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aresef OP t1_j0chvh0 wrote

Reply to comment by RL_Mutt in Meet the Guy Behind 34th Street’s First-Ever Hanukkah House by aresef

I'm mostly Ashkenazi--a good chunk of that was a surprise to us a few years back--but not religiously anything and I love a Hanukkah house.

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RL_Mutt t1_j0cifnn wrote

Same! It was a surprise to our family after my sister recently did 23 & Me.

It kinda made sense though, because all my friends growing up were Jewish, some of the most influential and important people in my life are Jews, and I’ve always felt a kindred connection to the religion and its values.

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aresef OP t1_j0ckhe0 wrote

Way way back, a cousin worked for AP and did a story on the primitive version of all that stuff. He tested himself, his father and our grandfather.

https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna13756086

Years later, when 23andMe became a thing, that cousin's brother hit the books and found documentation on our great-grandfather. He determined that his last name was not the one he was born with. It wasn't an Ellis Island situation. The change was first documented when he fraudulently claimed birthright citizenship. He had a history of dubious claims. He claimed to be employed as a seaman when he was 6. He claimed to be from Liverpool. He was actually born in Switzerland with family in France and Germany and met his wife in Liverpool a year after he gained American citizenship. They moved to New York and had kids etc etc.

We tracked down one of our distant relatives and she helped us fill the hole in the family tree. Whatever the means, I sure am glad he got out of there. We learned in the process that a number of distant relatives were killed in the Holocaust.

Similarly, I'm glad my grandfather was 4F during the war, or else I may never have been born.

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