Welcome to the Forward’s coverage of former U.S. president Barack Obama and his relationship to the Jewish community.
Barack Obama
The Latest
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News President Confuses Jews and Janitors, Or Does He?
It took a friend to bring to my attention President Obama?s recent and underreported slip of the tongue, made during an address to the Congressional Black Caucus on September 24, in which he confused the words ?janitor? and ?Jew.? Though mentioned on the Forward?s Shmooze blog, the media made scant mention of the incident for…
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Life Prime Ribs: Madonna Back at Kabbalah Center
The recent controversy surrounding Madonna and the Kabbalah Center’s charity work in Malawi seems to not have had any lasting effect on her relationship with the organization. The singer was spotted taking her kids to the Kabbalah Center in New York to observe the days of repentance according to Ynet. Zehavit Cohen, who is one…
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News Obama’s Jewish Team Has 2012 Plan
For the past three months, a group of President Obama’s Jewish supporters has been getting together for a weekly conference call to discuss strategy. The group, includes, among others, former White House adviser David Axelrod, Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz, former Congress members Robert Wexler and Mel Levine, Chicago Jewish activist and attorney…
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Opinion Has Obama Lost the Jews? Don’t Ask the Polls
President Obama got an unpleasant New Year’s greeting from the American Jewish Committee just before Rosh Hashanah: A survey of American Jewish opinion showing his job performance got a failing grade from a plurality of Jews for the first time in his presidency. It may be the lowest Jewish rating for a Democratic president since…
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Opinion Obama Is Israel’s Captain America
Apparently, all it took was a speech. After Barack Obama’s address to the United Nations last week, in which he spent approximately two minutes telling the Israeli narrative in a way that satisfied certain Jewish ears (and, of course, opposing Palestinian statehood), he is suddenly in the good graces of the Israeli population for really…
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The Schmooze Was Obama’s ‘Jew Tax’ Gaffe a Freudian Slip?
What was that, Mr. President? You meant to say “janitor,” but out came “Jew.” Those words starting with the letter “J” can really trip you up. In a speech President Obama gave this past Saturday evening at the Congressional Black Caucus annual awards dinner in Washington, it seemed as though he was saying that there…
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Opinion From Right and Left, Forecasts of Israeli Doom
You know what they say: One is an anomaly, two is a coincidence, three is a trend. What about four? That’s how many leading commentators have weighed in over the past week with astonishingly gloomy prognoses about Israel’s future. They come from both left and right. The consensus is that the Jewish state is on…
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News After U.N. Drama, Little Hope for Peace Breakthrough
An intense week of high-profile speeches and backroom diplomacy, which reached its climax with an official Palestinian bid for statehood, has reshaped the Middle East peace process, eroding the American position as lead player — which may, in fact, be President Obama’s strategy. Days after Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas took to the United Nations stage…
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Film & TV Netflix finally gave Jews our Hot Rabbi. Too bad every other Jew in the show sucks
In Case You Missed It
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Fast Forward How US Jewish communities are marking anniversary of Oct. 7 attack: with heartache, and warily
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Fast Forward First debate question to Vance and Walz: Do you support a ‘preemptive’ Israeli strike on Iran?
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Fast Forward Meet Tel Aviv shooting hero Lev Kreitman, who survived Nova music festival on Oct. 7
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News A retreat brought 180 survivors of the Nova massacre together to observe Shabbat
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