Horowitz (Hebrew: הוֹרוֹביץ, Yiddish: האָראָװיץ), also transcribed as Horovitz/Hurwitz/Gurvich/Gurevich, is a surname that has its origin in the Yiddish name for the town of Hořovice in Bohemia (todays Czech republic), near Prague. The patriarch of the family line is thought to be Aaron Meshullam Horowitz, founder of Pinkas synagogue in Prague, who lived in Hořovice and Prague in the 16th century, and had eight sons who spread the family throughout Europe, which later spread to the Middle East, Russia and the Americas. Today there are some 50,000 people around the world, mostly of Levite and Jewish ancestry, carrying a variation of the Horowitz surname.