JTA: The Global News Service of the Jewish People

Political tidbits: Hastings apologizes, more Jewish pro-Obama videos

By Eric Fingerhut · October 2, 2008

• Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-Fla.) now says he regrets his comments last week about Sarah Palin, but maintains a McCain-Palin administration would be “anathema” to most African Americans and Jews.
• Georgetown University professor Jacques Berlinerblau, in the Washington Post’s On Faith blog, likes Sarah Silverman’s “The Great Schlep” video, but doubts it will have much impact on which way Florida votes.
  
• Jewish friends and supporters of Barack Obama, including Penny Pritzker and Abner Mikva, talk in this campaign video about why they support him .
  
• Benjamin Hartman in Ha’aretz says a debate in Israel last week between proxies for the American presidential candidates was a lot more exciting than the real candidates going at it the next evening. A question about Palin caused the greatest stir at that debate, according to CNS News.
  
• Jim Besser in The Jewish Week notes that the AJC survey found Obama surprisingly less popular among younger Jews than older Jews – although that number may be skewed by the strong support McCain enjoys in the Orthodox community.
• Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) says her opponent criticized her for coming home to celebrate Rosh Hashanah; Republican Tim Bee’s campaign said it was an innocent mixup and that they meant no harm.
• Obama adviser Dennis Ross tells the New Jersey Jewish News that his candidate would “change the dynamic” in the Middle East.
• Ed Koch recounts his trip to South Florida over the weekend to campaign for Obama.
  
• Doug Bloomfield, in the Washington Jewish Week, says John McCain’s no-earmark policy would be bad for Israel and the Jews.
  
• David Benkof in the Jerusalem Post argues that Jews shouldn’t use the Supreme Court as an excuse not to vote for McCain.
• Gawker tallies up how Jewish members of Congress voted on the bailout.
• Has Congress always taken the High Holidays off? No, it’s a fairly recent custom, reports the Associated Press.
  
• Sarah Palin has used Queen Esther as a role model, but is she really more like David battling Goliath? Mark Joseph on FoxNews.com thinks so.
• The Boston Globe wonders whether Joe Biden’s propensity to speak from “the kishkas” will get him in trouble tonight.
  
• Jon Stewart and “The Daily Show” worked on Rosh Hashanah, and he thinks Congress should have worked, too.
  
• Andy Borowitz has some fun with Bill Clinton’s announcement that he wouldn’t be campaigning until after the Jewish High Holy Days.

5 Comments | Share This | barack obama, Bill Clinton, Congressional races, Florida, Giffords vs. Bee, Israel, Joe Biden, John McCain, New Jersey, polls, Presidential Race, Sarah Palin, Tidbits

Bill Clinton taking the High Holidays off

By Eric Fingerhut · September 24, 2008

Why hasn’t Bill Clinton started his campaigning for Barack Obama yet? Apparently, he wants to wait until after the High Holidays. Politico has the details, from an interview with Larry King scheduled to air tonight.

“Senator Obama also has a big stake in doing well in the Jewish community in Florida, where Hillary did very well and where I did very well. And I just think respecting the holidays is a good thing to do,” he said.

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Rosen to the defense of Biden

By Ami Eden · September 4, 2008

Jack Rosen, the former president of the American Jewish Congress, and maybe the only person in the country to have backed Bill Clinton, then George W. Bush and now Barack Obama, sent along the following e-mail in defense of Joe Biden:

The smear campaign against Joe Biden on the internet, spread by viral emails, attributes to him all kinds of beliefs that he has never held. This is a man with a clear public record over many years, and it is a record of friendship and support. I think it is outrageous when some in the Jewish community unthinkingly or with malice pass on these scurrilous lies. Jews should know better than anyone how a small lie endlessly repeated becomes a big one, and how innocent people can be harmed by such falsehoods.

The Jewish community ought to take particular comfort in Obama’s choice of my friend Joe Biden as his running mate. I’ve known Joe for many years and we have discussed Israel and the Middle East privately many times. I can tell you, he is in private as he is in public: Joe Biden cares about Israel.

Nobody has a longer record on the issue, spanning nearly four decades. Joe’s relationships with Israeli leaders go back to Golda Meir and Moshe Dayan, and include virtually every top Israel figure ever since. He has been to Israel dozens of times.

Joe is the kind of friend who will be there on a rainy day. He supported Israel at times when it was not popular – like defending Israel’s right to use cluster bombs in the 1980s. He delivered multiple speeches in 2002 denouncing the false portrayal of Israeli military operations against terrorists in Jenin as a “massacre.” He voiced strong support for Israel during its 2006 war with Hezbollah.  He has consistently defended Israel’s right to target terrorists who intend to strike at Israel. He said a few days ago, “Israel has an absolute right to defend itself. It doesn’t have to ask us.”

He is an outspoken supporter of the search for peace, but he also has a consistent record as a realist.  For example, he was the original co-sponsor of the Palestinian Anti-Terrorism Act of 2006 which banned direct U.S. assistance to the Palestinian Authority as long as it is led by Hamas. He is a fierce critic of Arab extremism, and constantly reminds his many friends in the Arab world that they need to do more to end their state of belligerency with Israel and to end the economic boycott against Israel.

On Iran, Joe supports tough and urgent diplomacy and economic pressure to prevent an Iranian nuclear threat. He regards the danger of Iranian nuclearization as one of the central challenges of our era. According to the Washington reporter for Ha’aretz, Joe Biden believes “options should not be taken of the table – that is, he isn’t willing to swear off the use of force as a last resort to prevent the nuclearization of iran ”

Joe Biden has been steadfast in opposing the transfer of arms to Arab nations that might erode Israel’s qualitative edge. With Congressman Mel Levine, Biden spearheaded legislation in 1988 to modify the Arms Export Control Act so that American arms sales to Arab countries would be severely constrained in the absence of their reaching peace agreements with Israel. Levine recently said, “Joe Biden has been as consistently supportive of preserving Israel’s security as any Member of Congress.”

Joe has many, many ties to the American Jewish community. His daughter-in-law is Jewish, and he is close to his Jewish relatives. Many years ago, he was the one who discovered Tom Lantos, who he hired as an adviser early in his Senate career. Their relationship over the last thirty years was close, and Lantos, the only Holocaust survivor to serve in Congress, continued to be a mentor to Biden on the issues of Israel, genocide-prevention, and human rights.

Joe Biden is a man we can count on. His record speaks for itself.

0 Comments | Share This | barack obama, Bill Clinton, george w. bush, Israel, Joe Biden, Presidential Race

The intermarriage party

By Ami Eden · September 4, 2008

You know you’ve been in this business (Jewish journalism) too long when ... the rest of the country is taking in Joe Biden’s tragic/inspiring story of losing his first wife and a baby daughter in a car crash, then managing to press ahead with his political career and raise his other children – but the only family detail you care about is that one of his sons married into a Jewish family.

And if you think that’s bad, here’s what flashed through my head next:

• Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton’s only child is seriously involved with a Jewish guy.


• One of Al Gore’s daughters is married to a Schiff


• One of Nancy Pelosi’s daughters is married to a Jewish guy.


• Harry Reid married a Jewish woman (they both eventually converted to Mormonism – read more here).


• Howard Dean is married to a Jewish woman – and lights the menorah.

For those keeping score, that’s the top Democrat in the House of Representatives, the top Democrat in the Senate, the chair of the Democratic National Committee, the most recent Democratic president and first lady, the most recent Democratic vice president, and the current vice presidential candidate. All we’re missing is the One, but to be fair the Obama children haven’t even reached Bat Mitzvah age – give ‘em time (until then, be happy with the news that Michelle Obama has a cousin who’s a rabbi).

Back to Biden… he played up his Jewish connection Tuesday, during a town hall in South Florida packed with Jewish seniors:

“Look, my son married – and matter of fact, her, uh – my son married into the Berger family,” he said, referring to his son Beau Biden’s marriage to the former Hallie Berger. “We’re going to be mishpokhe before this all is over, I promise you.”

In general, I’m not sure whether that’s the best crowd for boasting about the whole intermarriage thing (though I have a hunch that many in the audience would be more comfortable with a Biden marrying in than, say, an Obama). I’d be especially reticent during this campaign, given the Internet track record of the anti-Obama forces.

Forget the Muslim stuff, I can see the new conspiratorial e-mail: Stop the Democratic plot to destroy the Jews with intermarriage. Every time a Democrat wins, another Jewish family loses. And with those two precious Obama girls, this year it’s likely to cost us two good Jewish boys.

Of course, for Jewish paranoids – I’m sure there are only a few of them out there, but they all seem to have my e-mail address – it’s a tough choice: Do you prefer a party whose goyim want to marry us or convert us?

2 Comments | Share This | barack obama, Bill Clinton, DNC, hillary clinton, Howard Dean, Joe Biden

Bill Clinton: Need the “power of diplomacy” in Middle East

By Eric Fingerhut · August 27, 2008

Bill Clinton didn’t get into any specifics on the Middle East in his speech tonight, but did say that “our position in the world has been weakened by,” among other things, “a failure to consistently use the power of diplomacy, from the Middle East to Africa to Latin America to Center and Eastern Europe.”

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