Lies About a Jewish Heritage

 Nadene Goldfoot                                              

                                   Me, a Jew  holding dual citizenship since I made aliyah in 1980, when I was in the States getting ready for Yom Kippur which is why I'm wearing white.  I'm a conservative Jew, taught in Sunday school from age 15 on; for a few years till college, and am a proud Jew who now writes about our amazing history;  a blogger.  I'm 88 now, and more than ever involved with out history and religion.  I'm like others, expecting the best out of our people to carry on our historic truths.  Talk about having Pride Parades, we need one just to feel proud of our heritage !  

George Santos has just come up with the lie of having Jewish grandparents and it's turned into an outrageous lie.  He's a public servant, so this was a lie to many.  He claimed they were Holocaust survivors, trying to gain sympathy from his voters for that bit of news.  A Santos in Ukraine, yet, was his claim.  I don't think he even knows that Santos is a Sephardic possibility, not an Ashkenazi one, and it was Ashkenazis in Ukraine, with Sephardics being most rare there.  

It he were intelligent, he would already have had a DNA test to find his roots.  I hope his voters, if anyone remains to be one, insists on his testing himself, and let the results come to someone else for verification of the truth.  I wouldn't trust him.  He's now saying his surname is Zabrovsky (sounds Ashkenazi).  Who knows?  DNA results can't hurt.  May I suggest FTDNA ?  That's my testing choice. 

In countries outside of Israel,  there are people with a Jewish heritage who refuse to admit it.  They are no longer practicing their ancestor's faith and want to be known as either Christians,  or today, even Moslems.  They deny profusely if told they have a Jewish heritage.  To them, it is embarrassing, and a hateful accusation.   

Many of us are proud Jews and are not afraid of letting people know;   some even going to the point of wearing Star of David necklaces in public without even knowing much about their own religion other than they were not Christians.  

The last thing imaginable is to find someone declaring in public to be Jewish and lie about it, using it as a positive statement about himself.  Of course, this has happened with a consummate liar bragging about himself!  This is not a person that Jews can be proud of.  Lying about every point of his life and saying he's Jewish puts Jews in a bad light.

We Jews have been around since the Exodus that Moses led who was born in 1391 BCE when he was 80 years old, so it began in 1,311BCE which was 3,334 years ago.  Israel was created again in 1948.  We've been the  scapegoat of the world's problems ever since, even blamed for the weather.  The last thing we need is a liar declaring he's Jewish or even Jew-ish, which this person has done in differing hours of the day.  His story has changed so.

Our days of beating the bushes for new people to join us was over long ago in the year of about 300 with the Romans who became Christians.  They didn't want competition and they were actually getting it from the Jews in those days.  The penalty was death for proselytizing, so we ended that.  One can marry a Jew and then convert, and there have been a few conversions that happen with individuals, but not many.

               Sammy Davis, Jr. in Oceans 11

One of the most famous that has happened and a plus for us was  Sammy Davis, Jr.  . Sammy Davis, Jr. did not call himself “the most famous,” but “the only black, Puerto Rican, one-eyed, Jewish entertainer in the world.” From the age of three until his death, Davis (1925 – 1990) never stopped dancing, singing, acting and playing music. In 1957, he ended his romance with white actress Kim Novak – soon to appear in Vertigo – after a veiled death threat from the head of Columbia Pictures, who was grooming Novak to be a star.

At the time, interracial marriages were banned in half of the country’s states and it was only in 1967 that the Supreme Court ruled “anti-miscegenation” laws unconstitutional.When Sammy Davis, Jr. converted to Judaism in 1960, it was big news. He was only the latest celebrity to do so—Marilyn Monroe had converted in 1956 to marry Arthur Miller, and Elizabeth Taylor had converted in 1959 to marry Eddie Fisher—but his conversion “was especially controversial, both because of his racial background and the shifting dynamics of Jewish ethnicity,” writes (unrelated) scholar Rebecca L. Davis.

“Davis adapted to the attention that his choice drew by insisting that his highly unusual combination of racial, ethnic, and religious identities was inherently harmonious. Blacks and Jews had similar histories of oppression and marginalization, he explained, and he admired the Jewish people’s history of overcoming diversity.”

Jews, Sammy Davis Jr., said, were a “swinging bunch of people.” In addition, writes R. L. Davis, “Jewish masculinity offered a heterosexual style that worked for a short, lithe man who could out-dance, outtalk, and out-sing anyone with whom he shared the stage.”

“Davis constructed a narrative of selfhood that defied the politics of ethnic inheritance.” He also made it part of his shtick: Black, Jewish, Puerto Rican (on his mother’s side), and one-eyed (he’d lost an eye in a 1954 car accident), playing with, and against, stereotypes: “When I move into a neighborhood, I wipe it out!”

And now I read that Blacks are the cause of most of the attacks on Jews today, showing more anti-Semitism than other groups.  It's come down to racial behaviors.  What's going on?  We need Sammy Davis more than ever.  

We have had a run on well-known, well educated Jews in the news for breaking the law lately.   Michael Cohen, President Trump’s former lawyer, was sentenced last month to three years in federal prison on fraud charges.  The minimum-security camp at the Federal Correctional Institution in Otisville, N.Y., has become an enclave for Jewish white-collar offenders. (Tom Bushey/Middletown Times Herald Record vis Associated Press.)..

Tom Bushey/Middletown Times Herald Record, via Associated Press

 At that, he was even a Cohen, which made it more tragic.  He wasn't any lawyer on the East Coast, he was a Cohen!!!  Cohens, in Judaism, were our leaders, direct descendants of Aaron, brother of Moses who was asked to be our head priest.  Descendants have been going ever since as leaders in the synagogue being first readers of the Torah; one of many positions they have.   I bet he knew nothing about this;  just being Trump's lawyer.  Otherwise, he would not be in such a position. 

One can be an important lawyer and an exemplary Jew as,  well,  like Alan Dershowitz, who knows as much about our Jewish history;   more than most Rabbis.  

It's shameful that our Jewish brethern have come to the following:What the minimum-security camp at the Federal Correctional Institution in Otisville, N.Y., does offer is a rarity in the federal prison system: a full-time Hasidic chaplain who oversees a congregation of dozens of Jewish inmates who gather for prayer services three times a day.  I hope it's required that any Jew there must attend.  I'm not that diligent an attender myself, and that's not the point.  I haven't gone off the deep end--at least as far as the laws of the USA go.  The behavior of these men is a shunda for the rest of the Jewish population. 

 It's one thing we have in common with the Chinese population in the USA.  They also are sensitive as to their Chinese reputation.  We Jews have always had an excellent reputation.  I guess it is a sign of being the end of the world with a Cohen actually in prison legitimately.  Maybe he also needs a DNA test to see if he has the right haplotype of other Cohens.  

Everyone, Jewish or not, should remember that they have family and should not want to bring embarrassment upon that family's present people or ancestors.  Then maybe they'd think twice before they robbed that store or killed another person.  

Resource:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/22/nyregion/michael-cohen-otisville-prison.html

https://www.frontpagemag.com/17-of-assaults-on-ny-jews-were-carried-out-by-muslims/