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I am part Jewish and I side-eye Cohen as a first name tremendously. For me personally (I will only speak for myself) it is disrespectful because non-Jews have spent the past few thousand years trying to destroy Jewish history and culture. I will probably never know any more about my family background than my great-grandparents brought to this country. Geographic and linguistic obstacles aside, I can't go back to Belarus and research my ancestors because those records were destroyed and my fourth cousins twice removed or whatever were murdered. To me, non-Jews using Cohen as a FN is like saying, "Well, our ancestors tried to wipe out your ancestors, but let's just take this one little part of your history, totally dissociate it from its origins, and appropriate it as a FN because it sounds cute." I'm sure this sounds melodramatic and I have never really experienced anti-Semitism and have no right to complain, but it's what goes through my mind when I hear the name.
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