[FACT OR FAKE #87] A Jewish Boy Was Adopted To Stop Him From Becoming A Werewolf?
By tradition, the seventh son (or daughter) born to an Argentine family is eligible to become the godson (or daughter) of the President. But is it true that it's done to prevent them from turning into werewolves? We explore the topic in the very first FACT OR FAKE column of 2015.
Cover image via Wikipedia
From last few days, multiple news organisations from around the world including BuzzFeed, The Independent, New York Daily and Haaretz have been, unquestioningly, reporting that Argentina's President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner has become godmother to a Jewish boy in order to stop him from becoming a werewolf
Argentina's president, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, announced on 23 December 2014 that she had adopted a young Jewish man as her godson.
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Getting straight down to it, SAYS can confirm that while President Kirchner has indeed become the godmother of the seventh son of an Argentinian Jewish family, the rumours that this was done in order to prevent him from becoming a werewolf are completely NOT TRUE. It's FAKE! So what about those several news reports?
As The Washington Post notes, while Argentinian accounts of the said adoption made no mention of the werewolf, it would appear that little tidbit was picked up in translation by the English media
However, as per a detailed report by The Guardian, like all good urban myths, the news articles were based on a grain of truth
There is no link between the two traditions.
As per the report, the custom of adopting the seventh consecutive son in a family, or girls who are the seventh consecutive daughter began in 1907, when Enrique Brost and Apolonia Holmann, Volga German emigrés from south-eastern Russia asked then-president José Figueroa Alcorta to become godfather to their seventh son
The tradition was passed into law in the year 1974 by Isabel Perón, the widow of Argentina's political strongman General Juan Perón, once she succeeded him in the Presidential seat after his death in office. As Argentina's first woman President, Isabel Perón extended the honourary benefit to seventh daughters as well.
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Coming back to the the Jewish boy's story, his parents, Shlomo and Nehama Tawil, had written to the President's office requesting the adoption in 1993. President Kirchner has become Presidential godmother to some 700 children since taking office in 2007.
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