Printer Friendly

Email to A Friend

Friday January 25, 2008

Jews battle smear campaign against Obama

by ron kampeas
jta

Efforts to turn American Jews against the presidential aspirations of Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) have elicited a stinging protest from a diverse group of Jewish organizations.

Nine Jewish organizational leaders signed on to a letter last week that addressed rumors about Obama’s upbringing and faith. Several said they were moved to act primarily by the attempt to use smear tactics to swing Jewish votes.

A second, separate letter signed by seven Jewish U.S. senators echoed the theme.

“We find it particularly abhorrent that these attacks are apparently being sent specifically to the Jewish community,” said the letter, initiated by Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.).

It was signed, among others, by Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.).

“Jews, who have historically been the target of such attacks, should be the first to reject these tactics,” the letter said.

Various emails circulating for months increased in intensity after Obama won the Iowa caucuses for the Democratic presidential nomination at the beginning of January. No one has tracked the source of the emails.

The Jewish organizational letter was unusual in that Jewish groups usually stay out of the fray in election season, not wanting to be seen as endorsing candidates. The sensitivity of the issue was evidenced as well by the reluctance of those involved in the letter to speak about its evolution.

There have been exceptions to the Jewish rule not to delve into the election fray, mostly having to do with issues of faith in presidential politics and usually to admonish candidates for speaking too forcefully about faith in the public square.

The letter defending Obama arose instead out of concerns that faith was being used as a cudgel against a candidate, suggesting a return of bigotry against candidates from non-establishment backgrounds not seen since John F. Kennedy’s election in 1960.

The Obama letter was presaged by a quieter campaign late last year by Jewish Republicans to work within the party to roll back evangelical attacks on the Mormon faith of Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor who is vying for the Republican nomination.

The emails that circulated about Obama mix outright fabrication with distortions of facts about Obama’s upbringing.

An example of an outright lie: Obama was sworn into office on the Koran.

A distortion: Obama’s father and stepfather were part of a Muslim conspiracy to place one of their own in the White House. Both men were Muslims, but nominally so, and Obama is a Christian.

William Daroff, the Washington director of United Jewish Communities, said the Obama emails pop into his inbox three to four times a week.

“[They are] similar to warnings about falsehoods on the Internet, like ‘Jews stayed home on 9/11,’” Daroff said.

In addition to the UJC, signatories to the first letter included the top executives of the American Jewish Committee, the Reform movement, the Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Congress, the National Council of Jewish Women, the Jewish Council of Public Affairs, the Orthodox Union and the Simon Wiesenthal Center.

The Obama campaign is concerned about how far his chief rival, Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.), outpaces him among Jewish voters and supporters. Clinton had 53 percent approval ratings among Jewish voters in a November survey while Obama had 38 percent.

That has led Obama to address concerns about some of his affiliations, notably his membership in Trinity United, a Chicago-area church. Its leader, Jeremiah Wright, has embraced some radical black teachings, and a church-affiliated magazine recently lauded Louis Farrakhan, the anti-Semitic leader of the Nation of Islam.

In an address on the eve of Martin Luther King Day at King’s church, Ebenezer Baptist in Atlanta, Obama excoriated black anti-Semitism and other bigotry.

He noted that African Americans “have been at the receiving end of man’s inhumanity to man,” then went on to say that the community “has not always been true to King’s vision of a beloved community.”

Did you find this article interesting? Subscribe to our FREE newsletter and you'll be notified each week when "J." goes online. We'll tell you about the most important stories of the week and give you a link to each one.

This page contains a BETA version of Amazon contextual links. They are marked by the dashed underline.  Your purchases support our site. At times they point to items which are not related to the actual link. Please alert us by email if you discover objectionable links.