Obama and the Jews

Most American Jews are liberal. Most liberal American Jews will vote for Obama. But apparently Barack Obama has a perceived problem attracting Jewish votes.

There are some (mostly elderly) Jews who don't like Obama because he kind of seems like a Muslim. A number of Jews believe that anything Islamic is necessarily negative. I reject their inference. These Jews are forgetting that there is no doubt that John McCain is a Christian. The Muslims are responsible for a suicide bomb here and an anti-Semitic rant there, but the Christians are responsible for 2,000 years of persecution, including the Spanish Inquisition and the Holocaust. I'm certainly not blaming McCain for those tragedies, I'm just saying he was alive during them.

Some Jews don't like Obama because he's black. My grandma's friend Yenta once said, "I heard this Obama is a black radical Muslim who does the hip hop rapping and was friends with Arafat. I heard it from Ester. Are you calling her a liar?" The rest of Grandma's friends cursed out Yenta in Yiddish and said she was meshugge. Yenta didn't take it well.

But there is a fundamental issue responsible for the rift between Obama and the Jews. No, it's not Israel. If anything, Obama's a little too pro-Israel, to the point where it makes us a little uncomfortable. We don't like his slogan, "Yes We Can." The question in our minds remains, "But why should we?" And, "Exactly what am I agreeing to do?" And further more, "What can we do? Will there be running involved? Will there be time to stretch before we start running?" Or, "Is the rest of that sentence '... Kill The Jews?' I hope not."

Most Jews don't have a problem voting for a black president, even one whose name kind of sounds Muslim. We care more about the issues, as is the case with most people. Where do the candidates stand on farm subsidies, that's what every Jew really wants to know.