Excellent. So I'll change all of the links in my original post and will make those pictures private (for her sake). Thank you.

But I still don't know what "Alter" is in Hebrew.

Does it not mean "old man"? That's what Wikipedia says, and I think she said it in the book too. Unless she was making it up.

I know no such word. There is such word in German, but not in English.

Damn you, Brian K. Vaughan!

"Alter" is Yiddish.

And since Yiddish is part Hebrew, part English and mostly German, that makes perfect sense.

Anyhow, sorry, but no one uses "alter" in Hebrew to say "old man".

Oh! I looked at wikipedia, and now I get it -- there's an old superstition that, if you're naming a baby after someone who died young, like say you're naming a son after your uncle Isaac who died when he was a young man, you name the baby Alter Isaac, meaning "the old Isaac," because maybe if he's always called "the old Isaac," the Angel of Death will think this means he's supposed to live until he's old and not take him until then. Wikipedia says it was something similar for that character -- two older siblings who died as small children. But the female version would be Alte.

culinaryistas: can i substitite a humbolt squash in place of butternut in a reciple?

I will ask an easier question: can I use a cake pan to cook fish? I don't know what sort of pans to buy.

I don't know what humbolt squash is, and google isn't giving me anything, but generally, you can substitute one winter squash for another without too much trouble as long as they're about the same size, but the cooking times might be different.