Science, DNA and Revelation
by George Wolfe of URI CC Muncie Interfaith Fellowship
We live in an age when DNA analysis is used in many high-profile court cases. I never imagined it could help solve a mystery within my own family.
This past winter my brother had his DNA analyzed. The analysis triggered a series of astonishing revelations about our family history.
My father, Harold George Wolfe (1897-1987), was a public school principal for most of his career. He always said he was of German ancestry. His father’s family emigrated from the Rhineland area in the northern part of France known as Alsace Loraine. Their journey to the United States occurred years before he was born. His family settled in Varysburg, New York where they attended the United Methodist Church.
It turns out my brother’s DNA reveals that our predominate line of ancestry on our father’s side of the family is not German but Ashkenazi, which is a European Jewish population that resided in the Rhineland. Based on an interview with my father that I recorded in 1977, as well as other memories of conversations, it appears he took steps to conceal his Jewish heritage.
Our last name, Wolfe, was originally spelled W-O-L-F. My dad claimed the addition of the “e” to the name resulted from a mistake on a copy of his birth certificate. He said he liked the addition of the “e” so he chose not to correct it. Now that I know my brother’s DNA analysis, I can’t help but question his explanation. Wolf without the “e” added is a common Jewish spelling, as is also the spelling W-O-L-F-F. Wolfe with the “e” is characteristically English, Irish or German.
This change in spelling occurred sometime between 1920 and 1930. We know this because my father’s name was spelled W-O-L-F on his military discharge papers from Paris Island where he served in the marines, and on his bachelor’s degree diploma from Cornell University in 1920. His Master’s degree diploma from the University of Rochester in 1930 listed his name as W-O-L-F-E. This addition of the “e” occurred at a time when there was rising anti-Semitism in Germany and the United States.
In addition, my brother Walter, who was born in Corry, Pennsylvania in 1937 at a time when Jews in Europe were being condemned to concentration camps, was not circumcised. Since it was customary back then to circumcise male babies regardless of their religious or ethnic background, we always wondered why my brother was left uncircumcised. We now believe it was due to my father’s continued efforts to hide our Jewish heritage.
My father’s mother was indeed German. This Jewish line of ancestry, now confirmed through DNA analysis, comes from my paternal grandfather’s side of the family. Given that Dad lived through the anti-Semitism of the 1920s and 30s, we believe we have solved the mystery of why he rarely spoke about his family history.
Residing in the United States well before WWI, my father’s situation was not one of having to survive Nazi persecution. Yet, certainly part of the reason he concealed his Jewish heritage was to elude the scourge of anti-Semitism, as well as hate groups in the U.S. like the Ku Klux Klan. I suspect he was also trying to protect my brother should fascism ever reach the shores of America.
Knowing my father’s reputation as a supportive and well-respected school administrator, I believe his awareness of his Jewish roots sensitized him to the evils of discrimination. In his own private way as an educator, he combated ethnic prejudice by treating his students and faculty colleagues with fairness and equality.
This was his leadership style. I know this from teachers who served under him and spoke fondly of him as a school of administrator. His total rejection of his Jewish ancestry certainly went too far, but we can understand this denial given the rise of fascism in Europe.
In our country today, there are people who are reluctant to be open about their religion or their ancestry. Let us strive to create a world where no one will ever feel the need to conceal their ethnic or religious heritage.
George Wolfe is the Chair of the Muncie Interfaith Fellowship which is a cooperation circle in the United Religions Initiative. He is also a trained mediator and the Coordinator of Outreach Programs for the Ball State University Center for Peace and Conflict Studies.