Leon Trotsky, A Non-Jewish Jew Turned Social Democrat of Ukraine

 Nadene Goldfoot                                            

        Photograph of Trotsky (1879-1940) from the cover of the                      magazine Prozhektor in January 1924

Lev Davidovich Bronstein, better known as Leon Trotsky, was a Ukrainian-Russian Marxist revolutionary, political theorist and politician. Ideologically a communist, he developed a variant of Marxism which has become known as Trotskyism.  Born to a wealthy Ukrainian-Jewish family in Yanovka (now Bereslavka), Trotsky embraced Marxism after moving to Nikolayev in1896.

  Leon Trotsky was born Lev Davidovich Bronstein to David Leontyevich Bronstein (1847–1922) and Anna Lvovna (née Zhivotovskaya, 1850–1910) on 7 November 1879, the fifth child of a Ukrainian Jewish family of wealthy farmers in Yanovka or Yanivka, in the Kherson governorate of the Russian Empire (now Bereslavka, in Ukraine), a small village 24 kilometres (15 mi) from the nearest post office. His father, David Leontyevich, had lived in Poltava, and later moved to Bereslavka, as it had a large Jewish community. 

                        8-year-old Lev Bronstein, 1888

The language spoken at home was a mixture of Russian and Ukrainian (known as Surzhyk). In the Ukrainian People's Republic (1917-1920), Yiddish was declared a state language, along with Ukrainian and Russian. At that time, the Jewish National Union was created and the community was granted an autonomous status. Yiddish was used on Ukrainian currency in this same period, between 1917 and 1920. Trotskiy's family should have known some Yiddish as well, spoken at least by his grandparents. In fact, if should have been the native language of his parents and himself.   Then, when he attended school, he would have learned to speak Surzhyik.                              

                        Kamenev and Lenin in Gorki, 1922

Trotsky's younger sister, Olga, who also grew up to be a Bolshevik and a Soviet politician, married the prominent Bolshevik,  Lev Kamenev.  Kamenev was born as Leo Rosenfeld in Moscow, the son of a Jewish railway worker who was a convert to Russian Christian Orthodoxy and an ethnic Russian Orthodox Christian mother. Both of his parents were active in radical politics

When Trotsky asked whether he considered himself a Russian or a Jew, responded, "No, you are mistaken.  I am a Social-Democrat.  That's all." 

Many Jews had already left Russia in 1880-81 for Palestine, being of the 1st Aliyah to rebuild and live in the land of their ancestors.  Russian Jews had been through so much anti-Semitism, so many pogroms, that something happened to Trotsky, as if he had been spawned as a  non-Jewish Jew,  as he had put up a wall against his Jewish roots as a defense mechanism;  feeling no kinship, no responsibility to any ally to Judaism, to any nation, only to "mankind".

 When parents stopped practicing the cultural things, such as lighting candles on Friday nights, the special Sabbath meal, the mezuzzah on the doorposts, the people inside stopped practicing who they were and their responsibility they carried.  It only took a generation to happen with life and death pressing matters entering the mind.  Children who grow up with these reminders know who they are and usually are more grounded.  Trotsky was not one of them and was alienated. Otherwise, to say that we are Jewish is like saying, we are Italians, or Ukrainians.     

                          Trotsky in exile in Siberia, 1900

Leon Trotsky became the Russian Communist leader.  He was exiled to Siberia for revolutionary activity in 1898 at age 19, but in 1902, escaped to England.  He became a Marxist and a founder of the Russian Social Democratic party.  Returning to Russia during the 1903 Revolution, he was soon exiled and again escaped, this time to Vienna where he edited left-wing journals.  After the Revolution of 1917, he returned to Russia from America and joined the Bolsheviks, playing an active part in the organization of the Communist Revolution.  He became commissar for foreign affairs and chief negotiator of the Brest-Litovsk treaty with Germany.  Trotsky then became war commisar and organized the Red Army.

His differences with Stalin, Zinoviev, and other leaders grew more pronounced, and after Lenin's death in 1924, he was given subordinate positions and eventually expelled from the Communist Party in 1927, being exiled to Turkestan, expelled from the USSR, and settling in Constantinople.  In 1937, he went to Mexico where he was murdered. Jaime Ramón Mercader del Río (7 February 1913 – 18 October 1978), more commonly known as Ramón Mercader, was a Spanish communist and NKVD agent who assassinated Russian Bolshevik revolutionary Leon Trotsky in Mexico City in August 1940 with an ice axe. 

Trotsky's attitude to Jews and Judaism was negative and even antagonistic to his death. Too bad that such a bright Jewish fellow  had decided to pretend he was something else.  Perhaps he wouldn't have met such a bloody death. There are many paths we all can take after being born.  The trick in life is to choose the correct one.  If Trotsky had taken a different path, maybe we wouldn't have had to deal with Communism.   

Because of Communism, anti-Semitism developed.  A vast number of Russians and Ukrainians did not support communism, and popular identification of of Jews with communism exacerbated alreadiy deep antisemitism among those 2 peoples.  During the 1918-1920 civil war that followed the Bolshevik revolution, the anti-Communist Ukrainian fighters (the "whites" who fought the Red Army) murdered 50,000 Ukrainian Jews.  their anti-Jewish passions were raised by General simon Pethura, who constantly referred to the Bolshevik armies under the leadership of"the Jew " Trotsky."                              

On FTDNA, I find I am 4th cousin to 2 male Bronsteins and 3 female Bronsteins.  This shows that we are related, with a line going back to King David.  DNA is showing the history of Ashkenazi Jews as well as Sephardim and Mizrachim Jews.  We Jews are endogamic people. I'm saying this because I have the radio on a popular talk show, denying the history of Ashkenazi or any Jewish history, actually making fun of our whole existence.    This can't be denied today since DNA goes along with the Torah's history and our history in the Old Testament (Tanakh). 

Resource:

Why The Jews?  by Dennis Prager & Joseph Telushkin

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leon_Trotsky

The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ram%C3%B3n_Mercader#:~:text=Jaime%20Ram%C3%B3n%20Mercader%20del%20R%C3%ADo%20(7%20February%201913%20%E2%80%93%2018%20October,1940%20with%20an%20ice%20axe.

Abraham Lincoln's Jewish Ancestors from Lincoln, England

Nadene Goldfoot                                                                  

Our 16th American president had Jewish roots, as was found by Professor Elizabeth Hirschman of Rutgers University.  She wrote an extensive research paper who studied this topic and found beyond any reasonable doubt, that Abe Lincoln was Jewish.  She checked out his ancestry and went back to his hometown where she did years of work on this topic.

For starters, February 12, 1809 was the birthdate of Abe Lincoln.  His mother, illiterate from Virginia, was Nancy Hanks married to Thomas Lincoln, whose family came from the Shenandoah Valley of West Virginia.  Abe really was born in a log cabin built along the banks of the south fork of Nolin Creek near what is now, Hodgenville, Kentucky.

He was the only American president that didn't say he was a member of any particular religious faith. He wasn't raised in a church and never belonged to a church.   His grandfather was said by the researcher to be Mordechai Lincoln and his name was Abraham, two very Jewish biblical names used by Jews.  I believe he could have been a great-grandfather as his grandfather Lincoln was listed as Abraham.

Abe's ancestors probably came from Lincoln, England which has a Jewish history. The Normans came with William I in 1066, though were probably there also in Roman times.  They  had built Lincoln Cathedral and Lincoln Castle.   In 1159 a Jewish community was created in Lincoln  which later became 5 important Jewish communities.   During the crusader riots, the sheriff of Lincoln saved the Jews by giving them official protection.  St. Hugh, the great bishop of Lincoln, taught love of Jews to his parishioners.  The Jews of Lincoln mourned when he died.  Rabbi Joseph of Lincoln, a scholar, was mentioned in the Talmud.  Aaron of Lincoln was a finanacier whose operations extended all over the country.

There was the Jew's House which lies below the Jew's Court.  Anti-Semitic hysteria by 1255 caused Lincoln's Jews to be accused of ritual murder, causing 91 to be sent to London for trial which ended with 18 executed.  In 1290 the Jews of Lincoln were expelled by edict.  It's possible that some remained and were like the secret Jews of Spain who were expulsed in 1492.  They could have been practicing Judaism in secret and passed it on in each generation, following Abe Lincoln to Kentucky.

In researching "Lincoln" on ancestry.com , I found the first Lincoln immigrants to be several Thomases and a Stephen Lincoln born in the 1600's.  One was a husbandman and the other a miller.

Jews reacted to Lincoln's death in 1865 by sitting shivah and rabbis all over the USA eulogized President Lincoln.  Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise, creater of Reform Judaism, started the eulogy with "Brethren, the lamented Abraham Lincoln believed himself to be bone from our bone and flesh from our flesh.  He supposed himself to be a descendant of Hebrew parentage.  He said so in my presence."  

When asked about his theology, he quoted from the book of Exodus that he recommended that every American study, learn and follow, the Ten Commandments.

Though he may have been part of the Jewish community of Lincoln, England, Judaism follows from the inheritance of a Jewish mother.  He has roots, but would not be called "Jewish."  He would have had to go through a conversion to be Jewish.  Perhaps those Jewish genes were part of his philosophy of life, though.

What I know: (Added more ancestors to on 1/14/13)
1. Mordecai Lincoln b: June 14, 1657 Hingham, Plymouth, Mass.; spouse: Sarah Jones. Great-great grandfather
  2 Mordecai Lincoln b: April 24, 1686 Hingham, Plymouth, Massachusetts d: December 1736 Amity, Berks, Pennsylvania  .  Spouse: Hannah Salter.  I did find born 1750 in Massachusetts with son Isaac born October 18, 1749, Sarah, Jane, Nanne, Pegge, George  and Lucene Lincoln, all in Massachusetts:
   3. John Lincoln b: May 3, 1716, sp: Rebecca Flowers
    4.  Captain Abraham Lincoln b: May 13, 1744 in Berks PA, d: May 1786 Jefferson, Kentucky, GRANDFATHER
      married Bathsheba Herring (1746-1836) of Virginia  GRANDMOTHER
     5. son was Thomas Lincoln b: January 20, 1780 FATHER d: 1851 Farmington, Illinois
           married Nancy Hanks June 12, 1806 ( February 5, 1784-October 5, 1818) 1806 MOTHER (Parents were James Hanks and Lucy Shipley)
           4. Abraham Lincoln b:February 12, 1809 d: April 15, 1865
               married Mary Todd November 4, 1842 (well educated woman from Kentucky)
                5. Robert Todd Lincoln b: August 1, 1843 d: July 26, 1926, Lawyer, Secretary of War
                    married Mary Eunice Harlan
                      6 Abraham Lincoln II August 14, 1873 d: March 5, 1890
                5. Edward "Eddie" Baker Lincoln b: March 10, 1846  died February 1, 1850 of TB.
                5. William "Willie" Wallace Lincoln b: December 21, 1850 d: February 20, 1862 of Typhoid Fever
                5. Thomas "Tad" Lincoln b: April 4, 1853 d: July 15, 1871 of TB.
They had 4 children.  Robert was the only one to survive to adulthood.
Abe  had an older sister, Sarah, and a younger brother, Thomas.  His mother, Nancy, died at age 34 when he was 9 years old.  His father remarried Sarah Bush Johnston who had 3 children she brought to the marriage. The family had moved from Kentucky over a land dispute to Indiana.  He didn't care for his father as he had no ambition.  Neither parents could read or write.

Robert became Harvard educated and married Mary Eunice Harlan.  They had 2 daughters and a son, 6th generation Abraham Lincoln II whom they called Jack.  He was born August 14, 1873 and died March 5, 1890 at age 17 from blood poisoning  and unmarried. Thus ended the Lincoln line.  It's too bad there weren't any descendants to do dna testing.  It would have been interesting to see what Y haplogroup our former president would have had.

"Lincoln's son Robert later denied the admission of Hebrew ancestry. He told IsaacMarkens, author,  that he had "never before heard that his father supposed he had any Jewish ancestry." Markens dismissed the exchange between Lincoln and the rabbi as a "pleasantry."

"Pleasantry or not, the rumor seems to reflect historical truth. "The Lincoln material in my book traces his family's arrival from England into the New Hingham Colony in Massachusetts and their migration down to the Appalachian area," Elizabeth Hirschman told the curator of the Lincoln Collection, James M. Cornelius, who contacted her in September. "I use genealogies, marriage practices, wills and cemetery inscriptions to build the case for his Jewish--and likely Sephardic--ancestry." She had written that the Lincolns were part of the Melungeons from his mother, Nancy Hanks.

Update: 2/15/13 After watching a National Geographic program on searching for the DNA of Abe Lincoln, I found that DNA has been taken from a descendant of Samuel Lincoln (1620-1690) who is thought to be the ancestor, and it tested as R1b1 Y haplogroup., the most common of Europe, or could even be R1b1c1, originating in Central Asia or South Central Siberia.  Abe is buried deep underground in a tomb and so the scientists are searching for something with his blood, but must be careful that it is a verified object.  So far they have not found anything appropriate.  Some believe he had marphan, and others think he had another condition that would show up on DNA.  He went downhill within 13 months and may have had a form of cancer, or it was caused just by the strain and stress of the Civil War.  

Update: 6/15/14  After researching more than three centuries of Abraham Lincoln’s family tree, Ancestry.com family historians have revealed a Lincoln family secret: famous actor George Clooney is related to the former president. The family bloodline for both notable figures links to Lincoln’s maternal grandmother Lucy Hanks. Due to this common ancestor, Clooney is Lincoln’s half-first cousin five times removed. Those interested in the Lincoln-Clooney connection can find a family connection chart at Ancestry.com.http://blogs.ancestry.com/cm/2012/11/07/george-clooneys-honest-family-connection/?o_xid=56491&o_lid=56491&o_sch=Content+Marketing

Resource; gerardrobins@sbcglobal.net from Rabbi Jeff Kahn, Temple Har Shalom and Professor Elizabeth Hirschman, Rutgers University
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln,_England
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jew%27s_House
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_England
http://www.biography.com/people/abraham-lincoln-9382540?page=1, 2
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=433x615838
http://dnaconsultants.com/_blog/DNA_Consultants_Blog/post/Abraham_Lincoln's_Jewish_Roots/
http://www.melungeons.com/articles/mar2005.htm
Update: 2/15/13 http://www.thegeneticgenealogist.com/2007/11/01/dna-analysis-of-5-people-who-helped-create-america/