It ain’t tenuous and you are wrong. No hangups- learned this from orthodox real conservative practicing Jews. Upright Patriots of this Country. John Kerry is a pimp.
One set of his grandparents converted to Catholicism about 120 years ago, some 40 years before Kerry was born and about 12-13 years before his father was born. Father was raised as a Catholic, and married a non-Jew. Kerry (claims - don’t know if I believe him) to have known nothing about it until someone tracked it down during the 2004 campaign (he was over 60 at the time. Oh, and Kerry’s wives were/are both non-Jews. The fact that his mother - presumably going back many generations - was not Jewish makes him a non-Jew by birth; he never practiced Judaism in any form.
Yes, it IS a tenuous relationship. It is undeniably a fact that his paternal grandparents were, at one time, Jewish. Clearly, they didn’t give a damn about it, and raised their kids (including his father) accordingly. As such, he is also not Jewish by practice, nor was his father.
I am Jewish (full-blooded, both sides), and I cannot stand Kerry (whether he’s Jewish or not - and he’s not). I never liked him at all, and have grown to dislike this traitor more as time passes. We can at least agree that he’s a pimp, a completely self-serving, anti-American, scumbag of the highest order. That he’s an arrogant POS just makes it easier to hate him. But his Jewishness (or lack thereof) contributes nothing to him - not positive, and not negative. Thus, it is frankly not even worth mentioning.