For the record, Clark's father was Jewish, but died when Wesley was 4. His mother was not Jewish, and he was raised as a Protestant in Little Rock and later converted to Catholicism. During the '04 campaign, Clark thought it was chic to play up his Jewish paternal lineage.
Jewish religious law determines one's Jewishness by maternal lineage. A person with a Jewish father and a non-Jewish mother would have to undergo a formal conversion ritual (including religious education) in order to be considered Jewish.
plus he'd have to have a circumcision, for which he would not receive a purple heart..although he would have a purple , never mind
Thank you, confirmes what I posted earlier. Going by memory.
No, Wesley Clark is not Jewish, unless one is using the sicko Nazi "blood" definition of "Jew."
That's exactly the definition most people use as to whether someone is Jewish or not, if they have Jewish blood, a Jewish parent, whether on the maternal side or paternal side. Technically, you are right, if you are speaking in religious terms rather than ethnic ones (or race ones, if using that term to designate a Semitic person). However, most people would say that Wesley Clark is 1/2 Jewish, just as others are 1/2 Arab, or 1/2 Asian, or whatever. It's really 1/2 Semitic if one wants to be technical, I suppose. So, Clark is 1/2 Jewish. Now, you probably don't want to "own" him, because he is a weasel, and if you are Jewish, and I don't blame you. But he is just another of too many Jews or part Jews who have a liberal bent. At least Wesley, on the subject of Israel, is being reasonable, and not his usual liberal self, which is a good thing. And I believe he is doing this because he considers himself to be 1/2 Jewish by birth.
P.S., here is Wesley Clark's early years background, from Wikipedia:
"lark was born in Chicago, Illinois, on December 23, 1944. His father, Benjamin J. Kanne, was a Democratic Chicago Councilman, World War I veteran, delegate at the 1932 Democratic National Convention (where Franklin Roosevelt was first nominated) and lawyer who died in 1948 when Wesley Clark was almost 4 years old.
Benjamin was the son of Jacob Kanne and Ida Goldman, immigrants from Russia (Clark's middle name, Kanne, refers to his grandfather's lineage as a Kohen, a descendant of the ancient Jewish priests).1
After the death, Veneta Updegraff Bogard Kanne, Clark's mother, who was a Methodist, returned to her Ubdegraff parents' home in Little Rock, Arkansas. Through the UpdeGraff line, Wesley Clark's ancestry goes back to American colonial, pre-revolutionary times and the Pennsylvania Dutch/Germans.Three of the "Original 13" who came over from the Dutch sector of Kresfeld Germany and were the first settlers of Pennsylvania were UpdeGraffs (OpdeGraeffs) and UpdGraffs fought in the American Revolutionary War.
Veneta, Clark's mother, went back to work as a bank teller/secretary, raising her son as a single working mother, with the help of Clark's maternal grandparents who worked in an Arkansas lumber mill. The death of Wes Clark's biological father left the nearly four-year old Wes with a speech impediment that he would eventually overcome by the age of 7. During Clark's primary campaign in 2004, his cousin remarked that they grew up poor but that Clark always drove himself to study hard without any prodding from adults, a child consciously limiting his own play time so that he could go study. During this Cold War era, he started learning Russian on his own because he wanted to understand how the other side thought. He stated that the only thing his deceased Democratic Party activist father left him was a navy uniform and a love of family and country. He would find his life's calling in John F. Kennedy's speech, "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country."
In 1954, when Wesley was 9, Veneta married a former banker Victor Clark, who adopted Wesley.
Wesley grew up Baptist in Little Rock, attended public school, and was very active in the Boys and Girls club and in Southern Baptist Church activities and summer camps.
He graduated from Hall High School in Little Rock as valedictorian, having led the swim team to the state championship."