Is Sarah Palin Jewish?

Is Sarah Palin Jewish?



Yes and No. She is a fundamentalist Christian, but her mother was Jewish. Sarah Sheerhan, Palin's mother married Charles Heath, an evangelical, who instilled a strong religious faith in the family.


She was not a supporter of Pat Buchanan's presidential bid in 2000, as some Democratic partisans have falsely claimed. Buchanan, a very conservative Catholic, is not popular among most Jewish voters due to his far right-wing views on the relationship between church and state, his occasional positive statements on the Nazi movement, and his lack of support for Israel.


In 2000 Palin supported Steve Forbes, not Buchanan.


Palin's Initial Backers


Palin was first introduced to politics by two Jewish fellas, Mayor John Stein, and police chief Irving Staumbaugh.


From Wiki Answers

UPDATE: There are several genealogies circulating on the net claiming she’s a descendant of one Schmuel Sheigam, a Lithuanian Jew.
A National Archives 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.

Nothing has turned up to refute the rest of her mother's Jewish ancestry.

See earlier post:

http://sarah-palin-2008.blogspot.com/2008/10/sarah-palin-has-jewish-ancestry.html

http://sarah-palin-2008.blogspot.com/2008/09/all-in-family.html

Please note: It is not our intent to suggest that Sarah Palin is of the Jewish faith. But as genealogists, we think her genetic background is both interesting and important. JC and PF editors

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