JANUARY 28 • 2021 | 23

Americans disdained Jews in
one way or another: In 1958,
only 62% of Americans said
they’
d be willing to vote for a
well-qualified Jewish political
candidate, compared to 91%
in 2015, and a 1964 survey
found that 43% of Americans
held Jews responsible for the
death of Jesus, compared to
26% in 2004.
While 2019 saw a 40-year
high in antisemitic incidents
in the United States, it’s com-
mon for non-Jews with Jews
in their families to express
pride about their Jewish rela-
tives. Biden, a Catholic, is one
example.
“I’m the only Irish Catholic
you know who had his dream
met because his daughter mar-
ried a Jewish surgeon,
” Biden
quipped about his Jewish
son-in-law, Howard Krein, at
a political event in Ohio in
2016.
Krein, a doctor, married
Biden’s youngest daughter,
Ashley Biden, in an interfaith
ceremony in 2012 officiated
by a Roman Catholic priest
and a Reform rabbi, Joseph M.
Forman.
“
A ketubah was signed. The
couple got married under a
beautiful chuppah, made of
natural branches with a cloth
covering,
” Forman, rabbi at a
New Jersey congregation, Or
Chadash, told the Forward.

“The wedding ceremony
started with the traditional
baruch haba and included the
priestly blessing and the sheva
brachot. The groom stepped
on a glass at the end.
”
At the reception, Biden
danced the hora.
Biden’s son Beau, who
died of cancer in 2015, also
married a Jew: Hallie Olivere,
whose Jewish mother Biden
had known since his own
childhood. At a 2015 event in
Delaware, Biden joked that he
had had a crush on Olivere’s
mother as a kid.
“I was the Catholic kid. She
was the Jewish girl. I still tried.
I didn’t get anywhere,
” Biden
said.
Biden’s second son, Hunter,
recently married for the
second time — this time to
Melissa Cohen, a Jewish doc-
umentary filmmaker from
South Africa. Within days of
their meeting, Hunter Biden
got a “Shalom” tattoo to match
one that Cohen had. The
couple had their first child, a
son born in Los Angeles, last
March.
That brought the number
of Biden grandchildren with a
Jewish parent to three, adding
to Beau and Hallie’s two chil-
dren.

Lior Zaltzman contributed to this

report.

Ashley Biden with her parents and her husband

Howard Krein, second from left, as they depart

St. Joseph on the Brandywine Roman Catholic

Church after morning mass in Wilmington, Del.

Dec. 18, 2020

faces&places

More than 300 low-income
children in Metro Detroit,
identified by 19 local agen-
cies, nonprofit organizations
and schools, received new
winter coats, socks, mit-
tens and PJ bottoms, in a
drive-thru Jan. 13 event
called ‘Wrapped in Warmth,’
arranged by the National
Council of Jewish Women,
Michigan (NCJW|MI).
“With the weather getting
colder, and so many families
impacted by job loss and
hard times because of the
pandemic, we just felt we
needed to provide additional
coats to children,” explained
Amy Cutler, president of
NCJW|MI. “Our volunteers
went shopping for more

supplies and the agencies we
contacted were overwhelm-
ingly appreciative. We decided
that cozy PJ bottoms might
be useful at this time because
of so many kids doing their
school on Zoom.”
Veronica Johnson, project
coordinator for D.L.I.V
.E
and Alkebu-lan Village, two
organizations who will be
receiving the clothing, said
she works with so many
people who cannot buy their
kids the necessary supplies
to keep them warm. “Even if
they are working, they might
only have the income to cover
light, gas, rent and food,
but not the additional funds
needed to buy things so many
of us take for granted.”

NCJW Helps Kids Keep Warm

Volunteers Margo Stocker of Farmington Hills and Katie Stocker of

Huntington Woods, Diana Richards and William Barretto of Hope of Detroit

Academy, and volunteer Ruth Zerin of West Bloomfield.

NCJW volunteers Linda Bodzin of Farmington Hills, Margo Stocker of

Farmington Hills, NCJW|MI President Amy Cutler of West Bloomfield, Katie

Stocker of Huntington Woods and Sarah Gottlieb of Birmingham load up

clothing for the S.A.Y. Detroit Play Center.

NCJW
NCJW