Elyaqim Mosheh Adam (Hebrew: אליקים משה אדם), born during both Ḥanukka and Ramaḍan in the Bronx, New York, is an amateur writer, videographer, photographer, list-maker, music collector, quasi-linguist and gay, progressive/leftist, secular Jewish-American partly of Ashkenazi and partly of Mizraḥi origin. He regrets his being unable to maintain writing in the third person for the remainder of this article. ☹
I am able to read the Latin, Hebraic and Arabic scripts, and I know numerous words and phrases in Hebrew, Arabic, Turkish, Persian and Urdu, but English is the only language I can speak and read with true fluency. Since moving to a largely Bengali neighborhood in 2008, I have begun to learn Bengali script as well. I do not immediately recognize all the letters yet, but I at least now have a substantial understanding of how South Asian scripts function.
I have traveled to México, Canada, Turkey, Morocco and Egypt. (I have contributed substantially to Wikipedia’s article on Marrakech.) See my Virtualtourist travel page for a fairly comprehensive list of whither I have traveled, although their database is curiously missing some places in Turkey I have been (Aphrodisias, Aspendos, Perge, Sardis).
[edit] My name
I have been repeatedly asked about the fairly complex name my parents gave me. It is of Hebrew origin with the name “Mosheh” able to be traced back further to Egyptian.[1]
• ʼElyāqîm means “(he whom) God set up” or “(he whom) God established” and was also my mother’s father’s name. I find it a particularly beautiful name, although I acknowledge it to be enough of a mouthful that no one calls me that. (It’s religious nature also belies the fact I am an atheist, Humanist and Bright.) The ʼEl- portion is from the Semitic *ʼ-l root[2] and the -yāqîm portion from the *q-w-m root.
• Mōšeh probably just means “child”[3] and was chosen as a masculinization and Afro-Asiaticization of my mother’s mother’s mother’s name Masi (מאַסי).
• ʼĀdām means “human”[4] and was chosen as a counterpart to my mother’s father’s Western name “Alex,” ultimately of Greek origin.
• My tribal name is Kōhēn (כהן), but I rarely use it because a need to distinguish me from someone else with the same name has not yet occurred.
[edit] External links
[edit] Userboxes
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This user contributes using a Macintosh computer. |
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This user supports the free and independent state of Israel. |
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This user supports the independence of Palestine. |
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This user identifies as gay. |
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This user identifies as a gay male. |
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This user identifies as queer. |
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This user identifies as a bear. |
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This user is a bear. Grr!
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