John Kerry's Jewish Genealogy Story
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John Kerry’s Jewish genealogy story: Boston Brahmin discovers his Jewish roots. An old story, but what if you’re the Democratic candidate for President of the United States? Page 2 ATSMI UVSARI “My Bone and My Flesh” *9:"& */73 Number 5 Spring, 2004 Family history CDs promise Jerusalem Conference an easy way to preserve our Special Projects of the Israel heritage, but can they deliver? Genealogical Society Page 15 Page 6 Vilna district research from DNA genealogy explained IAJGS Page 14 Robert Neu reviews MAPPING HUMAN HISTORY in plain English. Plus: Page 10 Sam Levinson Page 11 Bella Spewack Page 17 “From out of Bari the Rabbi Shmuel Boteach Page 8 Torah will go forth,” said Rashi. Archaeologists discover In every issue: 1st Century C.E. Jewish Book Review – page 7 communities in southern Italy. Contact information – page 22 Page 18 Editorial – page 8 Genealogy story – page 2 History Page – page 18 The Chuetas – Majorcan Mail – page 20 Jews of the Spanish President’s message – page 21 Inquisition A DNA confirmation SPECIAL FEATURE – page 15 Writing for publication – page 12 of their lost identity. Page 11 Zip Tips – page 22 Senator John Kerry’s Jewish Genealogy by Jennifer Anne Perez Jennifer Anne Perez, a former reporter for the Los Angeles Times, is now an international freelance journalist based in Prague. On February 2, 2003, the Boston Globe May 18, 1905, Frederick Kerry had left his reported that Massachusetts senator and Jewish heritage behind. The Kerrys settled Democratic presidential candidate John in Chicago, where Frederick quickly set out Kerry, thought by many to be a “Boston to stake his claim in the American dream. Brahmin” of Irish-Catholic ancestry, was the On June 21, 1907, he filed his initial grandson of Czech immigrants who had citizenship papers with Illinois’ Cook concealed their Jewish heritage. County Circuit Court. By 1908, he was The story begins in the hamlet of Horni listed in a business directory with an office Benesov on the tenth of May,1873–the day on Dearborn Street in Chicago’s famous Benedikt and Mathilde Kohn had a son they Loop. In 1910, the year his daughter Mildred named Fritz. Like his father, Fritz became a was born, he had made it into the Chicago simple brewer. Yet it was difficult for him to Blue Book, a catalogue of notable city succeed in an area dominated by German- residents. By February 6, 1911, he had filed speaking Catholics. Many Jews hid their his naturalization petition, which was religious identity, posing as Gentiles. “It was witnessed by the highly respected State easier to do business as a Christian,” says Street merchant Henry Lytton and by Frank Prague-based genealogist Julius Miller, who Case, a business manager at Sears Roebuck. specializes in tracing Jewish lineage. “Many Kerry had assisted in the reorganization of Jews just stopped practicing Judaism during Sears, and by the following year he was this period and had no belief at all.” promoting himself as a “business counselor” On March 17, 1902, shortly before his under the title “Frederick A.Kerry &Staff.” 30th birthday, Fritz took his wife Ida and For reasons that remain unclear, Kerry infant son Erich to a government office in soon left Chicago and settled in Brookline, Vienna and changed their family name. Fritz Massachusetts. There, in 1915, Ida gave Kohn would henceforth be known as birth to their third child, Richard, the future Frederick Kerry. The Kerry family settled father of Senator John Kerry. Frederick for three years in Austria before embarking would continue the merchant life, now on the steamship Konigen Luise in Genoa, working in the shoe business and achieving Italy on May 4, 1905, bound for America. enough success to hire a live-in German According to the ship’s manifest, the Kerrys domestic worker, who appears on the 1920 traveled in first class with only twenty-nine census records of the Kerry household. other passengers–French, American, and Census information also shows the Swiss families with decidedly Anglican lengths to which Frederick Kerry went to names like Hale, Walker, and Bridgeman. obscure his Jewish lineage. Both he and his Ellis Island records note that upon wife listed their native tongues as German– boarding the ship, Kerry identified his although the first language of Czech Jews of family as Germans from Austria, their that era, born near the Polish border, would former place of residence as Vienna. By the almost certainly have been Yiddish. By this time the ship arrived in New York City on point, however, both [Continued on page 3] Page 2 Kerry [continued from page2] forum for a wide range of political debate. Upon graduation in 1966, he joined the Frederick and Ida had been practicing Navy to fight in Vietnam. Returning to the Catholics for nearly twenty years, and by all U.S. in 1969 with a Silver Star, a Bronze accounts were regarded as devout in their Star, and three Purple Hearts, Kerry soon faith. became a vocal critic of the war. Testifying Frederick Kerry’s American dream ended before the Senate Foreign Relations mysteriously on November 21, 1921 at the Committee in April 1971, he asked a age of 48. According to front-page news question that would make him famous: reports, the now virtually bankrupt husband “How do you ask a man to be the last man to and father of three walked into the lobby die for a mistake?” washroom of Boston’s posh Copley Plaza Five years later, Kerry graduated from Hotel, put a loaded revolver to his head, and Boston College law school and kicked his pulled the trigger. He left behind $25 in political career into high gear. He quickly cash, $200 in stocks, and a Cadillac. The rose through the ranks of state government, suicide cast a shroud of silence over the becoming lieutenant governor of family history for more than fifty years. It Massachusetts in 1982 under then Governor would come to light again with the first Michael Dukakis, and eventually winning a stirrings of a U.S. senator’s bid for a U.S. Senate seat in 1984. possible presidential run in 2004. In the late 1980s Kerry learned from a The Kerrys’ youngest child, Richard, relative that his grandmother Ida had been would also achieve success, but unlike his born Jewish– a surprising revelation, as he father, would sustain it. He served as an remembered her as a zealous Catholic. But Army pilot during World War II; married he knew virtually nothing about his paternal Rosemary Forbes, a descendant of two grandfather, Frederick. wealthy Massachusetts families, the Forbes John Kerry’s constituency assumed that, and the Winthrops; and became a U.S. with his father’s name and his mother’s diplomat, holding posts in Oslo, Berlin, and lineage, the senator was a full-blooded Irish Paris. Catholic. Even his hometown newspaper, Richard and Rosemary’s first son, John the Boston Globe, regularly made the Forbes Kerry, was born on December 11, mistake, despite Kerry’s repeated attempts to 1943. Though he attended exclusive set the record straight. During a 1993 boarding schools in Europe as well as an interview with TV host John McLaughlin, elite private school in New Hampshire, John Kerry addressed the incorrect presumption later would tell interviewers that somehow that his father was Irish by stating that his he always felt disconnected from his peers, grandfather was Austrian and that his like an outsider. He attended Yale at about grandmother had been born Jewish. He the same time as President George W. added: “We’re still trying to find all the Bush–both belonged to the elite secret Skull details.” &Bones society–but while Bush lived the Try he did. On a visit to Europe, he fraternity life, Kerry, an admirer of John F. stopped in Vienna and called every Kerry in Kennedy, found his niche in politics and the phone book. And in 2002, his office became president of the Yale Political contacted the regional Czech archives, Union, a nonpartisan group providing a which, he would[Continued on page 4] Page 3 Kerry [continued from page3] in Vienna that recorded Fritz Kohn’s name change to Frederick Kerry. later discover, actually possessed Ironically, had Kohn’s name been information on Fritz Kohn’s birth, but the changed at Ellis Island, it might have been senator never received a reply. Two years impossible to uncover the original name. But earlier the bureau had stopped conducting because Kohn made the change while still in searches for foreigners. Austria, probably to conceal his background It was not until the late 1990s, when before coming to America, his origins could John’s father Richard was suffering from now be traced. cancer, that he finally disclosed to John that Gundacker’s next step was to find Kohn’s his grandfather had shot himself to death. birth records. That search took him to the “[That] turned on a light bulb for John Kerry state archives in the Czech city of Opava. on why his father was so understandably There he met archivist Jiri Stibor, a reticent to talk about it,” Kerry spokesman traditionalist who refused to use a computer, David Wade told the Boston Globe. “It preferring to search by hand through the helped him understand his father much more millions of musty files collected in the and what his father went through.” cavernous rooms of a former palace. Richard Kerry died in 2000. He never Stibor told Gundacker that on June 20, revealed that his father had been a Jew. Born 2002 he had received an unusual inquiry– a in the U.S.and only five years old when letter in English from a certain “Samuel C” Frederick died, it is likely that Richard did which carried the seal of a high-ranking not know of his grandfather’s hidden past.