Convictions

When Barry Became … Baruch?

For your latest entry in the seemingly non-stop barrage of fawning Barack Obama major-media coverage, look no further than Newsweek ‘s latest cover, which offers ” When Barry Became Barack .”

All very interesting, I suppose.  But while Newsweek ‘s on the subject, I’d be interested to learn about “Baruch Obama.”  That’s the version that Eleanor Kerlow repeatedly used in Poisoned Ivy , her 1994 review of Harvard Law School’s troubled late-1980s, early-1990s days.

Perhaps one of my Convictions colleagues – or one of our readers – can clear this up for me:  Did Barack actually go by “Baruch” at some point in time?  If so, why did he change it to “Barack”?  The Newsweek piece never mentions “Baruch.”

I suspect that, in fact, he never used the name “Baruch,” and that Kerlow made a mistake.  (In the 1990 volume of the Harvard Law Review, for example, he’s listed as “Barack Obama.”)  Then again, I’ve long thought that Kerlow’s entire book was a mistake.