Posted on 02/03/2003 1:52:26 PM PST by areafiftyone
BOSTON (AP) -- A geneologist researched Sen. John Kerry's roots and found out information Kerry himself didn't know, including that his grandfather, who committed suicide in 1921, was born Jewish.
For years, the Massachusetts senator and Democratic presidential hopeful sought the true story of his paternal grandfather, Frederick A. Kerry. He searched the Internet and asked cousins, but he was only able to learn fragments of the family's history.
Felix Gundacker, an Austrian genealogy specialist hired by The Boston Globe, located birth records located that show that Frederick A. Kerry was born Fritz Kohn, in 1873 in the town of Bennisch in what was then the Austrian empire, now part of the Czech Republic.
Gundacker said he is ``1,000 percent certain'' that Kerry was born to a Jewish family. The birth of a son to Benedikt Kohn, a ``master brewer,'' and his wife, Mathilde, was listed in church records on an addendum page listing Jewish families.
``This is incredible stuff,'' Kerry said in a story published in Sunday's Globe. ``I think it is more than interesting; it is a revelation.''
The record in Bennisch notes that Kohn changed his name to Frederick Kerry on March 17, 1902. The document does not mention a baptism, but the family says Frederick Kerry was a Roman Catholic, as is his grandson.
Frederick Kerry emigrated to the U.S. in 1905, eventually settling in Boston and becoming a shoe merchant. On Nov. 21, 1921, he walked into the Copley Plaza Hotel, went into a washroom and shot himself in the head.
``How many times have I walked into that hotel ...'' an emotional Kerry told the Globe, his voice trailing off. He had known his grandfather killed himself but not the details.
The suicide made front-page news in several Boston newspapers, which speculated it may have stemmed from health or financial difficulties.
``Oh, God, that's awful,'' Kerry said when shown a copy of a 1921 Globe article. He recalled that his own father, diplomat Richard Kerry, ``was sort of painfully remote and shut off and angry'' about the loss of his father.
Numerous publications have incorrectly stated that Kerry is Irish-American; there's a county in Ireland called Kerry. But Kerry said he has always been quick to correct any such misstatement.
On his mother's side, the senator is related to the Forbes and Winthrop families, two of New England's most prominent clans.
Is this just a ploy to enlarge his base (Northeastern Demon-cratic Irish Taxa-2-$hit$ Liberals)?
Cut into Lie-berman's?
Indeed, master brewer or not, had the grandfather been baptized and had he and his progeny remained in Czechoslovakia, Moravia or Silesia, all would have been thrown in the concentration camps for being Jews, including John Kerry (Kohn)who at that point was 1/4 Jewish easily a qualifier on the Hitlerian 1/32 test for the gas chambers.
-PJ
Here it comes.....his "revelations" about all things Jewish he has always loved.......... Hey, maybe his Grandfather and Hillary's Grandmother knew each other.....oy vey!
Don't snicker about that aspect. I know nothing save the sketchiest outlines of my grandparents' lives.
Of course, *this* whole thing is a comically shameless ruse to bleed support/press from Lieberman....
I've never heard of someone changing a name like that. Lots of other changes, yes. Some in my family, including my parents and thus me, but nothing like a deliberate selection of another ethnic identity. This leaps out like a red flag screaming HOAX!
Gee, isn't it amazing how these politicians always seem to find a Jewish relative just in time to run for office?
We are both. The religion globally has relatively little intermarriage, so one can argue, in a non-technical sense, that Jews are a "race" given their narrow comparitively inbred gene pool.
And the Cohens WERE confirmed as specific line going way back, but the exact data escapes me right now.
Even though he got the trim
I still would never vote for him.
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