Zalman (name)

Zalman (זלמן) is a Yiddish-language variant of Solomon. The name was common among East European Jews, and it still has usage in many Haredi and especially Hasidic communities all over the world. Some of the founders of modern Israel bore this name, including Zalman Shazar, the third Israeli president. Nowadays this is not a common name in the modern secular Israeli circles, being identified as a diaspora name.

Zalman is also used as a surname, and it is especially common in Israel and the United States.

Other meanings

"Zalman" has been claimed by some to be etymologically related to the Pashtun name Zalmay (also spelled Zalmeh, Zalmie, and Zalmai), which is a male given name among the Pashtuns of Pakistan and Afghanistan.

People

• Shneur Zalman of Liadi, author of the Shulchan Aruch HaRav and Tanya. Also the founder of the Chabad Lubavitch movement and the oldest still operating charity organization in Israel Colel Chabad (established 1788).
• Zalman Aran, Zionist activist, educator and Israeli politician (also Zalman Aranne)
• Zinovy Gerdt (born Zalman Khrapinovich), Soviet/Russian theatre and cinema actor
• Zalman Grinberg, Lithuanian/Israeli/American doctor, Holocaust survivor
• Zalman King, American film director, writer, actor and producer
  • Zalman King's Red Shoe Diaries, TV series by the above
• Zalman Kornblit, Romanian Jewish playwright
• Zalman Teitelbaum, one of two Grand Rebbes of the Satmar Hasidim (full name Zalman Leib Teitelbaum or Zalman Leib Yekusiel Yehudah Teitelbaum)
• Zalman Melamed, Israeli settler Rabbi (full name Zalman Baruch Melamed)
• Zalman Moishe HaYitzchaki, Chabad-Lubavitch Rabbi (known familiarly as "Reb Zalman Moishe")
• Zalman Nechemia Goldberg, Israeli Rabbi
• Zalman Schachter, Polish-born American Rabbi (full name Zalman Schachter-Shalomi)
• Zalman Schocken, German Jewish, (later Israeli) publisher
• Zalman Shazar, President of Israel
• Zalman Shmotkin, spokesman for the Chabad-Lubavitch movement
• Zalman Shoval, Israeli politician and diplomat
• Zalman Shragai, Mayor of Jerusalem
• Zalman Sorotzkin, East European (later Israeli) Rabbi
• Zalman Usiskin, American mathematician
• Zalman "Zal" Yanovsky, Canadian rock musician
• Elijah ben Solomon Zalman, a Talmudist, halakhist, kabbalist

The compound "Shneur Zalman" is common among people of Hasidic Chabad affiliation, derived from their founder Shneur Zalman of Liadi.

See also

• Salman