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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News Jews and the Enthusiasm Gap
The buzzword is enthusiasm this midterm election season. In the Wall Street Journal in early August, Robert Reich wrote about “The Obama Agenda and the Enthusiasm Gap.” By month’s end, the New York Times editorialized about “The Wrong Kind of Enthusiasm.” Across the political spectrum – and borne out in primary turnout numbers this summer…
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News Embryonic Stem Cell Ruling Fallout
An article in today’s Forward explains why Jewish groups are up in arms about a judge’s injunction to federal funding of embryonic stem cell research. The judge’s ruling interpreted the Dickey-Wicker amendment—a law that prohibits federal funding of research that harms or destroys human embryos—to include all research involving embryonic stem cells, which are obtained…
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The Schmooze Nice Jewish Girls Gone Gaga
When Nice Jewish Girls Gone Bad first hit the road seven years ago, Susannah Perlman and her troop of comediennes shocked audiences, some into laughter and others into walking out of the theater. The burlesque-inspired show came complete with Star of David pasties, bat mitzvah gags, and the age old question: “What’s in the gefilte…
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Opinion Will Israel Attack Iran? Should It? Does Goldberg (the Other One) Give Both Sides Their Due?
The Atlantic has posted a compelling article by Jeffrey Goldberg, who for the record is not me, on the prospects of an Israeli military strike against Iran. It’s based on extensive on- and off-the-record interviews with Israeli political and military leaders, Obama administration officials and Arab diplomats. He puts the likelihood of an Israeli strike…
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The Schmooze Citing Shabbat, Orthodox Union Leader Declines Obama’s Ramadan Invite
In the tradition of Hank Greenberg and Sandy Koufax, Nathan Diament, the director of the Orthodox Union’s Institute for Public Affairs, will be sitting out an important event due to religious observance. Only this time, it’s not a baseball game, it’s a Ramadan feast — at the White House. Last year, Diament joined Israeli ambassador…
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The Schmooze Clinton Wedding: WikiLeaks at the Wedding
The Forward has learned that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is not in Melbourne, Australia, as has been widely reported. According to documents that Assange accidentally leaked to his own website, Assange has set up shop in Rhinecliff, NY, where he and anonymous volunteers are amassing top-secret information about Chelsea Clinton’s wedding to Marc Mezvinsky. The…
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The Schmooze Obama Without, Great Music Within
As their name suggests, Pitom comes on suddenly. On Wednesday night, while pedestrians clustered outside a grungy Lower East Side dive bar ogling President Obama’s motorcade on its way to and from Anna Wintour’s hush-hush fundraiser, the raucous four-piece band took the stage inside and delivered a far more exciting show. Following the always-delightful Xylopholks,…
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Life The Subtext of the Argument That Obama Is America’s ‘First Female President’
Sometimes an idea is so absurd that I do not want to give it credence by replying. On the other hand if that absurd idea gains force, then I may find myself reluctantly responding to the ridiculous. Like right now. Washington Post columnist Kathleen Parker, one of the few powerful women pundits in a field…
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