RUTHFULLY YOURS

How could Obama have lost so many of his Jewish supporters, a group that gave him almost 80% of their vote in 2008? Obama blames Republicans for spreading bigotry, such as the claim Barack Hussein Obama is a Muslim, and counters that he’s as good as it gets for Jews. Obama reportedly told a group of rabbis visiting the White House in May that all of his Chicago friends were Jewish, that he’s well read on Judaism, and that he “probably knows about Judaism more than any other president.” Burnishing this image of himself, Obama doubtless appreciates a New York magazine cover story, titled The First Jewish President, that illustrated Obama in a skull cap.

But the estrangement of Jewish Democrats from Obama has nothing to do with his Muslim name and everything to do with how Jews now perceive him and his policies. This “Jewish president,” so confident of his knowledge of Jews, badly misread the Jewish community. His misreading could cost him the money he needs to win re-election.

Obama certainly is steeped in a Jewish milieu. The men most responsible for engineering his political strategies and running his campaigns — David Plouffe and David Axelrod — are both savvy Jews, as are most of his top economic advisors and his current and former chief of staff. J Street, the George Soros funded “pro-Israel” advocacy group, has Obama’s ear, having visited the White House numerous times since he became president, as has Andy Stern, the former president of the Service Employees International Union. But Obama’s familiarity with Jews extends well beyond this contemporary crew.

For starters, there’s Rabbi Arnold Wolf, a man said to have helped shape Obama’s views in the Chicago of the 1990s. Wolf is known for siding with the Palestine Liberation Organization while it was hijacking airplanes and conducting other terrorist acts, for chairing Breira, a radical anti-Israel organization that had tried to prevent the U.S. from supplying Israel with arms during the 1973 Yom Kippur War, and for inviting the Chicago Seven, the radicals famed for their role in the Chicago Riots of 1968, to speak at his synagogue. Obama, who lived across the street from Wolf’s Chicago synagogue, often dropped by to discuss Israel and the Middle East with Wolf and like-minded Jews, giving Obama an insight into radical Jewish thought.

Wolf himself inspired and was inspired by Jewish radicals and revolutionaries — they included Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman, two leaders of the Chicago Seven, and the revolutionary Jews who pervaded the anti-capitalist, anti-Vietnam War movement through the Weathermen and Students for a Democratic Society. Wolf, who was one of Obama’s earliest political backers, hosted a coffee party for Obama to aid his campaign, as did other members of this set, such as Weatherman founders Bernadette Dohrn, daughter of a wealthy Jew, and her husband, Bill Ayers. A Chicago Jew who did not meet Obama but who nevertheless profoundly influenced all in his progressive circle was Saul Alinsky, the legendary community organizer, who remains the gold standard in fighting the establishment. As late as 2007, The Washington Post and The New Republic reported that Obama remained enamoured by Alinsky.

Surrounded as he was by radical Jews and their anti-capitalist, pro-Palestinian ideology, Obama could be forgiven for thinking that the Chicago crew he knew so well was representative of American Jewry as a whole, particularly since research by J Street confirmed for him that American Jews don’t support Israel’s “occupation” of Palestine, don’t support the right-wing government of Israel, and in any case don’t vote on the basis of America’s policies toward Israel. Obama’s Jewish advisors doubtless thought that offending Israel and its right-wing prime minister would play well to his Jewish base. Hence Obama pointedly skipped Israel in his high-profile trips to Muslim countries in the Middle East and, when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu came to the White House, Obama denied his guest the customary photo-ops and joint press statement, and even refused to dine with him, curtly leaving Netanyahu and his aides without dinner arrangements and alone in the White House while Obama dined in another room. For good measure, Obama reneged on understandings Israel had with previous U.S. administrations and, in the minds of many Jews, made a show of putting Israel in its place.

This conduct, which shocked many Jews, began their reappraisal of Obama. While America’s Jews may not vote on the basis of Israel — just 7% do, according to polls — neither do they want to see their co-religionists and the birthplace of their religion dissed. As seen in a survey released this week of the political values of American Jews, a significant minority have a strong attachment to Israel and a large majority believes that Israel, but not the Palestinians, truly want peace. Moreover, most American Jews are far from being radicals or anti-capitalist, as are many in Obama’s Jewish circle. Only 10% see themselves as either somewhat radical (8%) or largely radical (2%) and 58% believe they are “not at all” leftist, even though most Jews worry about global warming, favour abortion rights, support higher taxes on those earning more than $200,000, and want more government services and spending. (America’s Jews are in fact even less left-leaning than this survey suggests, because it excluded Orthodox Jews and those who had attended Jewish day school.)

If Obama’s stance toward Israel gave many Democratic Jews pause, his railing against the rich and the 1%, culminating in the Occupy Wall Street movement, motivated many to abandon Obama. Jews may believe in the need for higher taxes on large earners, but they also see themselves as pro-business and pro-wealth creation. “Why does he always say ‘rich’ like it is a four-letter word?,” one person complained. “Why doesn’t he say ‘prosperous’ like [the wealth was earned]?” Jews, many of whom are in the 1%, both want to be proud of their accomplishments and have a visceral fear of being singled out. Occupy Wall Street, which Obama publicly endorsed, sent a chill through many Jews because of the division and hatred it unleashed.

Almost from the start, the Occupy Wall Street protest — whose implicit target was the Jewish-dominated New York financial sector — featured anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli placards, a development that the Jewish press in the U.S. and abroad did not fail to note in its ongoing coverage. Stated Commentary magazine: “Occupy Wall Street’s group page on Facebook was littered with images of the title page of Henry Ford’s notorious pamphlet, The International Jew, as well as a picture featuring the phrase “Arbeit Macht Frei,” lifted from the entrance gate at Auschwitz, with the accompaniment: ‘We don’t work for bad money.’” That many of the Occupy Wall Street organizers were Jewish, and spurred on by prominent Jews such as the head of J Street and the SEIU’s Andy Stern, did nothing to allay Jewish fears — as Jews know all too well, Jews excel in many fields, including anti-Semitism.

Will Obama get his alienated Jewish backers back? His fundraisers are certainly doing their best to explain that Obama’s position on Israel has been misunderstood, that many of Obama’s best friends are Jewish, that Obama doesn’t have anything against people becoming rich, that what Obama might say in public for political purposes doesn’t represent his private views. But many aren’t coming back. As The New York Times reported earlier this year in an article on Obama’s fundraising woes, past donors “felt unfairly demonized for being wealthy. They felt scapegoated for the recession … with mass protests against the 1% springing up all around the country, [some felt he] had created a hostile environment for job creators.”

Summed up one of those in the 1% to an Obama fundraiser: “I just don’t think he likes us.”

Financial Post

Third in a series. Next: The Anti-Semite Card.

To see the survey of the political values of American Jews, click here.