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John Kerry's Jewish Brother

Cam Kerry and his Detroit in-laws get up close and personal about the Democratic ontrunner.

SHARON LUCKERMAN

Staff Writer

IV

hen Cameron Kerry fell in love with
Oak Park native Kathy Weinman, he
chose to convert from Catholicism
to Judaism.
Little did he know that he already had a strong
Jewish connection. His father's parents were
Jewish — a fact uncovered last year when the
Boston Globe hired a genealogist to check into the
family roots of his brother, John Kerry, the
Democratic presidential frontrunner thought by
many to be of Irish background.
The Kerry family was traced back to a small

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town in the Austrian empire, now part of the
Czech Republic. There, the paper discovered that
before immigrating to America, the Kerrys
changed their name from Kohn and converted
from Judaism to Catholicism.
"It was mind-blowing," says Cam
Kerry about first learning his grandpar-
ents' true history from the newspaper
story. Also surprising to him was the
number of Jews in his synagogue who
came up to him with similar stories.
"It's an American story, " he says.
It also could be a powerful Jewish story if John
Kerry wins the White House. He would be the first
president of the United States with Jewish roots.

"If my zaydie (grandfather) could see this elec-
tion," says Anne Weinman, Cam's Farmington
Hills mother-in-law, who with her husband, Joe,
originally emigrated from Eastern Europe.
"Joe, and I are first-generation Americans and it
was inconceivable back then that we
could be connected to the president of
the United States."
Cam's wife, Kathy Weinman, adds,
"We have to pinch ourselves once in a
while. It's amazing to have a ringside
seat to history in the making."
She and their two daughters, ages 13 and 17,
also have participated in this history. They were
in New Hampshire during the primary. Her

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