In speech to Jews, Kerry hints at past
By Patrick Healy, Globe Staff, 11/17/2003
DES MOINES -- Speaking before Jewish Democrats at a synagogue here yesterday, presidential candidate John F. Kerry made a connection between his own distant Jewish heritage and members of the audience, but later said he did not mean to suggest that he thought of himself as partially Jewish.
In a 30-minute appearance that dwelled mostly on American leadership and foreign policy, Kerry at one point described the violence against Jews in World War II and then said: "Had leaders seen the world differently when there was cause to see it differently, life might have been different.
We understand -- and I say we, because I recently learned of my own ties to the Jewish faith, a hundred years ago, which opens a whole new door, a window of connection."
A Boston Globe inquiry early this year found that Kerry's paternal grandparents were of Jewish origin. Kerry had not been aware of the background of his grandfather, who converted to Catholicism. Kerry is a practicing Catholic.
In an interview after his speech in Des Moines, Kerry said he did not mean to identify himself as a grandchild of Jews, but rather used the word "we" as a "generic" reference to the audience and all Americans, saying people had a "broad understanding" of threats to members of the Jewish faith and other minority groups.
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