JTA: The Global News Service of the Jewish People

Shanah Tovah from Barack Obama

By Eric Fingerhut · September 29, 2008

Barack Obama released High Holiday greetings Sunday afternoon. He spoke about “reparing the world” and bringing peace and security to Israel. Here’s his full statement:

“As Jews around the world celebrate Rosh Hashanah, I want to send my best wishes for a happy, healthy, and sweet new year. This marks not just a time for rejoicing, but for reflecting on the hopes the new year brings, and on our responsibilities to see them fulfilled. As families come together to mark the High Holy Days, upholding a proud Jewish tradition, let us all rededicate ourselves to the task of repairing this world for our children and grandchildren, and to working to achieve peace and security for Israel. On behalf of all of the Obamas and Bidens, Shana Tovah.”

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Doing tshuvah on the campaign trail

By Ami Eden · September 26, 2008

Compliments of Birthright Israel…

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Obama still lagging among Jewish voters

By Eric Fingerhut · September 25, 2008

Barack Obama leads John McCain by 27 points among Jewish voters, but he significantly trails the Jewish vote for recent Democratic candidates, according to a new survey.

Obama leads 57 percent to 30 percent among those polled in the American Jewish Committee’s 2008 Annual Survey of American Jewish Opinion, with 13 percent undecided.

By contrast, John Kerry received 76 percent of the Jewish vote four years ago against George W. Bush, and in the three prior presidential elections, Democrats won 78 to 80 percent of Jewish votes. Obama backers have argued in recent weeks that Jewish numbers for Kerry were similar at this stage in the race, but the 2004 AJC survey doesn’t back them up. Taken three weeks earlier in that campaign than this year, it found Kerry leading Bush 69 percent to 24 percent.

The poll by survey research organization Synovate of 914 self-identifying Jewish respondents, selected from Synovate’s consumer mail panel, was conducted by telephone Sept. 8-21. The margin of error is plus or minus 3 percentage points.

McCain enjoyed a 78 percent to 13 percent lead among Orthodox Jews, but Obama won easily among all other Jewish groups: Conservatives, 59 percent to 26 percent; Reform, 62 percent to 27 percent; and those calling themselves “just Jewish,” 61percent to 26 percent.

McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin as his vice-presidential running mate was unpopular in the Jewish community, according to the survey. Just 37 percent approved, with 54 percent disapproving of the selection. By contrast, Obama’s choice of Joe Biden garnered 73 percent approval and 15 percent disapproval.

The economy was seen as the most important issue. Fifty-four percent of respondents said that was the one issue they would “most like the candidates to discuss,” with 11 percent answering health care, 6 percent the war in Iraq and just 3 percent answering Israel.

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Political tidbits: Dem says moose strippers and gun toters aren’t good for the Jews

By Eric Fingerhut · September 25, 2008

• Rep. Alcee Hastings says Jews and blacks should be frightened of Sarah Palin, because “anybody toting guns and stripping moose don’t care too much about what they do with Jews and blacks.” At the same discussion, Rep. Steve Cohen called Jesus a Democrat.
• George Mason University law professor David Bernstein, at the Volokh Conspiracy blog, thinks Jewish organizations should be condemning the “anti-Palin campaign” in the Jewish community just as they did the anti-Obama campaign earlier this year.
• Larry Derfner, in the Jerusalem Post, writes that Sarah Palin has exposed a truth about Jews: “We don’t like hunting.”
  
• David Suissa, in the L.A. Jewish Journal, talks to an Israeli filmmaker who spent a few days with Sarah Palin and was impressed.
• The Philadelphia Jewish Exponent talks to Middle East experts about the presidential candidates’ plans for the Middle East.
  
• The L.A. Times has details on an effort by some religious leaders to defy the IRS’ ban on non-profit partisan political activity.
• The Jerusalem Post reports on Joe Biden’s speech Tuesday night to the National Jewish Democratic Council and also has details on his remarks about Iran on Wednesday.
  
• The Washington Jewish Week has the story on a $500 a plate kosher fundraiser for John McCain in Rockville, Md.

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Political tidbits: A new addition to the oneg Shabbat this week in Fla.

By Eric Fingerhut · September 24, 2008

• A South Florida synagogue will be watching Friday night’s debate together after Shabbat services, according to the Sun-Sentinel.
  
• Yoav Sivan, in the Jerusalem Post, believes John McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin as his running mate makes the Obama-Biden ticket “the natural ticket” for American Jews.
  
• The St. Petersburg Times finds Jewish voters in South Florida still undecided about Obama.
  
• The Huffington Post’s Sam Stein complains that Joe Biden didn’t take any media questions at his National Jewish Democratic Council appearance on Tuesday.



Israelis for Obama talk about why they like him in a video distributed by the Jewish Alliance for Change.

• White supremacists distribute anti-Obama flyers in New Jersey, according to the Newark Star-Ledger.
  
• The Jerusalem Post reports that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is “ready” to meet Obama and McCain – but the candidates aren’t running to clear their schedules.
  
• CAIR has asked the Federal Election Commission to investigate the distribution of anti-radical Islam DVD Obsession, claiming that Aish HaTorah International is behind it, reports the AP. Aish HaTorah denies involvement, although current and former employees are involved.

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Biden at NJDC: No doubt about Obama’s support for Israel (Updated with video link)

By Eric Fingerhut · September 23, 2008

Joe Biden defended his pro-Israel record and vouched for his running mate’s at the National Jewish Democratic Council’s Washington Conference Tuesday afternoon.

“I’ve spent 35 years of my career dealing with issues relating to Israel,” Biden said, mentioning his first meeting with former Israeli prime ministers Golda Meir and Yitzhak Rabin and the various pro-Israel pieces of legislation he has backed. “My support for Israel begins in my stomach, goes to my heart and ends up in my head,” he said.

“I guarantee you I would not have joined Barack Obama as his vice president if I had any doubt, even the slightest doubt, that he shares the same commitment to Israel I share,” Biden said to a standing ovation.

Biden briefly mentioned “the smear campaign” against him – specifically citing the Republican Jewish Coalition’s charge that he once attempted to cut off aid to Israel – and said, “We have to ignore all the malarkey, distractions and e-mails and get behind Barack Obama.”

After his opening remarks on Israel, Biden stuck mostly to the economy and other domestic policies in his half-hour speech – which sounded similar to the vice presidential nominee’s standard stump speech.

“I know NJDC – it isn’t just about Israel,” said Biden. He criticized the “tyranny of the oligarchs of oil” and asked the crowd to imagine “a country that believes in science” and “a country where we only go to war when it’s necessary,” drawing applause. He didn’t mention Iran, but did return to Israel near the end of his thirty-minute talk.

“Imagine a president who won’t wait until his seventh year in office,” said Biden, to see “the need for American leadership in the Middle East peace process.”

Video of Biden’s speech available here.

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Biden, AIPAC, kiss&make up

By Ron Kampeas · September 18, 2008

It had to happen.

This is the call that started it all.

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Source: Hoenlein aimed for bipartisanship

By Ron Kampeas · September 18, 2008

A source helping Malcolm Hoenlein organize next week’s Iran rally tells JTA – on condition of being quoted only as an “official” – that Hoenlein genuinely saw the pairing of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the Republican vice presidential pick, and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) as an appropriate match for the event.

As I reported earlier, Democrats are furious that organizers, in particular the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations executive, matched a Democratic lawmaker with the number two on the GOP ticket. The official agrees that, in hindsight, Hoenlein’s decision not to approach the campaign of Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) after he secured Palin (apparently last week) was naive. The official adds, however, that Hoenlein’s decision was fueled by anxiety that, after having secured Clinton early in August, he was having trouble finding a Republican. In other words, Hoenlein’s relief at finally getting a Republican might have gotten in the way of anticipating the fury of Democrats in general and Clinton in particular (she pulled out Wednesday, essentially accusing the organizers of making the event partisan).

Palin has yet to confirm. Officials in the Obama campaign say a surrogate will be there – but would not say if Obama’s running mate, Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.), would be the one.

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Can Biden and Palin be believed?

By Ami Eden · September 12, 2008

Remember the hubbub back in April, after George Stephanopoulos asked Hillary Clinton what she would do if Iran attacked Israel and she said the Islamic Republic would be met with ”massive retaliation”? Well the question – and henceforth the answer – struck me as utterly besides the point.

After all, does it really matter what the United States would do if God forbid such a thing took place, considering that Israel is believed to posses a second-strike capability? The real question is what the next president will do if the Israelis decide to launch a first strike against Iran’s nuclear capabilities.

Well, if the veep candidates have any say, the answer is that the next administration will trust whatever decision the Israelis make. “We are friends with Israel,” Palin told ABC’s Charlie Gibson on Thursday. “I don’t think we should second-guess the measures that Israel has to take to defend themselves and for their security.”

As for Joe Biden ... “This is not a question for us to tell the Israelis what they can and cannot do,” the Democratic vice presidential candidate said last week in a conference call with members of the Jewish media. “I have faith in the democracy of Israel. They will arrive at the right decision that they view as being in their own interests.”

Clinton’s answer may have been honest, but the question was irrelevant. In contrast, Biden and Palin tackled the fundamental question – yet their answers were thoroughly unbelievable. This isn’t 1967, 1981 or even 2007, when ultimately Israel bore the bulk of the risk, responsibility and consequences of a preemptive strike against a looming threat. By most accounts, it will be impossible for Israelis to attack Iran without U.S. knowledge and cooperation, considering America’s control over Iraqi air space and Israel’s need for the electronic Identification Friend or Foe codes that combat planes need to cross international airspace. And, if you believe the gloomiest of doomsday scenarios, Iran would not only retaliate with a rocket barrage against Israel, but would also move to cripple the world’s oil supply with pinpoint attacks and unleash a wave of terror against U.S. and European targets.

This is not to say that a President McCain or a President Obama would automatically order the Israelis to hold their fire (though, depending on whom you believe, the Bush administration is doing just that right now). It’s just to stress how suspect Biden’s and Palin’s answers are – how implausible it is that, given the need for U.S. cooperation and the wider ramifications of a strike against Iran, Obama or McCain would blindly follow the lead of the Israeli government.

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Biden will headline NJDC event

By Eric Fingerhut · September 11, 2008

Democratic vice presidential nominee Joe Biden will be the keynote speaker at this month’s National Jewish Democratic Council conference in Washington.

The exact time of Biden’s appearance is not yet set, said an NJDC spokesperson, but the conference begins on the afternoon of Sept. 23 and continues all day Sept. 24. The speech will be the first time Biden has spoken in front of a meeting of a national Jewish organization since his selection last month as Barack Obama’s running mate.

Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean will also speak at the parley.

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