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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The Schmooze Obama Makes New York Magazine Cover as ‘First Jewish President’
Barack Obama may be America’s “first Jewish president,” this week’s New York magazine cover provocatively suggests. The publication sets the phrase in quotation marks, placing it over a cover photo of Obama’s kippah-wearing head. The accompanying article — entitled “The Tsuris,” and written by staff political analyst John Heilemann — looks at at Obama’s relationship…
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Opinion Jewish Groups on Obama: JCPA Liked the Speech, ZOA Isn’t That Into Him
Jewish organizations generally don’t react quickly to events unless they involve terror attacks in Israel or blatantly anti-Semitic statements by foreign dictators, but one organization managed to whip out a response to President Obama’s jobs speech—a favorable one, as it happens—less than an hour after the president finished speaking. The quick response was from the…
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Opinion Makovsky on Egypt and Restarting the Peace Process
The website of Foreign Affairs magazine has a very useful interview with David Makovsky, fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, former Jerusalem Post editor, former Haaretz diplomatic correspondent and one of the smartest Middle East watchers in Washington, on the various uncertainties Israel faces right now. He notes that Israel and Egypt…
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Food Hazon Goes to the White House: Food Justice and the Farm Bill
Last week 12 excited Hazon representatives and 160 other Jewish participants gathered in Washington D.C. as part of the Jewish Social Justice Roundtable (JSJRT), a collection of 21 nonprofits supporting social justice as an essential component of Jewish life. The two-day affair began on Thursday, July 28th with congressional meetings and culminated the following day…
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Opinion New Poll: Israel Is Not the Deciding Factor
It is polling season in the Jewish world and after Gallup’s poll and the controversial Dick Morris and the just as controversial McLaughlin and Caddell surveys it is now J Street’s turn to weigh in. The group released yesterday its own national survey of American Jews which reinforces the main findings of the Gallup poll…
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Opinion Who Said Jews Are Leaving Obama?
A new Gallup Poll out today confirms that President Obama’s strong Jewish support has not evaporated following his May 19 speech on the Middle East. In fact, it hasn’t moved a bit. Sixty percent of Jews approved of Obama’s job in June, while 32 percent disapproved. In a poll of the general public, Obama gets…
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The Schmooze White House Switchboard Swamped With Calls for Pollard’s Temporary Release
Supporters of convicted spy Jonathan Pollard jammed the White House’s switchboard over the weekend, demanding his temporary release so that he could attend his father’s funeral today. Morris Pollard died at the age of 95 in South Bend, Ind., on the morning of Saturday, June 18. Angry that President Obama did not heed requests to…
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Opinion Backing Away from September
There are those who heard in Obama’s speech on the Middle East an attempt – as Mitt Romney elegantly put it – to throw Israel “under the bus” and those who thought it was just the same old steadfast support for Israeli positions that every American president expresses. Both sides, it’s clear, seem to only…
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Opinion A missile strike, a terror attack, and a falafel guy who is ready to serve
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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 Lev Kreitman, who brought down Tel Aviv shooter and survived Nova music festival on Oct. 7
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