Sarah Palin Jewish? Who Knew?

Believe me, when gay people hear that deranged Republican homophobes like Mitch McConnell, Ted Haggard, David Dreier, Lindsey Graham, Patrick McHenry, and Mark Foley are homosexuals, we cringe. We have enough image problems without people like them claiming alcoholism and perverted Catholic priests/rapists turned them into the messes they are. Similarly, Jews go through the same cringiness when it's revealed-- or shrilly, albeit, falsely, proclaimed-- that some self-loathing anti-Semite or world class villain is a Marrano or a secret Jew.

According to some (psychotics) Bush is a secret Jew; Tony Blair is a secret Jew; Dick Cheney is a secret Jew; Colin Powell, Hitler, Osama bin-Laden, Rev. Sun Myung Moon... all secret Jews. People who push that kind of crap are generally certifiably insane, in some cases, already certified insane. But what about all the Sarah Palin rumors? I mean above and beyond the annoying, sing song vocalizations and the love affair with Neiman Marcus... is Sarah Palin Jewish?

Short answer: maybe. Like so much about the Palin clan, her heritage is shrouded in mystery and controversy. There are two very different family trees for Sarah, one showing her mother and maternal grandparents as Jews and one showing them as Catholics. (It is indisputable that she was born and baptized Roman Catholic, raised as a Pentecostal Christian and is now in some bizarre satanic religious cult, involved in rooting out witches.)

Based on Jewish law, Judaism is passed down from mother to children. If your mom was Jewish, you're Jewish.

Sarah Palin's mother (Sally Sheigam) was of Lithuanian Jewish heritage and so were both of her mother's parents (Louise Sheigam and Shmuel Sheigam). Her maternal grandfather, Schmuel Sheigam, was a Lithuanian Jew born in 1912 in Vilkaviskis, Lithuania, 91.2 miles west of Vilnius. The Sheigam family immigrated to America, via Hamburg, Germany in 1915 because of WWI. The grandmother was originally named Gower. Her father Chuck Heath can be considered of Jewish blood because it is believed his mother, Beatrice Coleman, was of Jewish decent. Further information on Governor Palin's ancestors can easily be found in the vital records in the Lithuanian State Historical Archives in Vilnius.

The Archives holds birth, marriage, divorce, and death records for the Lithuanian Jewish community from 1851 until 1915 when the Jews were required to leave the country because of World War I. They are in 18th Century Cyrillic script and Yiddish Many of these records include the mother's maiden name and town of registration.

At Ellis Island Immigration Centre, the name was entered as Sheeran, a standard practice of the time when immigration officers were unable to understand non-English speaking immigrants. Sheeran is a common Irish name but members of the Sheigam family are buried in the Jewish cemetery at Budezeriai near Vilkaviskis in Lithuania.

I don't want this to be true-- anymore than I wanted it to be true that Larry Craig's foot tappin' in public toilets meant that he was gay. But, you know what? It doesn't matter in either case anyway. Larry Craig can barricade himself in his closet for as long as he likes and Sarah Palin can go on a witch hunting crusade to Kenya or whatever her cult tells her to do. My guess is that Sarah and Larry have about a roughly equal chance of ever being elected to anything (in the Lower 48). On the other hand, if they ever make a movie out of Michael Chabon's awesome Yiddish Policeman's Union, set in Sitka...