In Hebrew, Bekhmoharar, pronounced Bekhmoharash, signifies “son of our honored teacher and rabbi”. It was an honorific title granted to rabbi sons (obviously) and how it changed into a family name is actually an interesting story.

In 1722, Menahem Ashkenazi, son of rabbi Isaac, and rabbi himself, decided  for some obscure reason, that he would rather not have a family name at all. But his son Mordechai inherited the honorific title nonetheless, and was thus known as Mordechai Bekhmoharar Menahem instead of the longer “Mordechai Bekhmoharar Menahem Ashkenazi”. For a loooong time after that, all rabbi sons X of Y were named “X Bekhmoharar Y”. This family was known as the Bekhmoharar, which was weird, but everyone was happy about it.

After a couple centuries, the family had a bunch of non-rabbi branches, and being called “X Bekhmoharar” was getting a little too weird. The family decided to keep the name of Shimeon, which was common to many family members. After that, “Bekhmoharar Shimeon” passed through a dozen countries and wars to change into Behmo. Hence my name.

I am not so big on genealogy myself, but some people are very interested in the history of the ancient roots of the Behmoiras family. That’s how I became the webmaster of the Erensia Behmoiras website. These guys are doing some terrific research work. If you are from the Behmoiras family, just send me an email asking for access credentials.