Posted on 07/04/2004 7:39:07 AM PDT by nwrep
Cameron Kerry
As many of you know, one of the things John Kerry's leftist base is most uncomfortable about is his strong support (at least on paper) of Israel. In fact, his pro-Israel policy paper last week caused severe consternation among Kerry supporters.
There is a little secret that the media has kept from the people, in deference to the anti-Israel stance of the left wing of the Democratic party, and that is the existence of the Jewish brother of John Kerry, Cameron Kerry. Not only is he a converted Jew, he is a prominent lawyer for a major Boston law firm which represents many high profile Israeli business interests. Read below for a profile of Cameron Kerry from Forward magazine:
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Kerry Relies on Cam, His Jewish Brother
March 5, 2004
When Massachusetts Senator John Kerry learned last year that his paternal grandparents in 19th-century Austria had converted to Catholicism from Judaism, one of the first people he called was his younger brother, Cameron.
The younger Kerry was surprised.
In an interview at John Kerry's New York headquarters last Friday, Cameron Kerry told the Forward that his family had "an inkling" that they had a Jewish grandmother, but no "concrete" evidence. Furthermore, he said, his grandparents' conversion, which was discovered by the Boston Globe, struck him as "ironic." The younger Kerry, 53, had converted to Judaism from Catholicism in 1983, upon marrying a Jewish woman, Kathy Weinman.
Cameron Kerry, who lives in Boston, was in New York last weekend politicking for his brother in advance of the March 2 New York Democratic primary. One of the campaign's most public faces in the Jewish community, he spent the Sabbath at Manhattan synagogues and stayed in local homes. On Sunday, he and his brother met with some 40 Jewish communal leaders in Manhattan at a gathering that got glowing reviews in the next day's newspapers. The candidate impressed attendees with his knowledge of Middle Eastern affairs and his emotional grasp of the issues. He also got a chance to correct an earlier faux pas, in which he had suggested naming two figures who are unpopular with the Jewish community — former secretary of state James Baker and former president Carter — as possible envoys to the Middle East.
"It was Cam's doing to bring that together and make that happen," said Alan Solomont, a Jewish philanthropist and fund-raiser for Senator Kerry who attended the meeting. "He understood the importance of John getting in front of the community... of showing his incredible intellectual depth."
Cameron Kerry, who said his brother was "supportive" of his decision to convert, has given the senator some first-hand experience with Judaism. Kerry and his wife have raised their two daughters in the Reform tradition, with baby namings and bat mitzvahs. John Kerry attended those functions as a treasured uncle, and while he hasn't celebrated Jewish holidays such as Passover with the family, "he has been to Shabbat dinner," Cameron Kerry said. So, in a historical first, the probable Democratic presidential nominee not only possesses Jewish roots — and, it was discovered last week, relatives who died in Nazi death camps — but some Jewish family experiences.
In a campaign that heralds a "band of brothers," namely the fellow veterans who have flocked to the war hero's camp, it seems fitting that the candidate's biological brother would figure prominently. The brothers are close, so close in fact that the younger Kerry has served as one of his sibling's chief counselors and strategists on all of his campaigns, from his unsuccessful run for Congress in 1972 through some tough subsequent contests. His role as political strategist has turned Cameron Kerry into a story in his own right more than once.
In 1972, in what the family says was a "setup," he was arrested for having broken into a building that housed the campaign's phone lines. A caller had tipped him off to the threat that an opponent would cut the lines, but the police caught Cameron Kerry instead.
A recent New York Times profile examined Kerry's role in the axing of Jim Jordan, his brother's popular campaign manager, comparing him to the late Robert Kennedy, who gained a reputation for ruthlessness as John Kennedy's campaign manager in the 1960 presidential campaign.
James Segel, a Boston Democratic activist who has known Kerry for 30 years, laughed at the comparison.
"Cam is tough, but he doesn't give the impression of being ruthless," Segel said. "I would not compare him in style to the Bob Kennedy of the 1960 campaign. As confidant to the candidate, there's a comparison there. John Kennedy had 110% confidence in Bob, and John Kerry has 110% confidence in Cam."
Segel and others describe the younger Kerry as his brother's eyes and ears on the campaign, "kind of quiet" and "not obtrusive" but with "very good political judgment."
"He gives good, honest advice to his brother, and that's rare, because too often people tell the candidate what they want to hear," Segel said.
A more apt comparison than the Kennedys might be to another dynamic duo, Batman and Robin. The younger Kerry looks like a boyish version of his 60-year-old brother, who stands several inches taller and whose features are craggier. He speaks about Senator Kerry in terms Robin might have used for the caped crusader, too.
"There's nobody I want more by my side in a tough situation than my brother," Kerry said. "That's what his crewmates have seen, and that's what more and more and more people have seen in this country as this campaign has unfolded."
The Kerry campers and others consulted for this article all praised Cameron Kerry as a thoughtful, self-effacing, gentle man. He's even a hero to his rabbi. Rabbi Ronne Friedman of Temple Israel of Brookline, Mass., recounts how last year Kerry's family took the lead in the class project of his daughter's b'nei mitzvah class, to build a playground for an urban school in Roxbury. The family helped raise money, worked with the parents of the school and assembled dozens of volunteers for the construction, according to Friedman.
"He's present in the pew with regard to worship, and whenever time allows has been a student," Friedman said. "He's genuinely an intellect and has an interest in Judaism from an intellectual point of view."
Kathy Weinman Kerry is a member of the synagogue's board and its ritual committee.
Cameron Kerry's Jewish connections also extend to his business life, and have paid off for John Kerry. A telecommunications lawyer, Kerry works at a Boston-based firm, Mintz Levin Cohn Ferris Glovsky and Popeo, although he has taken a leave to work on the campaign. While Mintz Levin is now a diverse, 450-lawyer shop, it was once known as the "Lox et Veritas" firm — a play on the Yale motto "Lux et Veritas" — having been founded in 1933 by Jewish lawyers "who weren't entirely accepted at white-shoe firms," Kerry said. The firm, which built itself up as counselors to the Jewish entrepreneurs of Boston, even now has a big business in helping Israeli high-tech entrepreneurs gain access to American markets.
Kerry has made rain handsomely for his brother at Mintz Levin. Employees of the firm have emerged as the second-largest source of contributions to the candidate in this election cycle, providing a total $113,500 in contributions, according to the Web site of the Center for Responsive Politics.
The younger Kerry describes the campaign fund raising in the Jewish community as "very strong," thanks to the efforts of Solomont, national campaign finance chairman Louis Susman and Denver fund-raiser Ron Brownstein.
As a strategist, Cameron Kerry said, the decision of which he is most proud was "to shift gears from being a national campaign to focus on Iowa."
John Kerry's surprise win there started the momentum that has carried his candidacy forward to the point where it appeared to have locked up the Democratic nomination after wins in 9 of the 10 states that voted this week.
But Cameron Kerry may have another role: humanizing the John Kerry often pilloried by the press as stiff and aloof. Kerry said he doesn't recognize that figure.
"He's somebody with very intense personal relationships," he said of the senator. "You can see on this campaign, it's impressive the number of people who have intense loyalties going back a lot of years. It's a reflection of the deeply loyal relationships he has."
One relationship in particular.
No Dear GOD decides who's who not you you or me, I am sure GOD would love it if we were all One Big Happy Family giving Big Hugs don't you?
Sweetie, Jews decide who is Jewish. End of story. If your mama wasn't Jewish, and you did not halachically convert, then you ain't Jewish, no matter how much you want to call yourself a "Jew for Jesus".
That's the thing Malakhi, there is no way of knowing that because there is no documentation to back it up? Jacob had 12 Sons which I believe are the Original 12 tribes of Israel, the apostles are part of this tribe, This is GOD'S chosen people, it does not say biblically that over time through inter-marraige he does not consider them Chosen any longer right?
How many generations did the apostles children and there children and so on through generations did or did not marry Jews?
We don't know that?
You cannot determine Conversion on who is truly a Gentile unless they have claimed Atheism.
I think you are coming up with who is Jewish by history standards of the 20th Century...
You have never studied Jewish law, have you?
Within Judaism, we do know, because Jewishness does matter to us, and we've kept track of it from generation to generation.
There is no way of knowing for those outside of Judaism. But really, what difference does that make in any case?
I am not being argumenative really, but what you and Malakhi say just isn't in the Bible from the research I have done...NOAH created the world with GENTILES so in a way I guess we all have Gentile decendants...
Even Elvis Presley had a Jewish grandmother...
Only GOD's law Man always has an opinion, sometimes way to many :-)
The research you have done? And this includes analysis of Torah in Hebrew, right? No? Didn't think so. Your KJV is NOT in depth study.
Dodgeball was hysterical. Enjoy. :-)
No it's this Malakhi 2 and 2 is 4 but 3 and 1 is four the outcome is the same, so you are saying what I am saying just in a different way to get to the same result....
I am not dis-counting TORAH, but if you believe GOD's Chosen people were the JEWS as I do, then you have to agree the Apostles of Jesus were of those tribes? that being the case please tell me in TORAH where GOD has now taken them out of his people to be the Children of Israel?
Where does that say the Jewish believers decendants of Jacob are no longer the Children of Israel..GOD's Chosen?
Truer words were never written.
Only the sheep.
You just said you could not keep track of it because it was 80 generations ago. SO tell me what happened to all the Jewish decendants of the early church, I bet not one Rabbi has a clue how to answer that question.
Because there is not way to track what persons came from the Gentile World and the Jewish one...Although I think the most Evil people through-out History, Hitler, Stalin Herrod are from Gentile Ancestery..
In todays world we have people that identify with Judiasm through history and culture, and many ethnic groups can identify with culture and religious practices, but when it comes to the 12 Tribes of Israel GOD's CHOSEN PEOPLE and there decendants through geneaology you cannot track it, like you said it was 80 or so Generations ago and from those tribes are Jewish Christians.....
Actually, the name apparently was Kerry, but it was from what it now the Czech Republic rather than Ireland. I found it interesting that this came up right before the NY primary.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1136503/posts
It was. And I did! :o)
"Maybe Kerry should join some New Age "inclusive" church where all are welcome no matter what they believe, if anything."
I thought that Jesuit "Center" just as you describe is where he has been going all along.
No one disputes that the immediate followers of Jesus were Jews.
that being the case please tell me in TORAH where GOD has now taken them out of his people to be the Children of Israel?
Israel was commanded not to intermarry.
You shall not make marriages with them, giving your daughters to their sons or taking their daughters for your sons. (Deuteronomy 7:3)
Those to whom their Jewishness ceased to matter, who intermarried and ceased to obey the commandments, were cut off from Israel. For example:
Any uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin shall be cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant. (Genesis 17:14)
You shall keep the sabbath, because it is holy for you; every one who profanes it shall be put to death; whoever does any work on it, that soul shall be cut off from among his people. (Exodus 31:14)
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