Stefany

I started reading a biography of Lincoln by David Herbert Donald but I couldn't find anywhere that he was Jewish and this came up with a bit of a shock for me since all my relatives have told me since I was a little kid that he was indeed Jewish.
I read that he was just an ordinary American but had a Jewish name because his great - grandfather had around 9 kids and he named all of them with names from the Bible like Sarah, Abraham, David and so on.


So Abe Lincoln was indeed not Jewish?

diddyriddick

Um......No.

Rongo

No, he definitely wasn't. Biblical names were not at all unusual among Christians in those days.

Ancientgeezer

Is this complete lunacy?
There is a website that is run by a mischevious Jewish organisation that "analyses" people's "Jewishness". One aim appears to be for the Jewish community to claim anyone with talent as "Jewish" and anyone who is a recusant Jew, but of doubtful character as "not really Jewish".
The odd thing is that the site uses the tactics of anti-semitism in reverse.
Anti-British and anti-American racists and anti-semites will often suggest that Winston Churchill was Jewish or that Franklin and Teddy Roosevelt were really "Rosenfeld".
It doesn't take much of an education to realise that Anglo-American culture is deeply entwined with the Bible and especially with the Protestant King James Authorised version of the Bible and for a few hundred years it was often the only book that was read regularly by the bulk of the Anglosphere. The Puritan wing of English Protestantism leaned heavily on the Old Testament, as did the early-mid 19th Century Anglican evangelical movement, Baptists and Methodists and it was considered both righteous and fashionable to name children after biblical characters.
It was canon law under both Catholicism and early Anglicanism that male children's baptismal names could only be those of Saint's, monarchs or drawn from the bible. As Protestants decried the Saints, OT names became more popular, so:-
Isaac Newton, Josiah Wedgewood, Samuel Pepys, Benjamin Franklin, Jethro Tull. OT names remained popular among the "low" churches for far longer and Lincoln was a "primitive baptist" but even blue-blood like Zachary Taylor kept the tradition.

Kaficek

What do you mean 'in those days'? Looking at the stats from the Social Security Administration, 13 of the 20 most popular boys names in the US last year were Biblical.

Alexander Jannaeus

No lol. Does everybody with the name David is jewish as well?

Unrevised

No, if he had been the Republican Party would have never nominated him for President.

BRIAN GOWER

I understand he was of part Welsh origin on his mother, Nancy Hanks, side. The only U.S. president I've heard of who could have been of Jewish origin was LBJ.

Clemmie

No, but he did befriend the Jews:

Alexander Jannaeus

Lindon Johnson? Care to elaborate?
We do know of 1 muslim president though. I'll let you guess who that is.