The Super Schlep

Sarah Silverman as Heeb cover girl

Josh Nathan-Kazis January 30, 2012

The Great Schlep is back.

That’s the campaign that, in 2008, enlisted comedian Sarah Silverman to guilt young Jews into traveling to Florida to convince their grandparents to vote for Barack Obama.

Now, the organization that ran the Great Schlep has reorganized for the 2012 campaign — this time as a super PAC.

“If Barack Obama doesn’t become the next president of the United States, I’m going to blame the Jews,” Silverman warned, jokingly, in The Great Schlep’s 2008 viral video hit.

There’s no word yet on what the group, called the Jewish Council for Education and Research, plans to do in the current cycle. But by declaring itself a super PAC in a January 11 filing with the Federal Elections Commission, the group makes itself eligible to receive unlimited funds from individual donors or corporations for use on political expenditures.

The JCER is one of a small handful of super PACs engaged in Jewish causes. The most prominent is the Emergency Committee for Israel PAC, which the Forward reported on in January. Another was created to support one congressional candidate in California; a third is mostly dormant.

JCER was moderately active as a traditional PAC in 2011, spending only $9000 that year, including $1500 in advertising in support of President Obama in the St. Louis Jewish Light, a Jewish newspaper.

Mik Moore, listed as treasurer on the group’s latest filing, declined to comment for the Forward.

Josh Nathan-Kazis is a staff writer for the Forward. He covers charities and politics, and writes investigations and longform.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Forward. Discover more perspectives in Opinion. To contact Opinion authors, email [email protected].

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