Is Sarah Palin Jewish? UPDATED
The short answer is, probably not.
You might have seen the genealogies circulating on the net - here's one - claiming she's a descendant of one Schmuel Sheigam, a Lithuanian Jew.
I've run the info past folks at the National Archives. A search of immigration records shows no Sheigam - or Sheeran, as the Ellis Island transformation would have it, according to these accounts - arriving in 1915. (And yes, all possible spellings were run.) Sheigam doesn't turn up, period.
There is a grain of truth in this, as there often is with urban myths: Records (ship manifests, censuses, property records etc.) show that Sheeran is indeed a common Irish American name, and one that some immigrants, evidently Jewish, adopted upon their arrival.
I asked the McCain-Palin campaign about this, they never got back to me (not that I blame them, I'd also prioritize screwy queries about ancestors low on my to-do list); but it's worth noting that they had earlier confirmed that she had been baptized a Roman Catholic. (She is no longer a Catholic.) That would comport with Irish ancestry, the more common association for "Sheeran."
What's odd about this phenomenon is that I'm getting asked this by Jews, when the myth is being perpetuated by anti-Semites. ("Why do some people dislike Jews" as a hedder is what we call an obvious giveaway; more subtle is the use of the word "Jewess.")
One version of this I saw suggested that John McCain wanted his old pal and fellow U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) as his running mate, and relinquished at the last minute. Again, a grain of truth here - my own reporting confirms this. Where it gets loony is in the why: Joe, apparently, was not simply too moderate for McCain's advisers - he was too clearly part of the Zionist conspiracy. McCain, according to this fiction, was told to go with the stealth Jew. That explanation is echoed in the above website (see under "This would explain a lot.")
None of this means the Alaska governor doesn't have a Jewish ancestor somewhere on the tree - it's not exactly uncommon in immigrant nations; especially in America, which has a wonderful history of welcoming all stripes of newcomer, unlike the sad sacks who run the conspiracy websites.
UPDATE: A number of readers (starting with both commenters below) have pointed out that there's a comprehensive Sarah Palin genealogy here and that it contains nary a Chosen One. Case closed.
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Take a look at this (very lengthy) geneaology of Sarah Palin on the website wargs.com. The guy who runs this is a very good genealogist and he’s posted hundreds of family trees of famous (and not so famous) people on his site. Some of his research on Barack Obama was cited in newspapers.
Anyway - unless he made a mistake here - and I seriously doubt it - Palin isn’t Jewish at all (the summary at the very bottom lists her as 55.078 125% English, 25.781 255% German, 18.75% Irish and 0.390 625% Dutch). The Sheerans were Sheerans for generations.
Link -
http://www.wargs.com/political/heath.html
Oh, and the Joe Lieberman thing is clearly true - i.e. - the part about being McCain’s first choice. This has been covered by a whole host of newspaper pieces and Lieberman all but confirmed it himself on Hannity & Colmes. McCain being talked out of it at the last minute is what caused the out-of-the-blue Palin pick. I bet McCain is regretting listening to those aides now.
The news has just been confirmed: SARAH PALIN IS JEWISH!!!
At least 50%, and arguably 75%. Her Mother is Jewish, and her Dad has a Jewish maternal Grandmother.
Oh my gosh! This is the game changer. Florida will now go completely Republican. And the news hits on a Sunday, right before the Monday morning news cycle.
As a Jewish libertarian Republican, I couldn’t be happier.
GO SARAH! GO SARAH! GO SARAH!! Soon to be our Nation’s Very First Jewish Vice-President.
This story was started by the same guy who said Ann Coulter was a transsexual: http://www.tbrnews.org/Archives/a2874.htm
Consider the source. At least FIND the source!
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Factchecker
10/09/08 01:15 AM
No. The rumor on several blogs that Sarah Palin’s maternal grandparents were Lithuanian Jews named “Sheigam” is completely false. All official records confirm that Gov. Palin’s maternal grandparents were Clement J. and Helen L. Sheeran of Richland, Washington. Their ancestral lines can be traced to Ireland and Germany, respectively. Some websites have also suggested that Palin’s paternal grandmother was a Jewish woman named “Beatrice Coleman”, but this too is complete fiction. Palin’s paternal grandmother was named Nellie Marie Heath (nee Brandt). According to her obituary in the Sandpoint Daily Bee, Mrs. Heath was associated with the First Church of Christ in Sandpoint, Idaho. In a recent Time Magazine interview, Palin asserted that her parents, Chuck and Sally Heath, baptized her in the Catholic church and attended non-denominational Christian churches throughout her childhood.
It is unclear where (or why) the fabrications regarding Gov. Palin’s heritage initially appeared. Some websites that have posted this mis-information seem to promulgate prejudiced ideals or conspiracy theories, but why have promoted this story is something of a mystery.
Rootsweb:
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~battle/palin.htm
http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=dowfam3&id=I132267
http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=dowfam3&id=I131617
http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=dowfam3&id=I131614
http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=dowfam3&id=I133179
BND.com:
http://www.bnd.com/news/state/story/480158.html
CTV:
http://krisabel.ctv.ca/blog/_archives/2008/10/7/3919685.html
Other:
http://alumnisandstorm.com/htm2006/2006-11-Nov.htm#14
http://www.mayflowerhistory.com/Genealogy/famousdescendants.php
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/2071652/posts