It seems that John Kerry might have been eligible for that ever-tantalizing first aliyah in the Torah service had things turned out a little differently. Seems that his paternal grandparents were (at one point(?)) not only Jews, but Jews with yichus.

Evidently Kerry’s grandfather was born Fritz Kohn, but, living in anti-Semitic Austria at the turn of the century, converted to Catholicism and changed his name to Fredrick Kerry. As the story goes, he married Ida Lowe, a Jewess (don’t you love that term?) descended from the Maharal of Prague. She also converted and they raised their children Catholic.

The full story’s got a bit of a tragic twist, actually. You can read it here.

What, if anything, does this mean? Maybe not much, but if feeling the blood-bond prompts any of those bubbies down in Florida to vote Democrat, I, for one, don’t mind if he plays the Jew card ’till he plotzes.