Back in the 1970s and early 1980s, Jews for Jesus had a policy that when a new staff member came on board, he or she had to change his or her name if someone else already had that same first name. So Barry became Baruch (or Binyomin), Susan became Shoshanna, Alan became Avi, etc. The rationale for this was that it would be too confusing if two or more people had the same first name, especially in the "heat of the moment" if there was danger on the streets while handing out pamphlets. But I always thought that forcing a person to change their name was an unwelcome intrusion in people's personal lives. At some point JFJ stopped doing this, but the legacy lives on.
The CEO of the corporation that publishes Encyclopedia Britannica is an Israeli named Ilan Yeshua. It is a good thing that this person never worked for Jews for Jesus. They would have made him change his name to Ilan Y'shua. (see my next post on the Yeshua versus Y'shua debate).
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In my opinion, forcing people to change their names was a de-humanizing practice. In some cases it may even have been done to humiliate or
discipline a person (e.g., Reuven Rubin). To be fair, however, I don't think JFJ makes people change their names any longer.
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