Neville,
1, Both of his parents were born Jewish and he had rabbinic ancestors. His father was baptized in 1817. Marx and his siblings were baptized in 1825 and his mother followed in 1827.
2. Ayn Rand was born Alyssa Rosenbaum. Both her parents were Jewish. it is not clear why she changed her name. In any case, she later became an atheist although never denied her Jewish ancestry and was even a strong supporter of Israel. I do agree that the terms Left and Right are not so applicable to American politics as they originally denoted republicans and monarchists according to where they sat in the French National Assembly. The libertarians (Rand, BTW, said about the anarcho-capitalist wing “Anarchism is the most irrational, anti-intellectual notion ever spun by the concrete-bound, context-dropping, whim-worshiping fringe of the collectivist movement, where it properly belongs.”) are especially hard to pin down as they are Right on economic issues but Left on social issues.
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