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- Origin: Hebrew אֶרֶז
- Meaning: “cedar.”
- Gender: masculine
- Pronunciation: ER-ehz
The name comes directly from the Hebrew word for the cedar tree אֶרֶז. This name did not come into use as a masculine given-name among Jews until after the creation of the State of Israel in 1945. It may have been popularized by Aleksander Zederbaum (1816-1893), a Polish-Jewish journalist who founded the Hebrew language newspaper, Ha-Melitz who often used “Erez” as a pseudonym in his writings.
It is also the name of a Kibbutz and of Erez Crossing, the latter being the name of a border crossing on the Israeli-Gaza border.
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