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.
Especially since Boston is the capital of Irish America. Politics there is heavily Irish
Actually his grandmother was also Jewish. Check out the Boston Globe article. It was his grandmother on his father's side. Kerry said he knew of this fact for 15 years. Somehow this is all related to the fact that he knows that now that he is a presidential candidate that his background will be checked much more carefully than in the past. Until now he allowed the false impression (his lame protestations to the contrary) that he was Irish on his father's side. Just another huge example of Kerry's phoniness.
Wrong! According to a Boston Globe Article. already posted on the FR (and on the Drudge Report) she was ALSO Jewish. Her maiden name was Frankel.
BTW, Kerry is already doing damage control over why he allowed the impression that he was Irish. Check out this quote from the article:
Kerry spokeswoman Kelley Benander said the senator has corrected any misstatement he became aware of. When she was read three examples from Globe clippings in which the senator was misidentified as Irish-American, she repeated that Kerry had corrected misstatements when he read or heard them.
Kerry ''has never indicated to anyone that he was Irish and corrected people over the years who assumed he was,'' Benander said.
There's more than a small chance that the "Kerry" Gundacker is referring to is in fact that grandfather, Frederick A. Kerry...
Don't you think?
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