Lévai, Levai, Levaï, Lévay or Levay is a Hungarian Jewish surname, originating from the

Israelite The Israelites (; , , ) were a group of Semitic-speaking tribes in the ancient Near East who, during the Iron Age, inhabited a part of Canaan. The earliest recorded evidence of a people by the name of Israel appears in the Merneptah Stele o ...

surnames

Levi Levi (; ) was, according to the Book of Genesis, the third of the six sons of Jacob and Leah (Jacob's third son), and the founder of the Israelite Tribe of Levi (the Levites, including the Kohanim) and the great-grandfather of Aaron, Moses and ...

and Levy. It may refer to: *

István Lévai (boxer) István Lévai (born July 23, 1957) is a former boxer from Hungary, who won the bronze medal in the Heavyweight division (91 kg) at the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow. There he was defeated in the semifinals by titleholder Teófilo Steve ...

(born 1957), Hungarian boxer *

Ivan Levaï Ivan Levaï (born 18 March 1937) is a France, French journalist. He has occupied many positions in radio, television and press journalism. For several years he presented the review of the press in the morning news show on France Inter radio. As ...

(born 1937), Hungarian-French journalist * Katalin Lévai (born 1954), Hungarian politician * Nick Levay (1977–2021), American computer security expert *

Simon LeVay Simon LeVay (born 28 August 1943 in Oxford, England) is a British-American neuroscientist. He received a bachelor's degree in natural sciences from the University of Cambridge in 1966, a Ph.D. in Neuroanatomy at the University of Göttingen in ...

(born 1943), British-American neuroscientist *

Sylvester Levay Sylvester Levay (originally Lévay Szilveszter, Serbian: Силвестер Леваи, ''Silvester Levai'') is a Hungarian recording artist and composer, born in Yugoslavia (now Serbia). Life and career Levay was born on 16 May 1945 in Subotica ...

(born 1945), Hungarian composer * Vivien Lévai (born 1992), Hungarian volleyball player * Anikó Lévai (born 1963), wife of Hungarian Prime Minister * Mag. Laurin Levai (born 1983), Ante Portas / Sozialarbeiter

History

The surname Lévai is a

Jewish surname Jewish surnames are family names used by Jews and those of Jewish origin. Jewish surnames are thought to be of comparatively recent origin; the first known Jewish family names date to the Middle Ages, in the 10th and 11th centuries CE. Jews h ...

, which was created by the modification of the original Jewish name of

Levi (surname) Levi or Lévi is a Jewish surname. It is a transliteration of the Hebrew word לוי meaning "attached" or "joining". Another spelling of the name is Levy (or Lévy). According to Jewish tradition, people with the surname are Levites who can clai ...

Levy (surname) Levy or Lévy is almost always a surname of Hebrew origin. It is a transliteration of the Hebrew meaning "joining". Another spelling of the surname—among multiple other spellings—is Levi or Lévi. The surname usually refers to a family cla ...

. The name's bearers today are of

Jewish Descent ''Zera Yisrael'' ( he, זרע ישראל, , meaning "Seed fIsrael") is a legal category in Jewish law ''Halakha'' (; he, הֲלָכָה, ), also Romanization of Hebrew, transliterated as ''halacha'', ''halakhah'', and ''halocho'' ( ), is the ...

. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, the time of

The Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ...

, the name Lévai/Lévay was a name very much preferred by the Hungarian Jewish population to change their names to – in order to try to evade

persecution Persecution is the systematic mistreatment of an individual or group by another individual or group. The most common forms are religious persecution, racism, and political persecution, though there is naturally some overlap between these term ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Levai Hungarian-language surnames Levite surnames Jews and Judaism in Hungary

History

See also

References