by Rabbi Meir Salasnik, Bushey Synagogue
Sacks, Sachs, Zaks, Zackheim, Sackheim
Have you ever seen the Chief Rabbi's name spelled in Hebrew? If you have, you will have noted that the surname is spelled: zayin, kuf, apostrophe, samech. The apostrophe indicates that the name is an abbreviation.
In 1657 two Rabbis from Ruzhany in Belarus, Rabbi Israel ben Sholem and Rabbi Tuvia ben Joseph, were executed on account of an unproved blood libel accusation. Descendants of Rabbi Israel then took the name Zak, the letters zayin and kuf forming an abbreviation for Zera Kodesh, meaning "the holy seed". The actual phrase zera kodesh is from Isaiah Ch.6 v.13 and is in the Haftarah for Yitro.
Similarly, Sackheim or Zackheim, indicates that they are from 'holy seed'. (Rabbi Dr. Dov Zakheim was a recent Under-Secretary for Defence in the United States.)
However, not every Sacks or Sachs is necessarily descended from a martyr, someone who was killed for his Jewish faith. Other possible derivations of the name would indicate that the family came from Saxony or that an ancestor's first name was Isaac
