We’ve written here about allegations that Jesse Jackson told a forum that an Obama administration would drive out the “Zionists.” As you can see we’re a teensy skeptical of the source.

We also allude to the less than kissy kissy relationship between Jackson and Obama - the elder statesman, umm, threatened emergency surgery after Obama delivered a lecture on African American fathers and responsibility.

Now I’m wondering why we tippy-toed around all the colorful stuff, when the Obama campaign statement Jake Tapper at ABC gets right to it:

The Obama campaign’s response to these vague quotes — recorded by a columnist it considers hostile in a tabloid newspaper it considers biased against them — from an interview with a man last publicly seen threatening to castrate Sen. Obama, is as follows, from Obama campaign national security spokesperson Wendy Morigi:

“Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr. is not an adviser to the Obama campaign and is therefore in no position to interpret or share Barack Obama’s views on Israel and foreign policy. As he has made clear throughout his career and throughout this campaign, Barack Obama has a fundamental commitment
to a strong U.S.-Israel relationship, and he is advised by people like Dennis Ross, Daniel Kurtzer, Rep. Robert Wexler, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, and Senator Joe Biden who share that commitment. As President, he will ensure that Israel can defend itself from every threat it faces, stand with Israel in its quest for a secure peace with its neighbors, and use all elements of American power to end Iran’s illicit nuclear program. No false charges can change Barack Obama’s unshakeable commitment to Israel’s security.”

UPDATE AND CORRECTION: The Obama campaign sent out the above in an email forwarding the peerless prose of Jake Tapper at ABC. So the quotes from Morigi are directly from the campaign, and the stuff about castration is from Tapper, via the campaign.

Jackson has now responded and says his remarks were distorted and - regarding the “Zionist” jibe - even made up. From Jackson’s Rainbow Push coalition:

“The recent column in the New York Post by Amir Taheri in no way represents my views on Middle East peace and security. The writer is selectively imposing his own point of view, and distorting mine.I have a long held position of a two state solution to achieve peace in the Middle East. I stand forthrightly for the security and stability of Israel, its protection from any form of hostility, and a peaceful, non-violent resolution to co-existing with its Palestinian neighbors.”

And:

Reverend Jackson is not a representative of Senator Obama. He has never had a conversation with Senator Obama about Israel or the Middle East, and was not characterizing Senator Obama’s views on these issues.

Why is Sean Hannity inviting a man with an “extensive track record of anti-Semitic and anti-Israel remarks” to be a guest on his television show? The Anti-Defamation League would like to know.

In a letter to the Fox News Channel host, the organization states that an espouser of “odious views” such as Andy Martin “ought not to be given the opportunity to enhance his credentials or his standing by appearing on ‘Hannity’s America.’” Martin appeared on the show to falsely allege that Obama is a Muslim.

Martin has a history of filing court documents containing anti-Semitic slurs, and in 1986 he listed the purpose of a campaign committee he launched for U.S. Congress in Connecticut as “to exterminate Jew power.”

The New York Times catalogued Martin’s past on Monday, and Obama spokesperson Robert Gibbs confronted the talk show host about Martin live on-air after last week’s second presidential debate. Hannity responded that he interviews people he disagrees with all the time, noting that he had also interviewed New Black Panther Party leader Malik Zulu Shabazz, among others.

Here’s more information from the ADL on Martin: Read the rest

The pro-Barack Obama video featuring retired Israeli security officials is about a minute and a half shorter. That’s because two of the participants have been edited out of the film.

Former Mossad director Ephraim Halevy and retired Gen. Uzi Dayan had complained that they were not aware that interviews they had done this summer about the U.S. presidential candidates would be used in a video endorsing Obama. They were among seven retired generals and intelligence officials who appeared in the Jewish Council for Education and Research-distributed video.

Halevy and Dayan no longer appear on the video available at JCER’s Website, and the organization confirmed Monday that the two men were removed from it last week.

The National Jewish Democratic Council’s latest ad is its first of the election season to go negative on John McCain.

Headlined “Energy independence? McCain’s ties to Big Oil keep up dependent on Middle East Oil,” the advertisement criticizes the Republican nominee for promising to give tax breaks to oil companies and collecting campaign contributions from executives and employees of oil and gas firms. And it points out that McCain has voted against — or missed votes on — legislation promoting renewable energy. Here’s the ad.

Zoe Kravitz, the woman who inherited her mother Lisa Bonet’s stunning looks and acting talent and her father Lenny Kravitz’s pitch-perfect ear, is in thick with the entertainers-for-Obama deal.

Below, she plays a prominent role in the latest will.i.am. video, and she has her own website where another video explains her involvement.

Bonet’s mom is Jewish, and so is Lenny Kravitz’s dad. Zoe Kravitz was raised in Miami and lives in New York, which would make her a natural for the Great Schlep - except I don’t imagine her antecedents need much convincing.

Hillary Rodham Clinton. Joseph Lieberman. Ed Koch. U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky. The campaign biggies are parading in and out of Pennsylvania in an effort not only to convince Jewish voters to support their guy but also to get them to the polls. While much of the media attention is focused on Florida and the Big Schlep, Pennsylvania has its significant share of Jewish voters - and a big contingent of senior citizens as well.

Even as the polls show Obama with a growing lead in Pa., the Jewish outreach effort is intensifying, with the Obama camp especially active. The local media is also highlighting the issue, with the Philadelphia Weekly spotlighting the Jewish vote. (Read below the old stuff on the Big Schlep and get to the analysis of the Philadelphia Jewish community.)
The Jewish Exponent, too, is tracking the local race.

• Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.) says Yom Kippur convinced him to withdraw all his negative ads in his race against Al Franken.
• The New York Times looks at Andy Martin, the “man behind the whispers about Obama” who has a trail of anti-Jewish comments in his past.
• Newsweek says Sarah Palin is costing John McCain Jewish votes.
• “The People of the Button”: New York Rabbi Peter Schweitzer on the history of presidential campaign buttons in Hebrew, in the New York Times.
• Alan Dershowitz states that all the major party presidential and VP candidates are enthusiastic backers of Israel, so supporters of the Jewish state should base their voting decision instead on “more general considerarations” of who would be best for America and the world. The Green Party, though, is another story, he writes in the New York Daily News.
• British newspapers love “The Great Schlep”: The Times of London talks to Jews visiting their families in Florida. So does The Guardian.
• Haviv Rettig in the Jerusalem Post argues that the Jewish Council for Education and Research videos (those featuring Sarah Silverman and retired Israeli generals) are actually hurting Obama in the Jewish community — because they’re not taking Jewish concerns seriously.
• Jonathan Rosenblum tells bubbe and zaide to ignore the grandchildren, in the Jerusalem Post.
• The latest on this weekend’s courting the Ohio Jewish vote, from the Cleveland Plain-Dealer.
• What right-wing extremist groups has Todd Palin been “palling around” with? Menachem Rosensaft wants to know, in the Huffington Post.
• Liberals always threaten to move to Canada if a Republican wins the presidency? Where should conservatives threaten to go if Obama wins? Chris Wilson in Slate suggests Israel as one possibility.
• The Forward’s Brett Lieberman wonders if the Jewish community in Virginia could end up playing a crucial role in the election.
• Arab American Institute leader James Zogby criticizes McCain — and the Republican Jewish Coalition — for using “Arab” as a pejorative term.
• Rep. Robert Wexler is still a “heavy favorite” for re-election, but he has some “aggressive” opponents this year, writes the Palm Beach Post.
• Sarah Silverman talks to Keith Olbermann about “The Great Schlep,” but the best part of the interview is probably when Silverman tells Sarah Palin how she should have answered Katie Couric’s question about the newspapers and magazines she reads.

Way back in my AP days, just as the Afghanistan war was getting underway, I wrote about the difficulties minorities face in special forces in the U.S. military. Blacks made up 20 percent of the military but just 4 percent of special forces.

In the process, I uncovered a federally commissioned Rand Institute report, that concluded that, yes, minorities fear racism in the elite units - but added that the researchers were not qualified to assess whether there was racism.

Imagine that.

As far as I recall, the institute - an independent think tank with close government ties - charged taxpayers close to $400,000 for those insights.

I marveled then at how government is ready to pay big bucks for, well, the bleeding obvious.

Now Rand’s come out with a report that uses Israeli data to show that terrorist attacks close to an election affect the outcome of the election.

Hmmmm.

Via Andrew Sullivan, Matthew Iglesias and The Monkey Cage (whew!)

• More guilt by association from the GOP, as he chairman of the Palm Beach Republican Party is e-mailing around a video of an eight-month old speech in which Louis Farrakhan calls Barack Obama “the messiah.” Obama already responded to this endorsement in a debate during the primaries: After some badgering from Tim Russert and Hillary Clinton saying that simply denouncing Farrakhan wasn’t enough, Obama said he would “reject” the Nation of Islam leader’s support.
• Some guilt by association for McCain and Palin, from Menachem Rosensaft in the Huffington Post.
• From Jesse Kornbluth in the Huffington Post … Yom Kippur letter to Joe Lieberman’s rabbis, urging them to “talk to Sen. Lieberman about the hatred the McCain-Palin campaign is encouraging” — and complete with somewhat over-the-top allusions to Kristallnacht.
• Bradley Burston, in Ha’aretz, accuses Sarah Palin for stirring up prejudice and hatred when she talks about Obama.
• In the National Review … Mona Charen argues that Sarah Silverman’s “Great Schlep” video is just one more example of Jews substituting liberalism for their religion — and blames the New York Times for going along with it.
• Shmuel Rosner, in Slate, urges the candidates to stop talking about Israel so much.
• Politico reports that John McCain didn’t disclose his affiliation with the U.S. Council for World Freedom as a freshman congressman; his campaign says he didn’t have to report the connection.
• In the L.A. Jewish Journal … former AIPAC head Morris Amitay lays out why he supportd McCain.
• And former top Middle East negotiator Dennis Ross does the same for Obama.
• The Jewish Week talks to some undecided Jewish women about Sarah Palin.
• The Christian Science Monitor weighs in on Obama’s “struggles to attract Jewish voters.”
• A report on Obama’s Jewish outreach efforts in Pennsylvania, from the Jewish Exponent.
• Michael Gerson in the Washington Post on the importance of the Iran threat in making one’s choice for president.
• The National Jewish Democratic Council claims the Republican Jewish Coalition is lying in its new ad when it says Obama would be willing to meet personally with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Actually, the NJDC is wrong, because Obama did say that, at the YouTube debate last year (the questioner even puts a photo of Ahmadinejad on the screen when he asks the question) and he said it again two months later after the Iranian president spoke at Columbia University.

With less than a month to go before Election Day, Barack Obama’s campaign is sponsoring Jewish outreach events in three important swing states this weekend — and that doesn’t even include “The Great Schlep.”

At noon at a Philadelphia Jewish community center, Pa. Gov. Ed Rendell (D) and U.S. Reps. Allyson Schwartz (D-Pa.) and Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) are among the speakers at an event billed as a discussion on “Senator Barack Obama, Israel and the 2008 election.” The event follows on the heels of a parade of Jewish surrogates who fanned out to speak all day last Sunday, including former New York Mayor Ed Koch, U.S. Reps. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) and Sander Levin (D-Mich.) and Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.)

At 4 p.m. this afternoon in Delray Beach, Fla., the campaign will be providing “Jewish outreach training” at its S. Florida headquarters. While “The Great Schlep” is an independent effort and the Obama campaign is not permitted to coordinate with its sponsor, the Jewish Council for Education and Research, South Florida campaign spokesman Bobby Gravitz said that “we are hoping folks who are travelling this weekend” and in town by this afternoon would be interested in attending. He said Florida Jewish outreach director Halie Soifer would be discussing Obama’s positions on the Middle East, and also conduct a question and answer session.

And on Sunday at 5 p.m., Obama foreign policy adviser Dennis Ross, U.S. Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.) and Carl Levin, again, will be part of what the campaign is calling one of its largest Jewish outreach events of the year in Cleveland.

Recent polls have Obama competitive, and in some cases leading, McCain in all three states — which George W. Bush won in 2000 and 2004. And all three are considered to have Jewish populations large enough to possibly make a difference in an extremely close race.

But not all the Obama activity is in swing states. Koch, U.S. Rep. Steve Rothman (D-N.J.) and former U.S. ambassador to Israel Daniel Kurtzer will hold a town hall meeting to discuss “Why Obama is best for Israel and America” in Paramus, N.J., a state that is widely considered to be a safe blue state this year.

An interfaith group blasted the creators and distributors of a film critical of radical Islam.

At a presss conference Tuesday in Washington, Interfaith Alliance chair Rabbi Jack Moline described the film “Obsession: Radical Islam’s War with the West” as a “thinly-veiled call for disparagement and distrust of all Muslims.” He added that by “exercising the rights guaranteed to them by the Constitution,” the film’s distributors thave “attempted, by inference and innuendo, to limit the rights of Muslims to enjoy the free exercise of their faith.”

Twenty-eight million DVD copies of the film were distributed in swing states by the Clarion Fund, a non-profit organization founded by Raphael Shore — a producer and co-writer of the film. Shore also works for the Aish HaTorah, but that group has said it is not involved in the distribution and that Shore’s involvement with the film was in his free time.

While not mentioning Shore by name, Moline said he was personally disappointed by Shore’s involvement. “As a board member of the Interfaith Alliance, I promised to turn a critical eye first to my own community,” said Moline. “The rabbi whose name appears in the credits of this film as producer and co-writer has a hard repentance ahead of him on Yom Kippur. I will include his actions in my own confession of sins.”

The short answer is, probably not.

You might have seen the genealogies circulating on the net - here’s one - claiming she’s a descendant of one Schmuel Sheigam, a Lithuanian Jew.

I’ve run the info past folks at the National Archives. A search of immigration records shows no Sheigam - or Sheeran, as the Ellis Island transformation would have it, according to these accounts - arriving in 1915. (And yes, all possible spellings were run.) Sheigam doesn’t turn up, period.

There is a grain of truth in this, as there often is with urban myths: Records (ship manifests, censuses, property records etc.) show that Sheeran is indeed a common Irish American name, and one that some immigrants, evidently Jewish, adopted upon their arrival.

I asked the McCain-Palin campaign about this, they never got back to me (not that I blame them, I’d also prioritize screwy queries about ancestors low on my to-do list); but it’s worth noting that they had earlier confirmed that she had been baptized a Roman Catholic. (She is no longer a Catholic.) That would comport with Irish ancestry, the more common association for “Sheeran.”

What’s odd about this phenomenon is that I’m getting asked this by Jews, when the myth is being perpetuated by anti-Semites. (”Why do some people dislike Jews” as a hedder is what we call an obvious giveaway; more subtle is the use of the word “Jewess.”)

One version of this I saw suggested that John McCain wanted his old pal and fellow U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) as his running mate, and relinquished at the last minute. Again, a grain of truth here - my own reporting confirms this. Where it gets loony is in the why: Joe, apparently, was not simply too moderate for McCain’s advisers - he was too clearly part of the Zionist conspiracy. McCain, according to this fiction, was told to go with the stealth Jew. That explanation is echoed in the above website (see under “This would explain a lot.”)

None of this means the Alaska governor doesn’t have a Jewish ancestor somewhere on the tree - it’s not exactly uncommon in immigrant nations; especially in America, which has a wonderful history of welcoming all stripes of newcomer, unlike the sad sacks who run the conspiracy websites.

UPDATE: A number of readers (starting with both commenters below) have pointed out that there’s a comprehensive Sarah Palin genealogy here and that it contains nary a Chosen One. Case closed.

Both presidential candidates made the requisite references to Israel in their debate last night. As they ponder more thoughtful policies in the Middle East, here comes analyst Martin Kramer with some unsolicited advice: Focus on Iran and the Persian Gulf and don’t worry too much about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

• Obama adviser Robert Gibbs took on Fox News host Sean Hannity last night over his use of anti-Semite Andy Martin to make wild claims about Barack Obama.
• The Sun-Sentinel has more on Martin, while the New York Times interviews Martin, who denies being an anti-Semite and says it’s a “peripheral” issue.
• And Glen Greenwald in Salon has even more details on Martin and criticizes the ADL for not speaking out about Martin.
• A powerhouse political panel tomorrow at Temple Rodef Shalom in Northern Virginia: Chuck Todd, Matt Brooks and Matt Dorf at the afternoon break in services, reports the Washington Post.
• The Sun-Sentinel has details on Joe Lieberman and Ed Koch stumping for Jewish votes in South Florida.
• Marty Peretz, in the Jerusalem Post, on why there are “so few Jewish Republicans.”
• Another pro-Obama video — this time from a Orthodox Jewish mom who lived in Jerusalem for five years.
• The Washington Post finds an article in a newsletter from the U.S. Council for World Freedom that belittles critics of Ronald Reagan’s 1985 Bitburg trip. John McCain says he resigned from the group in 1984, but was still on the letterhead in 1986 — and attended the group’s dinner in 1985.
• Anat Hakim explains why she schlepped north to convince her family to vote for McCain, in the Los Angeles Times.
• Political pundit Larry Sabato thinks Sarah Silverman’s profanity in her Great Schlep video may backfire on Obama — but adds that he still finds Jack Benny funny.
• Two Israeli pro-Obama videos are deemed a “de-schlep-tion” by Abraham Katsman and Kory Bardash in the Jerusalem Post.

Israel popped up at the end of Tuesday night’s town hall-style debate, when one audience member asked:

“If, despite your best diplomatic efforts, Iran attacks Israel, would you be willing to commit U.S. troops in support and defense of Israel? Or would you wait on approval from the U.N. Security Council?”

With all due respect to the questioner, there are much better/more relevant ways to measure each candidate’s support for Israel and the willingness to put U.S. troops at risk in defense of the Jewish state (not to mention their general views on securing U.N. authorization before American military action). Now, before I go on, it’s only fair to point out that during a previous Democratic primary debate, one of the highly paid professionals — ABC’s George Stephanopoulos — asked a similar and equally off-the-mark question to Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

The pressing question is not what a candidate would do after an Iranian attack on Israel, but what a candidate would do — or permit/help Israel do — to prevent an Iranian attack. For example, both Joe Biden and Sarah Palin have been asked in recent weeks the very relevant question of what an Obama or McCain administration would do if Israel decided to launch a preemptive strike against Iran. Of course, as I noted earlier, they both offered the same implausible answer: The United States needs to defer to Israel on such matters about its own security.

Why implausible? Because the United States controls Iraq’s air space and, depending on whom you believe, the fallout will include Iranian strikes against Western and oil-producing targets — so I think it’s safe to say that the next president will have some input on the decision-making process, probably long before any attack were ordered.

As for last night’s answers, read the transcript (second-to-last question) or watch the video:

If you happen to bump into either of the candidates, or will be posing the questions at the final debate, here’s what you can ask with regards to Iran:

* Senator McCain, why, if you favor stiffer international sanctions on Iran, have you not urged your fellow GOP senators to stop blocking such measures from being approved in the U.S. Senate?

* Senator Obama, your surrogates have been suggesting that when you talk about direct high-level talks with Iran, you don’t necessarily mean with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran’s Holocaust-denying president who continues to predict Israel’s downfall. Would you meet with him or not?