Israhell-Joe's very jewish family

[yankeedoodle]

Joe Biden's very Jewish family
Joe and Jill Biden are Roman Catholics - but all three of the Biden children married Jews
https://www.thejc.com/news/world/joe-biden-s-very-jewish-family-1.508420

For a staunch Roman Catholic, President –Elect Joe Biden has a remarkably Jewish family.

All three of his children married Jewish spouses. And the baby grandson that he cradled in his arms after his victory speech last week is halachically Jewish, as are the children of his late son Beau.

Beau's wife, Hallie Olivere was the Bidens' first Jewish daughter-in law. Joe Biden had known her mother Joan since childhood, and once joked that he'd have liked to have married her.  'I was the Catholic kid. She was the Jewish girl. I still tried. I didn't get anywhere.'

Hallie and Beau married in 2002, and had children Natalie and Robert. In 2015 Beau died of brain cancer. In the aftermath of his death, Hallie turned to his brother Hunter, who was separated from his wife, Kathleen, the mother of their children Naomi, Finnegan and Maisy.

Joe and Jill Biden, as well as Hallie's parents, supported the couple, with Joe Biden saying that the couple had  his and Jill's "full and complete support, and we are happy for them."

Hallie and Hunter split up last year, in part because of the constant attention from the press. Not long afterwards Hunter met Jewish South African film maker Melissa Cohen, and within 10 days  the couple were married in a ceremony in her Los Angeles flat. Hunter marked the occasion by getting a tattoo to match Cohen's -  the word 'shalom' in Hebrew letters.

According to the South African Jewish Report, it was love at first sight, and her family were left reeling by the news. Her parents Zoe and Lee Cohen would not comment, but her brother Garyn said: "It's very much a fairytale, all they want is for Melissa to be happy, and for there to be a happy ending."

Melissa grew up with three older brothers, attended a Jewish day school  and studied interior design before moving to Los Angeles. Garyn said that his sister had always been a "champion for nature conservation and the environment, as well as the underprivileged and people from all walks of life. She is truly remarkable, intelligent, and has a special neshoma [soul]."

The couple's baby, named Beau, was born in April, just under a year after they first met and married.

Joe and Jill Biden's daughter Ashley also has a Jewish spouse -  Howard Krein, an ENT specialist at a Philadelphia hospital. They married in 2012, in a Catholic-Jewish ceremony followed by a reception during which the then Vice-President danced the hora. "I'm the only Irish Catholic you know who had his dream met because his daughter married a Jewish surgeon," he said in 2016.

Alongside the Biden's Jewish in-laws, the new Vice President's husband  Doug Emhoff is also Jewish. Not only is he the first American 'Second Gentleman', he's also the first Jewish spouse of an American president or vice president.

Mr Emhoff, 56, met  Kamala Harris in 2013. He's a successful entertainment lawyer. They married in 2014. "In keeping with our Indian and Jewish heritages, I put a flower garland around Doug's neck and he stomped on a glass." Ms Harris wrote.




Who Is Joe Biden's New Jewish Daughter-In-Law, Melissa Cohen?
https://forward.com/schmooze/426918/who-is-joe-bidens-new-jewish-daughter-in-law-melissa-cohen/

In the 2016 presidential elections, it was said that whichever candidate won — Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton — the president would have Jewish grandchildren. Both Trump and Clinton have a child who married a Jewish person.

Joe Biden, a hopeful for the 2020 Democratic bid, would also bring Jewish in-laws to the White House. In fact, he would hold the particular distinction of bringing a son and daughter-in-law with matching Hebrew tattoos. Hunter Biden, the former Vice President's son, wed a Jewish woman named Melissa Cohen in May. An in-depth portrait of Hunter in the New Yorker on Monday details their brief courtship and recent nuptials.

The piercing article by Adam Entous paints a struggling — but ultimately decent — man at the heart of a traumatized family. Hunter Biden, a lawyer-turned-businessman from a family of American political royalty, has captured massive tabloid attention for years, which has only built since his father announced his third attempt at the presidential candidacy. Biden and his son Hunter, 49, are the only members left of a nuclear family that once included Neilia and Naomi; Hunter's mother and sister who died in a car crash in which Hunter and his brother Beau were injured. Beau, who had served as Attorney General of Delaware, died of cancer in 2015, at age 46.

Hunter Biden has dealt with alcohol and drug addiction throughout his adult life. He was named in the Ashley Madison infidelity scandal, though he denies involvement. In June he was sued by a woman who claims to be the mother of his infant child. And in perhaps his moment most observed by the American people, he forged a romantic relationship with Hallie Biden, his brother's widow, while still legally married to his own wife. That relationship was over by January 2018.

Biden met activist Melissa Cohen in early May 2019. Within a month, they were married. He's Roman Catholic, she's Jewish. He's American, she's South African. He's a businessman with a background in law who has flitted — at times, some say, unethically — close to government affairs. Entous' article in the New Yorker describes Cohen as a filmmaker, though there isn't much evidence of her work. She is seventeen years his junior.

Yet the couple, who became engaged within a week of knowing each other, seems blissful together.

Cohen, a Johannesburg-local, is an outspoken liberal and a devout Jew from a tight-knit family. Her parents, Zoe and Lee Cohen, are nearing their 50th wedding anniversary. Cohen, who now lives in Los Angeles, is divorced from Jason Landver, a Jewish Los Angelean and graduate of Milken Community Schools.

Cohen, who appears to have spent time since her 2014 divorce on travel and family, posts regularly on social media about justice issues, focusing on the plight of the environment, mistreated and endangered animals, indigenous peoples, mistreated workers, and refugees. Long before she met Biden, she was outspokenly supportive of the Obama presidency, and critical of President Trump. After the white supremacist marching at Charlottesville she wrote of the president, "To those of you who voted for this POS [piece of s**t] you should be ashamed. That's all."

Cohen has also been proudly demonstrative of her Jewish identity. On February 17, 2018, she wrote of a video of a desecrated Jewish cemetery in Paris: "I'm always amazed that human beings could hate a people so much...for our religion!!!" She also shared a video of Israeli Rabbi Micha Odenheimer condemning the Netanyahu government's move to deport Africans from Israel.

Cohen, the New Yorker reported, has a tattoo of the word "Shalom," or "peace," in Hebrew on her bicep. Before their sudden wedding, which was not religious, Hunter Biden got an identical tattoo. He says that he called his father after the wedding to tell him the news, and put the presidential hopeful on speakerphone with his new wife. "Thank you for giving my son the courage to love again," Biden told Cohen.

"Easy fasting everyone on the approaching Erev Yom Kippur," she wrote in September 2017. "I love you. I forgive you all and hope u forgive me. heres to being inscribed in the book of love light happiness health wellness peace and success."

A couple who marries faster than challah-dough can rise, one-half of whom is mired in controversy, at the heart of a political campaign? It seems almost foolish to hope it could work. But we're romantics. We can't help but wish Biden and Cohen love, light, happiness, health, wellness, peace and success.