I recently got one in a series of forwarded e-mails from my dad, who enjoys passing on Jewish jokes and trivia to his friends and family. This one was particularly interesting. Entitled, “Jewish Trivia Worth Sharing!,” the e-mail went on to uncover a number of people who allegedly have a Jewish heritage, including Winston Churchill, Theodore Roosevelt, and others.
Now, I was admittedly skeptical at the idea of these famous figures being Jewish. I mean…..Churchill? Really? Just because he was anti-Hitler doesn’t mean he was also partially Jewish. I set about investigating these claims.
Churchill made some very interesting comments on the nature of the Jews, once stating that they were the “most formidable and the most remarkable race which has ever appeared in the world.” We’re a strong one, all right, but that’s a remarkable claim coming from a member of the British nobility. Indeed, Churchill was of the highest familial class, descended from the Churchill Dukes of Marlborough and the Spencer family that produced the late Diana, Princess of Wales. That was, of course, on his father’s side. On his mother’s side, he was actually American. His mother was born Jennie Jerome in Brooklyn, New York, and was said to be a quarter Native American. That doesn’t give the Jewish factor, though.
Is it possible that the Jewish community took a Brooklyn-born woman and made her heritage their own to add one of history’s most celebrated politicians to their own ranks? I doubt historians would be that blatantly devious all the time, but I can’t deny that I would be proud to call Winston Churchill a fellow Jew. Indeed, an article by one Moshe Kohn claimed Churchill’s heritage for the Jews, but his mother’s family name traces back to French Protestant ancestry in many other sources, with Kohn being the only one, really, claiming Churchill as a Jew. Here, I think Kohn would have been making sketchy claims without much historical basis partially to add Churchill in to the already impressive world of Jewish notables, but also to show that Jews are not the “other.” If someone as revered as Churchill was Jewish, then hate serves that much less of a purpose. I understand his reason in trying to add Churchill to the Jewish numbers, but there are other ways in which he could have emphasized that the Jews are not the outsiders, but the “insiders.” We have so many thinkers and people of note that there should be no need to “claim” others for our own. Let’s be proud of the many brilliant people that the Jewish community has produced.
The e-mail also claimed that Teddy Roosevelt, the famed American president, was of Jewish heritage. Here is another revered figure that may be one of the Tribe. The e-mail stated that the Roosevelts were originally named the Dutch “Rosenvelts.” That may sound Jewish to us, but remember that many Ashkenazi Jewish names were modeled after non-Jewish European names. There’s no evidence, it seems, apart from his seemingly Jewish last name, that TR was a Jew. Indeed, “Roosevelt” is from the Dutch word meaning “field of roses.”
That e-mail also claimed less-than-ideal people as Jews, including Joseph Stalin. Is it possible that we’re just trying to claim important historical figures, good or bad, as our own to improve our importance? I disagree here, for muddled ancestral records and similar last names can create confusion that are difficult to interpret. However, having such important historical figures on both ends of the spectrum would elevate Judaism’s importance in the eyes of the world. If such major world players were Jews, then perhaps others would see us as more than a minority.
So, whether or not Stalin, Churchill, and the like were Jews, it’s important to recognize the people we do have. Nobel Prize winners, politicians, and philanthropists, kings and scholars, have all come out of Jewish families. Let’s take into account those we do have and bring their accomplishments to fuller recognition.
