If you liked the Kennedy dynasty, then you'll love its KOSHER version....
His brother's keeper
By Sara Leibovich-Dar
In 1972, John Kerry tried to get elected to the U.S. Congress as a representative from Massachusetts. His brother, Cameron Kerry, helped with his election campaign. He was a Catholic at the time. Twelve years later, in 1984, John Kerry ran for the Senate. His brother was at his side again - this time as a Jew. A year earlier he had undergone a Reform conversion and married Kathy Weinman, a Jewish lawyer from Michigan.
It's three days after Super Tuesday earlier this month, the day of nine Democratic primaries, when John Kerry consolidated his victory and was named the party's presidential candidate. Cameron Kerry laughs when asked if his conversion changed the nature of his advice to his brother.
"It didn't make any difference," he said in a telephone interview from his Boston law office. "Jews were always involved in Democratic politics, and were around the Democratic Party. It doesn't affect what I am doing. I am the cheerleader, adviser and surrogate to my brother."
He takes a relaxed attitude toward his conversion. "It was important to my wife and to her family. We decided to raise our children Jewish. After this, the conversion itself was a small step, which came easily and comfortably."
How did your family react?
Kerry: "They supported me. We grew up in a cosmopolitan environment."
Cameron Kerry is the youngest of four siblings. The family history is complicated. John and Cameron Kerry's grandfather, Frederick Kerry, was born as a Jew named Fritz Kohn, in the town of Bennisch in the Austro-Hungarian empire (today Horni Benesov, in the Czech Republic). His wife, Ida Loewe, was also born a Jew. In 1902, after marrying and becoming a father, Kohn changed his name in the population registry to Frederick Kerry. In 1905 he came to the United States, where he lived as a Catholic. In 1921 he committed suicide, apparently as a result of financial difficulties. His American descendants were Catholic. Two members of his family who remained in Europe were murdered in Nazi concentration camps.
Cameron Kerry says that when he discovered, about a year ago, that his grandfather was a Jew, he felt it was ironic. He says that his wife and children laughed when they heard about it. He told Reform Judaism magazine in the fall of 2003, "I guess things come full circle." In an interview with the Detroit Jewish News, he said that he was surprised at the number of Jews in his synagogue who had told him similar stories, and concluded "It's an American story."
[snip]
haaretz.com
As Cameron Bobby Kerry put it, "it's an American story." Does it dispell your misgivings about Kerry's loyalty? |
