 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

