the social group he joined to help him with becoming an American decided they didn’t like his name and changed it for him. They didn’t consult him, and at first, he resented it. With time he got over the loss of Hillel Tzvee Yachvovich with its connections to his grandfather and the great sage and scholar and became Harry Jackson.

Thus, by the way of history, romance, and family myths the changes from Zuckerman to Jackson entered the family tree.