Nimrod

B"H

Religion does play an important role in Israel; even though the most secular Israelis would love to extinguish anything religious. Nevertheless, the question whether someone is religious (Dati) or not comes always up. If not religious, then, at least, traditional and if so, how far do you go ?

I once learnt that sometimes a name represent the person's background. Especially in Tel Aviv would will find quite a few guys with the name "Nimrod". Most of us know who Nimrod was. He was Avraham Avinu's enemy, who tried to kill him. Furthermore, Nimrod built the Tower of Bavel and tried to attack and even kill G - d. The last section in the kabbalistic book "Brit Menucha" has a serious and complicated kabbalistic explanation about the Tower of Bavel and how Nimrod used black magic in order to influence the angels.

Honestly, is NIMROD necessarily a name you would give to your son ? Generally Jews wouldn't tale this into consideration but, despite all intentions of destroying the Jews, there are very secular Jews who name their son Nimrod. And this is an example how some secular Israelis ignore the teachings of the Torah.

The former owner of Israel's daily MAARIV, Ofer Nimrodi, named his son Nimrod. I don't know if someone called Nimrod Nimrodi would be seen as a religious Jew. At least not from the outside. If he became religious, he would definitely change his name, I suppose.

It is strange in Israel but especially the name Nimrod tells you a lot about the parents of such a guy.