James J.Kilroy (d.1962) was an inspector who worked in in the Fore River Shipyard in Quincy, Massachusetts.
During WW2, the staff at the shipyard needed to increase production to turn out as many ships as they could to help the war effort. Kilroy's job included checking the rivets that held the ships together, making sure that they had been placed properly and fastened solidly.
In the course of his daily duties, Kilroy had to fit between tight spaces and often entered very narrow areas to check the rivets which he counted in blocks. As he approved an area, he used some waxy chalk to certify that it had passed his strict criteria and left a tick as a mark of his inspection.
In those days, workers were paid on a piecework basis and this was calculated per rivet.
When Kilroy had left for the day, the workers would erase his tick so that when another inspector checked the rivets, they would be counted a second time and the workers would be paid twice for the same job.
After a while, one of the shipyard supervisors calculated that the number of ship parts was below the amount being paid, considering the amount of rivets being inspected.
Kilroy had to come up with a solution, realising that his inspection marks had been tampered with. He could use paint instead but how would he be able to fit into the tight spaces carrying a pot of paint?
His solution was to re-apply the ticks, but with an additional oversized legend stating that "Kilroy was Here" which made the tampering more difficult. He later added the famous 'eyes and nose peering over a wall' sketch.
The message was clear to all the workers - "don't tamper with Kilroys' inspections!" and indeed, as a result, the tampering ceased.
In peacetime, all ships would have been painted over, obliterating Kilroy's artwork, but due to time constraints and the need to deliver the ships as soon as possible to the theatre of war, they were launched with the sketches intact.
When the ships appeared in parts of Europe and the Far East, the servicemen had no idea about the history of the legend and soon played a game of seeing how many locations they could spot the "Kilroy was Here" motif around the world. Simply put, Kilroy became ubiquotous.
After the war, the motif was replicated in locations as remote as Mount Everest and the Arc de Triomphe.
There is even a story that, when the Nazis found the motif on a piece of captured American equipment, Hitler thought that Kilroy was the identity of a high level spy!
I've related this story because of something similar that happened to me recently.
A few months ago, my eldest daughter, Hadassah felt that she wanted to discover a little more about her origins and bought a DNA kit from the Israeli based website "My Heritage". She duly sent off the results and when they came back, she found out that she was mostly Ashkenazi with some Sephardi connections, due to her maternal grandmother's Greek background, which the family traced back to Spain and the inquisition.
She asked me to have myself tested.
Initially, I was reluctant, not least because these tests are still in their infancy and there is quite a lot of scientific skpeticism as to their authenticity and reliability. They are also relatively expensive.
The Black Friday discounts duly rolled up and so I decided to take the plunge. I bought a kit, swabbed my cheeks and returned the package to the US, just after Xmas.
And I waited....and waited.
I'll be honest, by now, I was quite intregued as to the result that would come back!
(In passing, I was almost amused when I went to post the package at a Post Office in Edgware and the lady immediately asked me if I was sending a DNA kit. Apparently, I'm not the first Jewish person in the vicinity to do so!)
About a fortnight ago, the result came back. I checked online, with bated breath.
Was I 13% Spanish, 15% Turkish, perhaps 3% Chinese....."
No, unlike my daughter (I'm relieved to say that she is by far my closest relative, which I didn't need a DNA kit to prove, but it doesn't hurt), I am, at least according to the results....100% Ashkenazi.
And not only that, the map they provide links me to no less than seven countries, without a by-your-leave of individual percentages. I'm a pure Jewish European thoroughbred!
Was I disappointed?
Completely. I felt that I'd been diddled out of my hard-earned cash.
I could have used the money to pay for a very nice meal at the Aviv in Edgware (for two, noch)!
But then I got to thinking....
If you look at this week's parsha, we find our ancestors eagerly encamped at the bottom of Mount Sinai, where-ever it may be found in the vast deserts of the Middle East. Gd presents a set of laws to a nation, barely free from centuries' long slavery by the most powerful empire in the known world.
In a desert.
Ten Commandments (literally, the Ten Statements) that literally rocked the mountain.
A pretty incredible sight.
Yet, within five weeks, Gd is threatening to destroy the nation and rebuild a new one from Moshe....and within two years, from the point of their departure, they are on the verge of being obliterated once again as the spies relate their deceitful travelog - perhaps the first instance of 'fake news'.
If we think about it, had Moshe not interceded, the nation of Israel could possibly have ended its travails in the desert and the Torah might have disappeared alongside them.
But that's not what happened.
They survived and the revolutionary moral code carved into those rocks (albeit a second time) travelled far beyond the sand dunes of Sinai.
They now form the basis of a book that is literally the DNA of the three monotheistic religions and their message is communicated by billions of people around the world.
My ancestors lived amongst those people - scattered around Europe, keeping the Jewish flame alive, through thick and thin, through poverty and perhaps a touch of wealth, through pogroms and national wars. The self-same Torah, given at Mount Sinai, way down south, could be located in every rivet that held their faith together in the shtetlech of Poland and White Russia.
Before Kilroy, the Torah - was Here.
And so, when I think about it, although it would be nice to have a little more information, the fact that I can say (at least if you believe the evidence) that I am 100% Ashkenazi fills me with a great sense of pride. That, despite everything my folks went through, here I am.
This week's parsha, which provides us with our spiritual DNA, reminds us that when Hashem took our people out of Egypt, it didn't matter where in the world the Torah ended up.
From Anchorage to Adelaide and everywhere in-between, we and our Holy book that we share with the world around, have become the ultimate Kilroy!
And that dear friends, is nothing but rivetting!
Shabbat Shalom