Welcome to the Forward’s coverage of former U.S. president Barack Obama and his relationship to the Jewish community.
Barack Obama
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Breaking News Obama’s Grandmother Hurt in Kenya Car Crash
President Barack Obama’s grandmother reportedly suffered minor injuries during a traffic accident in Kenya over the weekend. Sarah Obama, 90, sustained bumps and bruises in the Saturday evening crash near the town of Otonglo in western Kenya, according to The Nation newspaper. The driver of her car apparently lost control of the vehicle while trying…
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Opinion Poverty in America: A Crisis Ignored
Poor Jews, the saying goes, are middle-class Jews without money. The unstated assumption is that the conventional cultural standards of the middle class are not displaced by a “culture of poverty” when Jews tumble down the class ladder. It is, however, important to remember that some Jews — estimates vary, but a reasonable guess is…
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News Obama Muslim Fears Gone But Israel Anxieties Remain
In 2008, comedian Sarah Silverman recorded a Web video urging young Jews to go to Florida and persuade their grandparents to vote for Obama. If Obama lost, Silverman warned, she would “blame the Jews.” Silverman was joking, sort of. But she was also responding to rumors, then rampant among older Florida Jews, that Obama was…
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Opinion The Super Schlep
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…
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Opinion Who the !?@# Is Saul Alinsky?!
“Republicans have created this completely fictional president. His name is Barack X. And he is an Islamo-Socialist-Revolutionary who is coming for your guns, raising your taxes, slashing the military, apologizing to other countries, and taking his cues from Europe, or worse yet…Saul Alinsky!” — Bill Maher (note: contains explicit language; in other words, this is…
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News Romney, Maybe. Gingrich, No Thanks
Here in Florida, in a year when the entire presidential race could hinge on a few electoral votes, Republicans hope that peeling away Jewish support for President Obama could help swing the election. But interviews with Jews in South Florida suggest that the GOP will have a much tougher time with that key demographic if…
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Opinion State of Fairness
A Republican commentator complained of the State of the Union speech just after its emotive conclusion that all Barack Obama wants to do is redistribute wealth, spend more of other people’s money, and take from those who have and give it to those who don’t. Actually, what the president did in this overly detailed but…
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Opinion Gingrich’s Anti-Semitic Dog Whistle: Saul Alinsky
When Newt Gingrich is called out for using the phrase “food stamp president,” he fiercely defends the idea that he is simply pointing out the obvious: that under Obama more people signed up for food stamps. Simple as that. He is not gently plucking racist tropes for the benefit of his base, but just telling…
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Culture Hitler is trending on TikTok again — and they’re trying to make him seem like a nice guy
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Culture You can buy Sukkot gift boxes that say ‘tuchus’ on Amazon
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Fast Forward Sitcom star encourages non-Jews like her to hang mezuzahs on their homes
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Opinion A maelstrom around Rashida Tlaib shows how broken discourse about the war has become
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Opinion An Israeli security expert weighs in: ’I don’t see a way that we do not strike Iran’
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