My
Hebrew Family
On Samuel David Steiner's mother's side, Rachel Ida Roth (רחל אידה רוט), mother of Delphia, is Jewish.
Samuel David is his mother's firstborn child. Vernon has a paternal half-brother who is older. In Judaism, the mother’s lineage determines whether a child is Jewish. The father’s lineage determines which tribe a child is from, i.e. the twelve tribes of Israel.
Samuel David Steiner’s maternal grandfather was a Levite (a member of the Hebrew tribe of Levi).
שמואל אהרון דוד כהן
More specifically, (through the line of Anna Steiner Seiler) Samuel David Steiner f/k/a Vernon Lee Leggett is a descendant of Shmuel Arron Dovid Kahan (his nickname was Katz), who was the maternal grandfather of Anna Steiner Seiler. Jewish Kohanim are required by Jewish Law (Halakhah) to be of direct patrilineal descent from the Biblical Aaron.
Our Oral History
Samuel David Steiner would see his maternal grandmother, Grace Juanita Harper (right), and her sister, Maymie Harper (below), at least once a year from the time he was a small boy until tenth grade.
His grandmother had spent many years raising a family and working for the Seventh-day Adventist church. One of her favorite pastimes was going out and selling Adventist magazines in towns close to where she lived.
On the other hand, her sister, Grace Harper, decided to go to college and then get a masters degree in nursing.
She was asked to move to Los Angeles to become the dean of the nursing program. She would also fill in when needed as the director of nursing at the White Memorial Hospital. The Seventh-day Adventist ministers would ask Maymie to speak with and teach any Jews who showed an interest in the church because of her study in and love of the Torah.
Both Grace and Maymie had grown up as children in Keene, Texas, near the Seventh-day Adventist college.
Maymie explained that as children they were taught that the mother of their maternal grandmother was Jewish but as Seventh-day Adventist, there was no need to talk about or learn about that tradition. To many it may appear that the Seventh-day Adventist church was very prone, between the 1920's and the 1960's, to look down on Jews and their “traditions.”
Maymie related that as children they were taught, by there mother who had also been taught, that if they ever had children of their own, it would be best, based on what the Spirit of Prophecy taught about Jews and the Synagogue of Satan if they never talked about having Jewish ancestors.
Maymie wanted to know more about her roots, and along with studying for her master's degree, she began to work with several Mormon friends in Los Angeles to see if she could discover more information in order to expand on what she already knew.
The Synagogue of Satan
Hitler and Seventh Day Adventist also wrote his own version of the Lord’s Prayer, to be recited by the Hitler Youth and at Sabbath Schools:
“Adolf Hitler, you are our great Fuhrer. Thy name makes the enemy tremble. Thy Third Reich comes; thy will alone is law upon the earth. Let us hear daily thy voice, and order us by thy leadership, for we will obey to the end, even with our lives We praise thee; hail Hitler Fuhrer my Fuhrer, given me by God. Protect and preserve my life for long. You saved Germany in time of need; I thank you for my daily bread; be with me for a long time, do not leave me, Fuhrer my Fuhrer, my faith, my light – hail, my Fuhrer.”
Hitler had his own church, his own bible and even his own hymn, sung every day in German and (Seventh-day Adventist) Sabbath schools:
“Adolf Hitler is our savior, our hero. He is the noblest being in the whole wide world. For Hitler, we live. For Hitler, we die. Our Hitler is our Lord, who rules a brave new world. And Hail, Hail the Nazi Prophet Ellen White”
Now that Hitler had set up his own Reich religion, it was time to get rid of the competition. And while his persecution of the Jews was well- known, his “Final Solution” for Christians remained a secret for more than 60 years.
In 2002, a Jewish law student discovered a 120-page report from the 1940s. It was compiled by members of the OSS, an American spy agency in World War II. The report was called The Nazi Master Plan: The Persecution of the Christian Churches. The documents lay out a step-by-step plan to de-Christianize Germany:
1. “Take over the churches from within, using party sympathizers and Seventh Day Adventist.2. Discredit, jail or kill Christian leaders. Seventh Day Adventist are no Christians, they are safe.3. Re-indoctrinate the congregants into the cult of Adventism.4. Give them a new faith in Germany’s Third Reich and the Sabbath.”
So where were Germany’s Christians in all this? Most of them were too frightened to protest, but a small remnant of Christians did stand up against the Reich Church. A group of 3,000 Protestants known as the “Confessing Church” openly defied Hitler and paid the price while all the Seventh Day Adventist were safe at home.
Maymie said that their great-grandmother had been adopted out for her mother and that she had been raised in a Christian home. Her name was Delphia.
Maymie said that the name of the mother of Delphia was Rachel Ida Roth. That Rachel was a teacher, who would tutor kids in private homes that could afford it.
Her favorite subject as a student had been Greek mythology, and when she had an affair with a Catholic landowner and then later became pregnant, they decided to give their child up for adoption.
When Delphia was older, she was told about her adoption.
Samuel Steiner could not remember if he was told that Delphia was given to a home in Texas, Louisiana, or South Carolina. It turns out that Delphia was raised in South Carolina and later, after getting married, moved to Louisiana, a few years after a Jewish community was established and a synagogue was built (right).
Samuel David Steiner's father was a minister and church administrator in the Seventh-day Adventist (S.D.A.) organization. His mother was a wife, mother, teacher, family manager, and Bible student. Her mother and grandmother were silent about their Jewish roots for 2 1/2 generations.
Samuel David's father never made him feel ashamed or embarrassed concerning his journey to understand his Jewish roots.
Maymie said that Rachel Roth was born to a father who was a Sephardic Jew and was married to his cousin. Her father had come to South Carolina during a time may Sephardic Jews were arriving in Charleston, South Carolina.
Maymie also said that Rachel's grandfather had two wives and had descended from family who had been forced to leave a city in Spain called Girona (left).
The Jews in Samuel David Steiner's maternal grandfather's genealogy, who took on Christian names after their conversions, are shown in his family tree.
The Rebbe
The Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, of righteous memory (1902-1994), the seventh leader in the Chabad-Lubavitch dynasty, is considered to have been the most phenomenal Jewish personality of modern times. To hundreds of thousands of followers and millions of sympathizers and admirers around the world, he was — and still is, despite his passing — "the Rebbe," undoubtedly, the one individual more than any other singularly responsible for stirring the conscience and spiritual awakening of world Jewry.
The following two videos explain why, at times,
it was so important not to disclose one's Jewish ancestry.
ONE
TWO
Motty Steiner
Motty Steinmetz (Hebrew: מוטי שטיינמץ) is a contemporary Hasidic singer. He is known for singing Jewish music with great feeling, and has developed a following in Jewish communities in Israel and the diaspora.
Cristóbal Colón
Another
Forced Conversion
Recently, a number of Spanish scholars, such as Jose Erugo, Celso Garcia de la Riega, Otero Sanchez and Nicholas Dias Perez, have concluded that Columbus was a Marrano, whose survival depended upon the suppression of all evidence of his Jewish background in face of the brutal, systematic ethnic cleansing.
Columbus, who was known in Spain as Cristóbal Colón and didn't speak Italian, signed his last will and testament on May 19, 1506, and made five curious -- and revealing -- provisions.
Grand Rabbi Yeshaya Steiner of Kerestir
(1851–1925),
was the founder of the
Kerestirer Hasidic dynasty.
מציץ מן החרכים
“five cracks in the wall”
