This article discusses two Hebrew feminine names that sound quite similar to each other, but are in fact so different: Shulamit and Shlomit. Both names can be spelled the same when they are written with just consonants and no Vav functioning as the mater lectionis (vowel indicator). And both names are clearly derived from the Biblical Hebrew root Shin–Lammed–Mem, whose range of meanings include “peace/tranquil,” “complete/full,” “payment/recompensation” (just like other Hebrew masculine names such as Shlomo, Sheleim, and Shlumiel). But that’s where the similarities between Shulamit and Shlomit stop.
It is clear from the halachic literature that Shulamit and Shlomit are two distinct names. In fact, Rabbi Eliyahu Mizrachi (in his responsa §67) explicitly writes that if one wrote the name Shlomit instead of Shulamit, or vice versa, on a gett, then the document is disqualified because the wrong name had been written. The same ruling is found in the Nachalas Shiva and in the Beis Shmuel.
Let’s go into more details about these two names. Despite what people think, Shulamit (Shulamis under Ashkenazi pronunciation) as a name actually does not appear in the Bible. What does appear in the Bible is the word Shulamit. Let me explain: Song of Songs (which we read on Pesach) describes the give and tug of a relationship between a male and his female beloved, which rabbinic tradition typically understands as an allegory penned by King Solomon to describe the vicissitudes of G-d’s relationship with the Jewish people. At one point in Song of Songs, the male begs his female companion to return to him: “Shuvi shuvi ha-shulamis…” (Song of Songs 7:1). That verse twice uses the term shulamis, not as a proper name for the female beloved, but rather as a word that describes her. Meaning, her name isn’t Shulamis, rather she is being called “the Shulamite” as a sort of positive appellation (whose meaning we will attempt to decipher later on). This is seen from the fact that the Bible uses the definite article (meaning, “the” expressed by a Hey at the beginning of the word) in the word ha-shulamis, as according to Hebrew grammar, the definite article cannot be applied to a proper noun, only to a common noun.
Despite the original Shulamit not being a name (but rather a description), in post-Biblical times, that word came to be used as a personal name given to Jewish girls, and in the last generation or so has actually become quite popular. For example, that name was born by Shulamit Shamir (1923–2011) – wife of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzchak Shamir – who was active in the underground struggle for Israel’s independence as a member of Lechi and later in public service. Also in the realm of Israeli politics, former member of Knesset Shulamit Aloni (1928–2014) stands out as a far-left activist whose secularist views led her to try to smother expressions of religious Judaism in the Jewish State.
Another famous Shulamit from our times was Shulamith Meiselman née Soloveitchik (1912-2009). She was the sister of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, and was herself a noted educator. Her son, Rabbi Moshe Meiselman, is the current rosh yeshiva of Yeshivas Toras Moshe (ToMo) in Jerusalem. Other famous women named Shulamit include: Shulamit Catan (1922–2013), who was the wife of Dr. Moshe Catan/Klein (author of Otzar La’azei Rashi) and mother of Rabbi Yoel Catan (editor of the journal Hamayan); and Shulamit Elitzur, a contemporary Jerusalem-based scholar widely recognized as the world’s expert on piyyut (Hebrew liturgical poetry).
In addition, the name Shulamit has been institutionalized in Orthodox education. The Shulamith School for Girls in New York is a long-standing example of the name’s positive communal resonance. That institution was founded in 1930 as the first Orthodox Jewish all-girls school in the U.S. and continues to provide students with both a religious and secular education, while inculcating the ideals of modesty, Torah values, and Jewish identity. The head of that school for over a quarter century was Dr. Judith Lieberman (1904-1978), the wife of Rabbi Shaul Lieberman (1898-1983), author of Tosefta Ki’Fshuta and other scholarly works. Interestingly enough, Mrs. Lieberman was a daughter of Rabbi Meir Bar-Ilan (after whom the university in Israel is named) and had a sister named Shulamit Halkin (1905-1982), who is the mother of Hillel Halkin, the famous literary translator and author of the Philologos column in Mosaic Magazine.
The name Shulamis actually seems to run in their family because Rabbi Meir Bar-Ilan’s first cousin was married to the famous Rabbi Chaim Soloveitchik of Brisk (1853–1918), who was the grandfather of the aforementioned Shulamis Meiselman. Another famous Shulamit was Shulamit Ezrachi (1931–2022), who was the daughter of Rabbi Meir Chodosh (1898–1989) and wife of the late Rabbi Baruch Mordechai Ezrachi (1929–2023). In fact, for those interested in mishpachalogia, you should know that Shulamit Ezrachi and Shulamit Meiselman were actually related – fifth cousins – both being descendants of Hertz Hutner (1750–1806).
All of this just goes to show how the positive connotations of the Biblical term “Shulamite” used in Shir HaShirim inspired generations of Jewish women carrying the Hebrew name Shulamit/Shamis. But what exactly does “Shulamite” mean?
As mentioned earlier, the female Shulamite character is a metaphorical way of referring to the Jewish people, who are considered “complete,” “wholesome,” and “free of blemishes.” Thus, “Shulamite” is an apropos cognate of the root Shin–Lammed–Mem that we discussed in the beginning of this essay. Some commentators specifically connect the term “Shulamite” to the City of Jerusalem as a metonym for the Jewish people, with the term Shulamite invoking the Holy City’s original name Shalem/Salem (see Rasag and Ibn Ezra to Song of Songs 7:1).
The German Bible scholar Wilhelm Erbt (1876–1944) – not a friend of the Jews, to say the least – made famous the idea that Shulamit is simply a feminine form of the masculine given name Shlomo (Solomon). According to him, whichever lucky woman merited to be Solomon’s wife came to be called Shulamit, which essentially means “Solomoness,” after her husband. According to this, the literal reading of Song of Songs reflects the courtship of King Solomon and one of his wives. Professor Marvin H. Pope (1916–1997), in his commentary to Song of Songs, cites different variations of this explanation that predate Erdt.
Professor Pope also cited another suggestion that has gained currency in academic circles. What Bible scholars have failed to note is that this theory was first proposed by the Italian scholar Rabbi Moshe Yitzchak Tedeschi Ashkenazi (1821–1898) in his work Ho’il Moshe. He explains that the “Shulamite” is equal to the “Shunamite” (i.e., a woman from Shunem) via the interchangeability of the letters Lammed and Nun. There is further evidence for identifying the town of Shunem as Shulam. Two other Shunamite women also appear in the Bible: Abishag the Shunamite who helped warm King David in his old age, and an anonymous Shunamite woman whom the prophet Elisha promised would birth a son. And according to this theory, the female protagonist of Song of Songs is a third Shunamite woman who appears in the Bible.
A once-popular variant of the Hebrew name Shulamit is Sulamit. This variation reflects a common morphological phenomenon whereby the Hebrew Shin, which makes an sh-sound, was often simplified to an s-sound in transliteration, especially under Greek and Latin influence (as those languages lacked a dedicated sh-sound). This process parallels well-attested examples: Shlomo becomes Solomon, Shaul becomes Saul, and Shimshon becomes Samson. The same occurs with Shmuel as Samuel, and even Yehoshua evolving into the Greek Iēsous, whence Jesus in Latin-based languages. Thus, Sulamit is not a “corruption” of the name Shulamit, but is a predictable outcome of transliteration patterns that fits with broader trends in how Hebrew names were accommodated into Greek and Romance languages. By the way, there is an asteroid dubbed “752 Sulamitis” that was discovered in 1913 and was named after the Biblical Shulamite woman.
My neighbor Rabbi Ari Chukat told me that his mother suggested that the Hebrew name Shulamit may be understood as a calque or functional equivalent of the Yiddish name Frida. Let me explain: The assumption is that Shulamit derives from shalom, as seen above. Now the Yiddish name Frida derives from the Germanic root frid- / frið-, meaning “peace,” “friend,” “reconciliation,” or “wholeness.” That root also appears in other personal names like Friedrich/Frederick (“ruler of peace”) and Winifred (derived from win/wynn meaning “joy” and fred meaning “friend/peace”). The latter is the original form of the contemporary surname Winfrey. In this sense, the Yiddish name Frida refers to a state of completion, harmony, and social equilibrium – just like the Hebrew name Shulamit.
I should clarify that the Yiddish names Frida and Freyda look deceptively similar, but in fact stem from two distinct etymological streams. Freyda (and its variants Frieda, Freida, Fraydal, Freidal) is rooted in the German/Yiddish adjective freudig and noun Freude, meaning “joy” or “gladness,” which ultimately comes from the Proto-Germanic frawjō (“joy, delight”). You may have heard the German term schadenfreude in reference to the specific joy of enjoying another person’s misfortune. The last part of that word is cognate with this German word for “joy” and is also the basis of the surname Freud/Freude (familiar from both everyday German and the surname of Sigmund/Shlomo Freud). Thus, despite frequent folk conflation, Frida and Freyda might look similar but are two totally different names.
Let’s now turn to the feminine name Shlomit, which will be the subject of the rest of our discussion. Unlike the name Shulamit which does not appear in the Bible as a name, the name Shlomit does appear in the Bible as a name: The Torah relates the story of a half-Jewish half-Egyptian man who cursed Hashem, and in that context explicitly notes that the blasphemer’s mother was named Shlomit bat Divri (Lev. 24:10) – as if to implicate the mother in her son’s horrible sin.
Midrashic literature gives us more information about the Biblical Shlomit, stating that she was the only Jewess from among the Jews enslaved in Egypt to have had relations with an Egyptian man (see Midrash Tanchuma Emor §32, Midrash Shocher Tov to Ps. 114). How this unfortunate episode is hinted to in the woman’s name seems to be subject to a dispute amongst Midrashic sources: one Midrash (Shemos Rabbah §1:28) implies that her name was Shlomit because she was “completely” beautiful and without any blemishes – which is why the Egyptian taskmaster coveted her. But another Midrash (Vayikra Rabbah §32:5) says that her name Shlomit alludes to her friendly personality, by which she greeted everybody saying “Shalom.” This immodest demeanor called her to the Egyptian taskmaster’s attention and the rest is history: she ended up getting pregnant and giving birth to a half-Egyptian son who cursed Hashem and was put to death.
Given this awful turn of events, Shlomit is a personal name that lives in infamy. In fact, when Rabbi Asher ben Yechiel – known as the Rosh – wrote a halachic responsum about a woman who cheated on her husband, he anonymized the woman by giving her the pseudonym Shlomit bat Divri in a callback to the Biblical Shlomit (responsa Rosh §32:11).
Because the name Shlomit automatically conjures memories of the Biblical Shlomit, Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky (1928–2022) and Rabbi Mordechai Gross (head of Chanichei Yeshivos in Bene Barak) assert that it is inappropriate to give one’s daughter the name Shlomit. This is especially true because the Biblical Shlomit is considered a sinner, and it is forbidden to name a child after wicked people. Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky even maintains that if a woman was named Shlomit, she should change her name to Shulamit. This is significant because even though Rabbi Kanievsky typically disapproves of newfangled “modern” names, in this case, he prefers the non-Biblical name (Shulamit) to the Biblical one (Shlomit)!
Rabbi Kanievsky’s ruling is not just a novel charedi chumra due to increased sensitivities to textual sources, as already close to two centuries ago, Rabbi Yosef Shaul Nathanson (1808–1875) in his glosses to Nachalas Shiva wonders aloud how the name Shlomit can be listed among Jewish feminine names, if that name was borne by a “wayward” Jewess in Leviticus.
Rabbi Mordechai Gross relates a fascinating story about a woman named Shlomit who was badly injured in a car accident. When her relative asked an unnamed gadol ha’dor to pray for her recovery, said gadol was dismayed by her name Shlomit. On the spot, the relative changed her name from Shlomit to Shulamit – without even consulting the woman’s father – and the gadol prayed for her and she had a full recovery.
That said, not everybody agrees that the name Shlomit ought to be entirely shunned. Rabbi Avishai Teherani argues that it is still appropriate to give the name Shlomit, as long as one is not naming their daughter after the Shlomit from Leviticus. He notes that besides Shlomit bat Divri, there was another Shlomit mentioned in the Bible who was the daughter of Zerubbabel (I Chron. 3:19), plus there were six different men named Shlomit as well (Ezra 8:10, I Chron. 23:9, 23:18, 26:25, 26:28, II Chron. 11:20). Likewise, Rabbi Mishael Rubin writes in the name of the former Sephardic Chief Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu (1928–2010) that if a parent named their daughter Shlomit with their intent toward the meaning of shalom (“peace”) and not as way of naming her after the Biblical Shlomit, then this name is not a problem.
Another fascinating tidbit is the existence of the so-called “Shelomit Seal,” which was found in 2008 at excavations near the Old City of Jerusalem. That artifact depicts two bearded worshippers with an incense altar and crescent moon, plus paleo-Hebrew letting that has been read by experts in ancient epigraphy as forming the name “Shelomit.” I would add that technically the name could also be read as Shulamit because there is no Vav; although, as mentioned above, there is no reason to think that Shulamit was an actual given name in Biblical times.
Chag kasher v’sameach.