JTA: The Global News Service of the Jewish People

Secretary of State Kerry?

By Eric Fingerhut · October 27, 2008

Who might be Secretary of State in a potential Barack Obama administration? Former U.S. Ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk, making his debut as a surrogate for Obama last Thursday night in Richmond, said he'd bet on Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.). In response to a question from the audience, Indyk admitted he wasn't in Obama's "inner circle" and thus didn't have any inside information – but "if you really pushed me," he said the Washington rumor mill led him to think it would be the 2004 Democratic nominee. Indyk's entire speech, which concludes with a song from Mandy Patinkin, can be heard here. The secretary of state discussion happens about one hour and 14 minutes into the tape.

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John and Sarah Shmoe?

By Eric Fingerhut · October 27, 2008

"'O' & Joe or The Shmoes" – that's the slogan on a new campaign button from the National Jewish Democratic Council.

For an $18 donation, you'll get a button with caricatures of the four candidates and the slogan – with John McCain and Sarah Palin pegged as "The Shmoes."

NJDC executive director Ira Forman said he was just injecting some fun into the campaign, but the Republican Jewish Coalition executive director Matt Brooks isn't amused by the group's use of the Yiddish term, which means a stupid or obnoxious person.

"It's disrespectful, in bad taste and not appropriate," said Brooks.

The RJC has been using some rough language of its own in the last few weeks – although none of it has been in Yiddish. The group has called Barack Obama "reckless," "dangerous," "weak," and "naive," in newspaper advertisements.

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A little more on the Palin-Meridor meeting

By Eric Fingerhut · October 27, 2008

Sarah Palin and Israeli Ambassador to the United States Sallai Meridor talked about the U.S.-Israel relationship and the challenges both countries face, including the Iranian nuclear threat, in their meeting Monday morning at a Leesburg, Va. hotel.

An embassy official said the ambassador had requested the opportunity to meet Palin and Monday was the first time it could be scheduled. Meridor was also planning to speak with Democratic vice presidential nominee Joe Biden later on Monday by telephone.

"I look forward to hearing about your work with the Jewish Agency and all the plans that we have," Palin told Meridor in a brief photo opportunity before the meeting. "We'll be working together."

Palin was apparently referring to Meridor's six-year chairmanship of the Jewish Agency for Israel. That clears up some confusion from an early report on the meeting, which had Palin saying only "We look forward ... to working with your Jewish agency."

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Holocaust hype enters the elections

By Lisa Hostein · October 27, 2008

Just days after an email to 75,000 Pennsylvania Jews suggested that a vote for Barack Obama could cause another Holocaust, at least two of the signatories to the letter are distancing themselves from it. This after the political operative who apparently wrote the letter was fired.

The letter, paid for by the state Republican Party, caused a huge uproar, with e-mails flying back and forth.

Both I. Michael Coslov, the campaign chair of the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia, and Sandra Schultz Newman, a former state supreme court justice, are distancing themselves from the letter, saying they hadn't actually read its contents before signing on.

Coslov said he doesn't think Obama is "right for the Jewish people, but I don't think he's going to cause another Holocaust."

Newman issued an apology to those who had e-mailed her objecting to the letter.

"I regret that I did not carefully review the final draft before it was released with my signature," she wrote. "Some of the language was inappropriate and intemporate. I apologize to anyone who was offended by this misguided e-mail."

But another Republican salvo continued the theme over the weekend. The Republican Jewish Coalition mobilized volunteers to distribute leaflets in heavily Jewish neighborhoods in suburban Philadelphia. The glossy leaflets also referenced the Holocaust indirectly.

Featuring a photo of Obama speaking in Germany, the sheet said: "Concerned about Obama? You should be. History has shown that a naive and weak foreign policy has resulted in tragic outcomes for the Jewish people."

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Political tidbits: Palin greets Meridor, checking out the face of Obama’s Fla. campaign (UPDATED)

By Eric Fingerhut · October 27, 2008

• Sarah Palin meets with Israel Ambassador to the U.S. Sallai Meridor and tells him she looks "forward to ... working with your Jewish agency," according to the Associated Press. (Is that some kind of reference to his old position as head of JAFI?) UPDATE: Here's Palin's full quote, and she was talking about Meridor's time at the Jewish Agency for Israel: "I look forward to hearing about your work with the Jewish Agency and all the plans that we have. We'll be working together."
• Menachem Rosensaft charges the McCain-Palin campaign has resurrected McCarthyism, in the Huffington Post.
• A Jewish Republican state legislator in Ohio is attacked by his opponent for his military service in Iraq. Bob Belovich is charging that Josh Mandel "abandoned voters," according to Joel Mowbray at Townhall.com.
• A phone banker for Obama tells the Huffington Post that she first tells Jewish voters that she understands their concerns about "voting for someone who is black" – and then finds Sarah Palin "is a great help in persuading" them to back Obama.
• The Sarasota Herald-Tribune profiles "Florida's face for the Obama campaign," Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz –and quotes her former professor predicting she'll be the first Jewish president.
• Friends of Israel should vote for Barack Obama, writes Rep. Howard Berman (D-Calif.) in the Jerusalem Post.
• The Jerusalem Post's Caroline Glick writes that the prospect of an Obama-Tzipi Livni partnership is "enough to keep men and women of good faith up at night."
• Delray Beach deli Poppie's is the setting for today's interviews of South Florida Jewish voters – who, just as the polls indicate, seem to be swinging towards Obama, according to the Toronto Star.
• Remember Cynthia McKinney, the congresswoman from Georgia whose father blames the "J-E-W-S" for her defeat in 2002? She's running for president on the Green Party ticket, and is still talking about conspiracies, according to the Washington Post. She also got the endorsement of Roseanne Barr.
• Bradley Burston, in Haaretz, wants Sarah Palin to speak to liberals like they were "real Americans" too.
• The Springfield (Mo.) News-Leader talks to some Palin supporters from Oklahoma who think the vice presidential nominee is the "Deborah and Esther of our day" chosen "to defeat the modern enemy – Obama."
• Jim Besser in The Jewish Week explores the reasons for the rise in Obama's Jewish numbers.
• Rep. Robert Wexler tells the Washington Post's E.J. Dionne that McCain's choice of Palin was an "unqualified negative" for the Republican in South Florida.
• There's always a lot of criticism about the substance of American political campaigns, but YNet's Yair Lapid is jealous while watching McCain and Obama – because Israeli political campaign are much less serious.
• Former Ehud Barak adviser Daniel Levy discusses what the 25th anniversary of the Hezbollah bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut can tell us about the presidential candidates.
• The Washington Post looks at who is behind the distribution of 28 million copies of the anti-radical Islam film "Obsession."

John McCain is favored by a 12-point margin over Obama by Israelis, according to YNet.

• The New York Times endorses the "blind rabbi," Dennis Shulman.

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