John Hittler now lives in California but was raised in Detroit.

“My grandparents were tough,” he told the Mirror. “They came here, they lived through the Depression and World War Two. They had no interest in changing their name. It was just a nonstarter for them to change it.

“Their theory was people will treat us based on our character, not based on our name, which is true to a point.

“But there’s enough people that will punch you in the mouth too. There was a fair bit of that when I was growing up too.”

He added that around 75 per cent of the area where he lives was Jewish.

“Oh, thanks Mom and Dad. So we are the Hittlers in the Jewish neighbourhood for the rest of our life. Yeah, this is great,” he laughed.

Yonatan is ‘nap-tain’

THE captain of Israel's national under-17 football team missed a flight home because he fell asleep and his teammates didn’t wake him up.

The team had a layover in Turkey while returning from a tournament in Germany.

Captain Yonatan Oz decided to have a nap and remained in the land of nod as his teammates and management boarded the plane home.

It wasn't until they were airborne that his absence was noticed.

Oz, meanwhile, contacted his parents who bought him a ticket home.

An investigation has been launched into the incident.

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