Posted on 05/16/2004 4:37:35 AM PDT by Pharmboy
In May 18, 1905, Frederick A. Kerry, a 32-year-old Viennese, arrived in New York City by steamship, the Königin Luise, with his wife and 4-year-old son, hopeful that his new country would bring him the success and social acceptance that had eluded him in Europe.
Mr. Kerry probably could not have imagined that within a century a grandson, John Forbes Kerry, would find himself the Democratic candidate for president.
Frederick Kerry brought with him a secret: he was born a Jew, Fritz Kohn, in what is now the Czech Republic, but he and his wife, Ida, had converted to Roman Catholicism. Senator Kerry, a Catholic whose maternal side includes such blueblooded names as Winthrop and Forbes, said he did not know his paternal grandfather was Jewish until a reporter for The Boston Globe told him last year that it had been discovered by a genealogist in Vienna who scoured church records from the Austro-Hungarian empire.
Tomas Jelinek, chairman of the Jewish community in Prague, and Rabbi Norman R. Patz, president of the New Jersey-based Society for the History of Czechoslovak Jews, said that Czech Jews, in contrast to those in Poland, wore their identity somewhat more lightly. Given periodic spasms of anti-Semitism and the difficulty of advancing in the government and military as a Jew, many, like the parents of Madeline K. Albright, the former secretary of state, found conversion made their lives immeasurably easier.
The brother and sister of John Kerry's paternal grandmother, Otto and Jenni Lowe, died in concentration camps.
Frederick Kerry's story begins in Horni Benesov, a town near the Polish border that in 1880 had 4,200 inhabitants, most of them ethnic Germans (only two dozen of them Jewish) and was then known as Bennisch. Felix Gundacker, the genealogist who researched the senator's roots, said church birth ledgers include the notation that on May 10, 1873, "was born Fritz Kohn, a legal son of Benedikt Kohn, master brewer in Bennisch, House 224, and his wife, Mathilde." The handwritten entry was included in the "Pages for Israelites" kept by the church in towns with small Jewish communities.
Fritz's father died when he was 3. Fritz's mother then moved with her three children to Vienna, where she had relatives, Mr. Gundacker said in a telephone interview. Fritz attended high school, served in the army, then worked as an accountant for a shoe factory owned by his maternal uncle in nearby Modling.
In 1896, his younger brother, Otto, seeking advancement in the military, was baptized as a Catholic; he later changed his name to Kerry. In 1901, Fritz, who had married Ida Lowe in a Jewish ceremony the previous year, was baptized in Modling.
Later that year, he changed his name to Kerry, too, a fact recorded in the original church birth ledgers for Bennisch confirming that Frederick Kerry was born Fritz Kohn. Mr. Gundacker said the records state that Frederick Kerry gave these reasons: "1) that this very common name is specifically connected to Judaism 2) that therefore this name could be detrimental to his military career."
After coming to the United States, he settled in Chicago, where he counseled stores like Sears, Roebuck on organization. By 1915, he moved to Brookline, Mass., where Ida gave birth to their third child, Richard, who grew to work as a diplomat, marry Rosemary Forbes and father John Kerry.
In 1921, a virtually bankrupt Frederick Kerry shot himself in a bathroom at Boston's Copley Plaza Hotel.
The family's Jewish connections did not end with his death. In 1983, the senator's brother, Cameron, married Kathy Weinman, a Jew whose mother keeps a kosher home. Before the wedding, Cameron converted to Judaism.
Mahler converted because he wanted to be the conductor of the Viennese Opera Orchestra--it wasn't unusual (I guess) for upwardly mobile and ambitious Jews to convert.
After this came out Kerry, in front of a Jewish group, said "I have matzoh balls." I kid you not.
My Grandpa was a converted jew too. Just think! If we lived in Europe we'd still be eligible for persecution!
My grandfather was a poor Ukrainian Jew who came over in 1905. He and his type didn't convert--it was by and large the upper classes that did.
Kerry's Grandfather converted to Catholicism because it was easier to live as a Catholic than to remain Jewish. He basically sold out the Jewish Faith as Kerry is selling out the Catholic faith because he wants to be President and he tinks pro-abortion is the way to do it. Also he married a rich widow out of the church. What faith he belongs to doesnt matter ,he and his family have proven they really have no faith , they will change it to make their lives easier or to gain politically.
And besides, no matter if he claims to be Jew, Christian, or professes no faith at all, the Ali Babas will still be more than happy to hack his head off, along with yours and mine.
Kerry pretended to be Irish to fool the Massachussetts key Irish vote for a generation. Kerry knew perfectly well he wasn't Irish.
This is a spin falsified cover story to try to defuse inevitable criticism of Kerry's deceit.
Kerry's grandfather actually was a Jew before he wasn't a Jew.
In 1921, a virtually bankrupt Frederick Kerry shot himself in a bathroom at Boston's Copley Plaza Hotel.
As the story goes........Kerry got tonsured for the Catholic vote, circumsized for the Jewish vote, and carries a King James Bible for the Protestant vote. Now he's toting a prayer rug for the Muslim vote.
In pre-Nazi Europe, and especially in pre-19th century Europe, "race" in the modern sense was unknown. The 'scientific' theories of racism and racial antisemitism were products of the 19th century. That's not to say that Jews weren't often persecuted, but Jews who converted, in almost all cases, times and places, were no longer considered Jews, and they, and certainly their offspring, were not discriminated against.
Game, set and match to you.
His great aunt and uncle died in the Holocaust and he didn't know he was Jewish? Strains credulity. My grandmother's aunt and uncle (my great-great aunt and uncle) died on the Titanic and you bet that piece of family lore has never been forgotten. We WASPs will never forget the Red Star Line.
Oh--and the Guggenheims and Strausses et al went down with your relatives on that most unfortunate voyage. It wasn't only WASPs that Red Star was after!
ya gotta luv how ALL democrat's turn out to have a "Jewish" grandfather that, just so happens, was unknown to them until they run for president?
hillary, clark, now kerry .... I know I've heard this SAME story from at least a dozen or more lying politician/lawyers in the past year or so.
Gigolo politics. Kerry is a "Man Ho."
This is good news for Andrew Marvell.
And dollars to donuts, Senator KOHN's grandfather lived in the Little Village neighborhood in Chicago - otherwise known as PILSEN. As that's where all the Bohemian immigrants lived, but that's never mentioned either. (Like nobody did a census search?)
What is this guy ashamed of????
Heck, one on my uncle's (Irish & German) married a Bohemian woman (aunt Josie) and one of their daughters - my first cousin (Lillian), married a BOHEMIAN.
So fess up Senator, YOU ARE BOHEMIAN! Why are you ashamed of your true heritage?
BTW, if it wasn't for Bohemia we wouldn't have Pilsner Beer or the Pilsener Glass (Pilsen, Bohemia ya know)
My paternal great grandparents came from Germany. My grandfather used the initials J A in front of his other names. Jacob was his first name. I have wondered if they were Jewish? I would welcome finding that they were. Huge family! 3 girls, 8 boys. The only one I knew was J A's older sister Anna. They have all been gone for 40 years or more.
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