Was President Eisenhower a Jew?

General Questions
#1

I was just reading the Wikipedia article on Dwight Eisenhower and it claims that he has Jewish ancestry. “*The Eisenhower family is of Jewish German descent (Eisenhauer) and came from Germanic Forbach, Lorraine region of France but had lived in America since the 18th century. *”

I realize that Wikipedia is inaccurate. So - I did a search of my own. This is what I found:

“The Terrible Swedish Jew.”

This image is from an anti-Semitic and holocaust-denying website. I normally discount anything from such circumstances. However, it does appear to be a scanned page from his West Point yearbook. Is this page a forgery? There is blurriness around the edges of the letters, making me wonder if there is some digital manipulation.

This genaeology website lists Eisenhower as a Jewish name and claims that:

I have no idea how accurate this website is, so its validity may be in question.

Also, there’s no question that Eisenhower looks kind of Jewish.

So, so far we have Wikipedia, which is often inaccurate; an anti-semitic website; and a genaeology site of questionable credentials. All adding up to look like a very weak-looking case for Eisenhower being Jewish. However, there’s still that yearbook page that claims him to be a “Swedish-Jew.” Could there be something to this, or is it some kind of forgery, or a joke?

#2

They used to say this same kind of stuff about FDR, because he had an ancestor named van Rosenvelt. “Seeee? He’s rfeally a Rosenfeld! Joo Jooo Joooo!!1”

#3

The whole concept of the site, selling a “family history” and a coat of arms for a surname is nothing but a fraud. It just doesn’t work that way without tracing your ancestry to any specific individual.

The man or the name? In German, the name doesn’t. I’m not saying that he doesn’t have jewish ancestry, but “iron hewer” clearly looks like an occupational name (a brief search suggests a miner for iron ore) and that wouldn’t be typically jewish.

#4

Eisenhower listed his religious preference as Presbyterian .

#5

Not to mention Lincoln. I mean the guy was named Abe - how Jewish is that?

#6

No cite, but I think I remember from a long-ago biography of Eisenhower (and please nobody ask me why I was reading a biography of Eisenhower in my flaming youth) his football-team nickname at West Point was “The Swedish Jew.”

#7

Given the anti-semetic nature of the Nazi’s I would think that if there was any truth to the story that it would have been played up during WWII by both sides (the Nazi’s would claim that it was proof Jews ruled the world, the Allies would claim it disproved the Nazi’s claim of being the “master race.”)

#8

Most websites you find by googling “Eisenhower” “Swedish Jew” cite the fact that his nickname at West Point was “The Swedish Jew” but none cites any geneology or anything else of substance for his Jewish heritage, which in itself (and the fact that these sites are all anti-semitic conspiracist nutjobs that would love to cite all the supporting evidence they could dredge up from any source, reputable or not) suggests that some people don’t know how to take a joke.

#9

I’m thinking of getting a classic Rickenbacker bass so I was looking at some on Ebay. I came across this auction for one. Brand new, 2006, mint condition.

The only thing is, the price is up past more than NINE THOUSAND DOLLARS.

And there is NO explanation at all for this ridiculous price.

And there are five bids on it!!!

And it’s located in China!

And the shady-ass seller has hidden his feedback from viewers!
AND THERE ARE FIVE BIDS ON IT!!!

I don’t get it at all. This bass can be had brand new from Musician’s Friend for less than 2,000. There is absolutely nothing about this one that justifies the ludicrous price. I can’t understand why there are five bids on it. Does anyone have any idea?

#10

Conspiracy. I blame the Eisenhowers.

Come to think of it, whathehell kinda name is Rickenbacker?

#11

Argent Towers, did you intend to open a new thread for your second question?

Given the coincidence of name and nickname (Eisnhauer and “Terrible Swedish Jew”) it seems possible that Eisenhower had some Jewish ancestry. However, barring something more in the way of evidence, I would not jump to that conclusion, (nor would I think it made much difference in the world).

On the other hand, the other aspect of the situation is that Jewish family reckoning follows maternal descent. His mother’s maiden name, Stover, can be a Jewish name, but I am not sure that it is only a Jewish name. In any case, neither the Eisenhowers nor the Stovers were practicing Judaism by the generation preceding his birth, (they were pretty much all Christians, with his parents embracing the Jehovah’s Witness denominatiuon while he was a child), so any connection to “being a Jew” would have been only a tenuous matter of genetics, not belief or culture.

#12

German. Race car driver Eddie Rickenbacher changed his name to Rickenbacker during the anti-German hysteria of the First World War and went on to become the highest scoring fighter pilot in the US Army.

Rickenbacker guitars were first produced in the 1930s under the name Rickenbacher, but later adopted the same spelling Eddie had used. (I suspect that was more to grab an association with Eddie than to deny the German background, since by that time the earlier anti-German hysteria had passed. Of course, it might also have simply been an effort to get their name pronounced correctly, much as Loughead changed their name to Lockheed).

#13

Thanks. Actually, I knew about Cap’n Eddie (wasn’t his ancestry actually Swiss-German?) but the guitar stuff is news to me.