Jewelers proud of papal blessing that followed gift of icon to parish

Published: 2005-05-12

CHICAGO (CNS) -- Tobina Kahn of the House of Kahn Estate Jewelers in Chicago displays on a wall an apostolic blessing that in 2000 Pope John Paul II bestowed on her parents, Edward and Adele Kahn, an Orthodox Jewish couple. Edward and Adele Kahn run the Palm Beach, Fla., branch of the family business. The elder Kahns, who emigrated to the United States from Eastern Europe after World War II, received the blessing after donating a 16th-century Russian icon to a small Catholic parish in Pahokee, Fla. The icon, an image of the Blessed Virgin and the infant Jesus surrounded by gems, came into the family's possession on a buying trip to London in 1965, according to Edward Kahn, who is in his 80s.

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