Are the Rockefellers of Jewish Descent?

Originally Published at Conspiracy Archive on 2009/07/30

Godfrey Stillman Rockefeller (1899-1983)

An article at Henry Makow’s site by Willie Martin caught my attention.

A book overlooked by most people and published for sale mainly within the Jewish community states that the Rockefellers are Jews of Sephardic descent (meaning Spanish and Portuguese Jews). The work was published only for Jews some years ago. The work was compiled by the Jewish historian Malcolm H. Stern and entitled “Americans of Jewish Decent.”

That book weighed 10 pounds and gave the history of 25,000 Jewish individuals in America. It is extremely interesting to note that only 550 copies of the book were printed and each copy was consecutively numbered. The book was delivered to the top Jewish community leaders in America for their personal reference files in dealing with and contacting Jews who are “Marranos” (those Jews who “PRETEND” to be Christians in their community but secretly hold to their Jewish faith and race when among their own kind.)

Stephen Birmingham in “The Grandees” reports: “Who would expect to find the Rockefellers in the book.” Stern’s work traces what he calls the “Nobility of Jewry – the Sephardim who lived in Spain and Portugal as princes of the land.” […]

Yes, I’ve heard of Stern’s book before. It is indeed rare and only 500+ books were printed at the time. Back in 2005 (or thereabouts) I did a cursory search at AbeBooks and found two copies for sale:

1. AMERICANS OF JEWISH DESCENT
STERN, Malcolm H.
Bookseller: Antic Hay Books
(Asbury Park, NJ, U.S.A.) Price: US$ 2850.00
(C$ 3293.67)
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Book Description: : A COMPENDIUM OF GENEALOGY. Cincinnati, Ohio: Hebrew Union College Press, [1960, 1960. ]. Large oblong quarto, light-purple cloth. Publications Of The American Jewish Archives, Number V. Limited Edition of 550 numbered copies. A scarce title! Near Fine. Bookseller Inventory # 44244
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2. AMERICANS OF JEWISH DESCENT
Malcolm Stern
Bookseller: Ruth Hirschfield Books
(Brooklyn, NY, U.S.A.) Price: US$ 3000.00
(C$ 3467.02)
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Book Description: LIMITED EDITION and this is #467 out of 550. Published in 1960 . Over 300 pages. Traces the ancestry of some 25,000 American Jewish men and women from the 18th Century. Yes the Vanderbilts and the Rockefellers are there too., 1960. In very good condition save small mark on front cover. Fine paper and very heavy. A work of remarkable achievement. Bookseller Inventory # CR 1

Way too expensive for my blood. And with that I filed it away with some other research data and nearly forgot about it, until now. But after being reminded of it again, and through a few searches at Google, I have finally gotten to the bottom of the nature of the Rockefeller data in Stern’s book.

First off: the entire rare volume is now online for everyone to inspect, here.

When it first appeared in 1960, Malcolm Stern’s Americans of Jewish Descent marked a milestone in the study of American Jewish genealogy. The Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives is proud to make the latest edition of this classic text available online.

Researchers now have access to the complete text of Rabbi Stern’s monumental volume that was published in 1991 as the updated and revised 3rd edition entitled: First American Jewish Families: 600 Genealogies, 1654-1988. This publication is an historical document in its own right, and it is not our intention to alter it in any way. Students of American Jewish genealogy are encouraged to use this text as a basis for their research.

It’s entirely searchable; and a query for “Rockefeller” will bring up results contained on one page.

Rather than the entire family being of Jewish descent as some have implied, the Jewish blood stems from the marriage of Godfrey S. Rockefeller to Helen Gratz. Michael Collins Piper, in an apparent communication with someone who posts at Stormfront, summed it up:

As far as the Rockefeller family is concerned it should be noted that there is no solid information indicating that they are of Jewish extraction, although there has been much speculation and rumor for over a century. Contrary to widespread perception, the often touted “proof” that “the Rockefellers are Jewish” is not proof at all. The rumor stems from the fact that author Stephen Birmingham in his book The Grandees , a profile of the history of America’s Sephardic jewish elite, mentioned that the name “Rockefeller” can be found in a rare 1960 genealogical study, Americans of Jewish Descent by Malcolm Sten.

Although some sources jumped on that information and begin circulating the story that this was proof that the Rockefellers are of Jewish descent, a close and careful read of the entire book will demonstrate that the Rockefellers who have Jewish blood in their veins stem from the time of Godfrey Rockefeller, who married on Helen Gratz, who was Jewish. Their family members and heirs, by the way, were raised in the Episcopal Church and have had little if anything to do with Jewish or Israeli affairs.

Godfrey Rockefeller, in fact, was from a seperate line of the Rockefeller family, descended from one of the brothers of John D. Rockefeller, Sr. and was a second cousin to the famed Rockefeller brothers – Nelson, David, Laurence, and John D. III. Thus, any traces of Jewish blood in Godfrey’s heirs cannot be ascribed to the better known branch of the Rockefeller family.

Although I hate to quote from the Stormfront site, I thought I’d include this (purported) analysis by Piper simply because the latter is no friend of the Zionists and spends much time trying to suss out the influence of Jews upon the power structure of America and beyond.

That Godfrey Rockefeller had married a woman of Jewish descent has been known for years, was never a secret, and we certainly didn’t need Stern to tells us that. The entire “revelation” in the book by the latter, consists in the Gratz family tree, and how the Rockefellers married into it. That’s it; that’s all.

But the Willie Martin article claims a more substantial Jewish pedigree:

It was in 1492 that King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain expelled the Jews from their country and confiscated their ill-gotten wealth. It was during this period that the Rockefeller family moved to the Turkish Empire which welcomed the Jews at that time, believing them to be a “poor persecuted people.”

The grandfather of our former Vice-President Nelson Rockefeller, admitted that his family once moved from Turkey to France. It was from France that they moved to America. John D. Rockefeller, Sr., was a wealthy man even before he took over Standard Oil Co., which made their family one of the richest in the world. No one has ever explained how this family came into such wealth as soon as they arrived in America from France.

There is no known information on how the Rockefellers came into huge amounts of money in France. Some thing they got their money from the Rothschilds and were originally their agents in buying up Christian businesses in America.

Propaganda.

The Rockefellers are of German descent, not Spain nor Turkey nor France, and especially not of Marrano extraction. The Wikipedia article on the family actually has a good write-up on the geneological ancestry of the Rockefellers that reflects what is now accepted by scholars:

The name is an anglicized version of the German Rokkenfelder or Rockenfeller, meaning from Rockenfeld. The Rockefellers’ origin can be explicitly traced back to the villages of Ehlscheid, Segendorfand Fahr (all suburbanised to Neuwied, Rhineland-Palatinate).^[2] These are neighbored to the small settlement of Rockenfeld – part of Neuwied’s quarter Feldkirchen.^[3] In Germany, Rockenfeller is known as a family name.

Family records in parish registers reach back to the end of the Thirty Years’ War. The earliest known ancestors (direct line) are Goddard (Gotthard) Rockenfeller (*ca. 1590) Johann Wilhelm Rockenfeller(*ca. 1628,†1702) and Johannes Rockenfeller (*ca. 1634,†1684). Johann Peter (*1682), son of Johannes, moved in 1723 to Ringoes, New Jersey. Johann Thiel (*1695), grandson of Johann Wilhelm, immigrated in 1735 to Germantown, New York. William Avery Rockefeller was looking for a noble descent and a possible connection to a French Huguenot family de Roquefeullie was discussed. However, this is unlikely because the name Rockenfeld is recorded in the region long before the Huguenots fled France (1685).^[2]

Johann Peter’s grandson, William, married a distant relative, Christina, the granddaughter of a cousin of Johann Peter. This marriage produced a son, Godfrey, who married Lucy Avery in 1806. Avery’s ancestors were part of the Puritan tide from Devon, England to Massachusetts around 1630. Lucy Avery could justly claim descent from Edmund Ironside, the English king, crowned in 1016.

Godfrey and Lucy eventually shifted to the remote, backwater stagecoach stop of Richford, in the western part of New York State. Their son, William Avery Rockefeller (1810–1906) was a trader in salt and timber who adopted a vagabond life as a confidence man and was known as “Big Bill”, who sired two illegitimate children with his housekeeper. He married up, to Eliza Davison in 1837; her father, John Davison, was relatively rich for the time. Their second child was John Davison Rockefeller, and their third William Rockefeller.^[4]

The Rockefellers eventually settled near Cleveland, Ohio, where they would develop into the world-renowned family empire they are today. It was in Cleveland where John D. Sr. would amass his great fortune through Standard Oil which he formed with his brother William Rockefeller,Henry Flagler, chemist Samuel Andrews, and a silent partner Stephen V. Harkness., and where he would later be buried at Lake View Cemetery. In the generations since, however, the Rockefeller family has largely migrated to New York City, although many descendants remain in Cleveland or have since spread out across the country (e.g. Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia). The family business headquarters is now located in New York City’s Rockefeller Plaza.

Much more interesting to me than Godfrey marrying a Jewish woman, is that he was a member of the Scroll & Key, and was involved with the Bushes and their Skull & Bones cronies:

Godfrey S. Rockefeller, Scroll & Key 1921

Godfrey Stillman Rockefeller was the the grandson of John D. Rockefeller’s brother William, and a son of William Goodsell Rockefeller, Yale 1892, whose cousin B. Brewster Jennings was the president of Memorial Hospital from 1958-68. (William Goodsell Rockefeller, B.A. 1892. Bulletin of Yale University. Obituary Record of Yale Graduates 1922-1923, pp. 173-174.) He was a member of Scroll & Key. (“Tap Day” at Yale Finds New Society Selecting Members. Chicago Daily Tribune, May 22, 1920.) His aunt, Emma Rockefeller, married Dr. D. Hunter McAlpin, the son of the head of the D.H. McAlpin & Co. tobacco firm in 1895, while his cousin, Joan Rockefeller, married David H. McAlpin, the grandson of Dr. McAlpin., in 1953. (Joan Rockefeller Becomes Engaged. New York Times, Nov. 17, 1952; Joan Rockefeller Wed in Greenwich. New York Times, Jun. 14, 1953.) Godfrey Rockefeller was elected a director of Benson & Hedges in 1946. (Other Company Meetings. New York Times, Apr. 12, 1946.) He exchanged his shares for those of Philip Morris in 1954. (Letter from Joseph Cullman to Rockefeller, Jan. 18, 1954.)

Obituary Record 1922-1923 / Yale University Library (pdf, 385 pp)
Cullman to Rockefeller, Jan. 18, 1954 / tobacco document

Godfrey S. Rockefeller was on the board of directors of Freeport McMoRan for 50 years. He and his cousin Chauncey D. Stillman were elected together (Freeport Texas Elects 2 to Board. New York Times, Dec. 22, 1931.) He graduated from Yale in 1921, and two classmates in Skull & Bones 1921, Charles Harvey Bradley and John Sidney Acosta, were ushers at his wedding; also Henry Mali, John French Richardson Dilworth [both Scroll & Key 1921], and his brothers, William A. and J. Stillman Rockefeller. Frederick W. Lincoln was his best man, and his uncle, Percy A. Rockefeller, S&B 1900, attended. (Miss Gratz a Bride. New York Times, Jun. 27 1923.) His wife, Helen Gratz, was from St. Louis, Missouri, and Mrs. Prescott S. Bush of Columbus, Ohio, formerly Dorothy Walker of St. Louis, was supposed to have been an attendant (G.S. Rockefeller to Marry June 26. New York Times, Jun. 7, 1923.) Helen Gratz was the daughter of Benjamin Gratz. (Society. New York Times, May 6, 1923.) Mrs. Rockefeller was president of the Research In Schizophrenia Endowment (RISE), whose activists included Sen. Prescott S. Bush, Mrs. Prescott S. Bush Jr., and Dr. John Walker, S&B 1931, president of the board of managers of Memorial Hospital in New York City from 1965 to 1974. (Greenwich Fete May 4 to Aid Reasearch in Schizophrenia. New York Times, Apr. 24, 1960.) Mrs. Rockefeller also raised funds for the National Association for Mental Health, with Mrs. Albert D. Lasker as a member of her committee. (New Year’s Ball Will Take Place In Grand Central. New York Times, Dec. 9, 1963.)

Godfrey S. Rockefeller was a limited partner in Clark, Dodge & Company from 1936 to at least 1945. (Display Ad. 36. New York Times, Jan. 1, 1936 p. 43; Display Ad 194. New York Times, Aug. 9, 1945.) He was a stockholder in the Enterprise Development Corporation, a closed investment trust of heirs of William Rockefeller and Thomas F. Ryan, whose directors included Clendenin J. Ryan, Frederic W. Lincoln, and Morehead Patterson, S&B 1920. (Trust to Supply Venture Capital. New York Times, Mar. 31, 1948.) He was chairman of the Cranston Print Works, a Rockefeller-owned textile company, since 1946. (Godfrey S. Rockefeller, Dies; Executive in Textiles Was 83. New York Times, Feb. 25, 1983.) David H. McAlpin 3d was also a partner of Clark, Dodge & Co. during those years.

Godfrey S. Rockefeller Dies / New York Times, Feb. 25, 1983

“Certainly the real monarch of George Bush’s Andover secret society, and George’s sponsor, was this “Rocky’s” father, ‘Godfrey S. Rockefeller.’ The latter gentleman had been on the staff of the Yale University establishment in China in 1921-22. Yale and the Rockefellers were breeding a grotesque communist insurgency with British Empire ideology; another Yale staffer there was Mao Zedong, later the communist dictator and mass murderer. While he was over in China, Papa Godfrey’s cousin Isabel had been the bridesmaid at the wedding of George Bush’s parents.” (Excerpt from George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography – Part 2 of 8.)

George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography / Internetpirate.com