Generation-Skipping Transfer of Antisemitism In the Kennedy Family

Elder of Ziyon has an important exposé on the latest variant of Kennedy-family antisemitism here.

RFK Jr. got into hot water on July 15, when the New York Post aired footage of a press event during which he said (emphasis added):

“COVID-19. There is an argument that it is ethnically targeted. COVID-19 attacks certain races disproportionately,” Kennedy said. “COVID-19 is targeted to attack Caucasians and black people. The people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese.”

“We don’t know whether it was deliberately targeted or not but there are papers out there that show the racial or ethnic differential and impact,” Kennedy hedged . . .

Elder of Ziyon adds:

When called on the carpet for these antisemitic, racist, conspiracy theorist comments, RFK Jr. doubled down, tweeting:

“The U.S. and other governments are developing ethnically targeted bioweapons and that a 2021 study of the COVID-19 virus shows that COVID-19 appears to disproportionately affect certain races. The furin cleave docking site is most compatible with blacks and Caucasians and least compatible with ethnic Chinese, Finns, and Ashkenazi Jews. In that sense, it serves as a kind of proof of concept for ethnically targeted bioweapons.”

Except that none of this is true. Jews had a higher mortality rate from COVID-19 compared to other ethnic groups in, for example, the UK. From the JPost (emphasis added):

Despite Kennedy’s claims that Ashkenazi Jews had a higher immunity to COVID-19, in June of 2020, the Office for National Statistics released data revealing Jews had a higher mortality rate from COVID-19 in the United Kingdom compared to other ethnic groups. At the peak of the pandemic, in April 2020, Jewish mortality from COVID-19 was twice that of non-Jews.

But perhaps we can’t altogether blame RFK Jr.’s hateful views about Jews, since it’s kind of a family legacy going all the way back to Grandpa Joseph P. Kennedy, a known antisemite….

Elder of Ziyon then goes on to quote from the article “Joseph Kennedy and the Jews,” detailing Joseph Kennedy’s antisemitism and admiration for Hitler. This included expressing support for Hitler as the U.S. Ambassador to the Court of Saint James:

During May of 1938, Kennedy engaged in extensive discussions with the new German Ambassador to the Court of St. James’s, Herbert von Dirksen. In the midst of these conversations (held without approval from the U.S. State Department), Kennedy advised von Dirksen that President Roosevelt was the victim of “Jewish influence” and was poorly informed as to the philosophy, ambitions and ideals of Hitler’s regime. (The Nazi ambassador subsequently told his bosses that Kennedy was “Germany’s best friend” in London.)…

. . . Like his friend Charles Coughlin (an anti-Semitic broadcaster and Roman Catholic priest), Kennedy always remained convinced of what he believed to be the Jews’ corrupt, malignant, and profound influence in American culture and politics. “The Democratic [party] policy of the United States is a Jewish production,” Kennedy told a British reporter near the end of 1939, adding confidently that Roosevelt would “fall” in 1940.

You might be tempted to say—considering the legacy of antisemitism that RFK Jr. inherited from Grandpa Joe—that all the Kennedys suffer from the same malady. Except that there is reason to believe that this is not so. For one thing, JFK’s daughter Caroline, married a Jew. And in Bobby Kennedy’s Admiration for Israel, we learn that while RFK Jr.’s father Bobby at first tried not to choose sides in his coverage for the Boston Post of events leading up to Israel’s declaration of statehood. Then he changed his mind, and realized that Israel was in the right…

Bobby Kennedy, father of RFK Jr., really seemed to get it. How brave the Jewish people were in fighting to create a Jewish state in Palestine, after thousands of years in exile. From the same source (emphasis added):

In the subsequent three articles, however, RFK and his Boston Post editors no longer attempted to convey an objective view of the competing claims of Jews and Arabs. As the headline on his June 4th article indicates, RFK chose a side: “Jews Have a Fine Fighting Force—Make Up for Lack of Arms With Undying Spirit, Unparalleled Courage—Impress the World.” The article gets directly to the point: “The Jewish people in Palestine who believe in and have been working toward this national state have become an immensely proud and determined people. It is already a truly great modern example of the birth of a nation with the primary ingredients of dignity and self-respect.” Many similar articles appeared in the American press of the day. The surprising thing about these Boston Post articles was not their pro-Zionist sentiments, but the fact that they had been written by Joseph P. Kennedy’s son….

Joseph P. Kennedy’s grandson RFK Jr., looks to be a serious contender for the Democratic presidential nomination. As such, it is important to talk about his problem with Jews and Asians and to keep talking about it long and loud. Everyone should be well aware of the character of the candidate they choose for president. And that includes our current Democratic president.

That sentence above needs to be modified. After his remark about “Chinese and Ashkenazi Jews” being largely immune to Covid-19, RFK Jr. is no longer a “serious contender” for the Democratic presidential nomination — if he ever was. He has condemned himself to the lunatic fringes where such remarks are actually taken seriously.

The amazing thing in this family saga is that, despite having grown up under the influence of his antisemitic and appeasement-minded father, Robert F. Kennedy, Sr. had his own encounter with Jews in Palestine, discovering them to be quite unlike “the Jews” as described by Joseph Kennedy, Sr. As a reporter for The Boston Post, Robert Kennedy reported on the fighting Jews of Palestine, in April 1948, as they were preparing to defend their about-to-be declared state of Israel from the massed might of Arab armies. Robert Kennedy remained a supporter of Israel from then on, after his eye-opening experience in Mandatory Palestine in April 1948. His sympathies for Israel never left him. It was his philo-Israel attitude that led the Palestinian Sirhan Sirhan to murder him – a fact that went entirely undiscussed in the media at the time, which only identified the murderer as a “Jordanian” who for reasons unknown had decided to murder Robert Kennedy.

This generation-skipping transfer of antisemitism – from Joseph Kennedy Sr. to Robert Kennedy, Jr. – is worth recalling. Perhaps Robert Kennedy, Jr.’s own children will revert to their grandfather’s sympathetic views of Israel and of Jews. Certainly Jack Schlossberg, the Jewish husband of Caroline Kennedy, has already denounced his uncle’s latest outburst about Ashkenazi Jews being “ethnically” exempt from the effects of Covid-19. Other Kennedys and Kennedy in-laws of the latest generation may join him, siding with RFK rather than with his son RFK Jr. on Israel and the Jews. Stranger things have happened in this bizarre family, both for good and evil.