Schindler's List, as we know from the 1993 movie of the same name, is the story of the rescue of 1200 Jews by Oskar Schindler and Itzhak Stern during the Second World War, all of them recorded by name on Schindler's famous list. Shitler's List is both more and less ambitious; it seeks to archive fully 12,000 (and ultimately 120,000) names from the misguided "Remove JewWatch.com from the Google Search Engine!" online petition. The author and signatories of said petition objected to the fact that a search for the word "Jew" on Google returned Jew Watch as its first result.
While Shitler's List might be seen simply as a jab at the naïveté of the 120,000-plus signers who thought that thousands of signatures could or should force Google to abridge its organic search results, it actually has a different purpose: As something of a catalogue of Jewish names. Certainly not all names on the list are Jewish, but an overwhelming number are, and the frequency with which a name appears on the list relative to the ambient and in what context (e.g. a given first name alongside a given last name) are what is relevant here.
Why is such a list useful? We can all recognise some of the most obvious Jewish surnames: Horowitz, Miller, Kaplan, Shapiro, Goldman, Levy - just to name a few. But what about less obvious surnames such as Halperin, Siegel, Weiss, Fisher, and Singer or even popular Jewish first names like Adam, Daniel, Judith, and Noah? In reading articles about politics, religion, Israel, human rights, etc., it may be helpful to know at least part of the writer's motivation. Ethnicity, religion, and community play important roles in one's beliefs and Judaism includes all three of these elements.
Example 1: An opinion expressed by someone with the first name of "Ari" proposes a particular viewpoint - any viewpoint. You don't know if Ari is a Jewish name, but searching Shitler's List turns up many results for "Ari" and always attached to an overtly Jewish surname. From this you might guess that the given name Ari is Jewish.
Example 2: Neoconservative luminaries such as Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle were a driving force behind the invasion of Iraq, which defanged a potential threat to Israel. A quick search of Shitler's List currently turns up no exact matches for "Wolfowitz," but there are many surnames beginning with "Wolf" (Wolf, Wolfson, Wolf-Block, Wolfman, Wolfsheim, etc.) You might be able to discern from this (even without the obvious "-witz" suffix) that Wolfowitz is a Jewish name. There are only a handful of matches for "Perle" on Shitler's List, but a relatively large number for "Pearl," the more common spelling.
Example 3: Slate published an article by William Saletan with the cheeky subtitle "The Case for Genital Mutilation." If you wanted to find out if Saletan was a Jew (which might affect his views on circumcision), a search of Shitler's List would actually be of little help since there is only one "Saletan" amongst its 120,000 names. You could, however, Google "William Saletan Jewish" and you will find that he most certainly is Jewish. If Google's text results weren't enough to thoroughly identify Saletan's lineage, you could also search Google Images for "William Saletan" for further evidence of his ethnicity (note the "Jewish-pattern baldness" and other physical traits).
Briefly, some well-known or popular Jewish names, in part and in whole, are appended here for convenience. Also watch for spelling variants (e.g. "Abram-"/"Abrahm-," "Aron-"/"Aaron-," "Bloch"/"Block," "Siegel"/"Segal," "Schwartz"/"Swartz," "-witz"/"-wits").
Surname Prefixes: Aaron-, Abram-, Adel-, Alt-, Berg-, Berk-, Block-, Bloom-, Blum-, Brook-, Brown-, Corn-, Dersh-, Duch-, Edel-, Ehren-, Eisen-, Fei-, Fein-, Feld-, Fier-, Fine-, Fink-, Fire-, Fish-, Frank-, Free-, Fried-, Gold-, Golden-, Green-, Gross-, Gut-, Halper-, Heitz-, Hirsh-, Kapl-, Katz-, Kirsh-, Klein-, Lev-, Lewin-, Licht-, Lieber-, Low-, Mandel-, Mendel-, Nus-, Pearl-, Perl-, Rabin-, Rose-, Rosen-, Roth-, Ruben-, Rubin-, Schwartz-, Schwarz-, Segal-, Selig-, Silver-, Spiel-, Spring-, Stein-, Stern-, Wasser-, Wein-, Weis-, Weiss-, Weitz-, Weiz-, Wise-, Wolf-, Zahl-, Zimmer-, Zucker-.
Surname Suffixes: -baum, -berg, -feld, -heim, -itz, -man, -mann, -heim, -stein, -stone, -thal, -witz.
Whole Surnames: Aaronson, Abramsky, Adelman, Aharon, Alterman, Aronson, Avigdor, Axelrod, Behrman, Belzer, Ben-Ezra, Bender, Bergman, Berkowitz, Berman, Bernbaum, Bernstein, Beshar, Bethel, Binder, Block, Bloomberg, Blumenthal, Borowsky, Braunstein, Brin, Brock, Broder, Brodsky, Brody, Bromberg, Brownstein, Buchwald, Cahn, Cohen, Cohn, Cornblum, Cornfeld, Cowan, David, Davidson, Diamond, Dreyfuss, Drucker, Druckman, Dubowsky, Duchovny, Eberman, Eckstein, Edelman, Edelsberg, Edelstein, Ehrlich, Eisen, Eisenberg, Eisenman, Federman, Fein, Feldman, Fine, Fischer, Fisher, Fishman, Frank, Friedman, Frum, Geffen, Gettleman, Gold, Goldberg, Golden, Goldfarb, Goldman, Goldstein, Green, Greenberg, Greenspan, Gross, Grossman, Haim, Halperin, Hecht, Heitz, Heitzman, Hersch, Hersh, Hirsh, Horowitz, Jacobson, Kanter, Kaplan, Katz, Kaufmann, Keller, Kirshner, Klein, Kohen, Kohlberg, Kohn, Leven, Levenson, Levi, Levine, Levy, Lieberman, Lipsman, Low, Mandel, Markowitz, Mayer, Meyer, Miller, Moses, Myers, Nussbaum, Pearl, Pearlman, Perelman, Perlman, Rabin, Rabinowitz, Resnick, Reznik, Rose, Rosen, Rosenbaum, Rosenberg, Rosenblatt, Rosenthal, Ross, Roth, Ruben, Rubin, Sachs, Salomon, Sandler, Schwartz, Schlesinger, Schwimmer, Segal, Selig, Seltzer, Setnick, Segal, Shalev, Shapiro, Siegel, Silberman, Simon, Spelling, Sperling, Spielberg, Spitzer, Springer, Stein, Steinberg, Stern, Stone, Schwartz, Schwarz, Susskind, Tenenbaum, Waxman, Weigel, Weil, Weinberg, Weiner, Weinstein, Weintraub, Weiss, Weitz, Wertheim, Wertheimer, Westheimer, Wolf, Wolfson, Zeitlin, Zelig, Zidell, Zidle, Ziebel, Zinn, Zucker, Zuckermann, Zweig.
Given Names: Aaron, Adam, Alex, Ari, Benjamin, Daniel, Ira, Judith, Noah, Ross.
Other potential candidates: 1) Surnames containing (and especially beginning with) the letter "Z," which are otherwise uncommon in English names; 2) Polish surnames (often ending with "-sky" or "-ski") and German surnames (especially containing "-ie-" and "-ei-"); 3) Any surname that sounds as if the surname suffixes above such as "-man," "-berg," "-stein," etc. has been removed from it (e.g. "Keller" from "Kellerman," "Ruben" from "Rubenstein"); 4) Any surname or surname prefix evoking something desirable or impressive (e.g. "Gold," "Silver," "Crystal," "Diamond," "Wein" (wine), "Fine"/"Fein," "Stein" (stone), "Stern" (star), "Blumen-" (flowers), "Rosen-" (roses), etc.). 5) Surnames which are names of colours in German or English (e.g. "Weiss-," "Schwarz," "Green-," etc.)
Now, on to Shitler's List (please see links above and to the right). The pages are lengthy so they may take some time to display on slower computers. The signers' comments from the original petition have also been included as some of them are interesting or humorous. Some are eloquent, while others simply serve to reinforce the rationale for Shitler's List itself.
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