Political Insider: Super (Ethnic) Tuesday and the Jews

As Jewish Week assistant managing editor Adam Dickter pointed out in a front page story this week, Super Tuesday - next week's coast-to-coast primary fest - will provide an intriguing glimpse of where the Jewish community is these days, politically.

Clinton vs. Obama? Exit poll data in states like Illinois and California should prove fascinating, and you can bet the outreach and finance folks in both parties will be looking closely at the data.

Will Mitt Romney's economic pitch appeal to Jewish Republicans?  Hopefully the numbers in some states will be high enough for useful exit poll data.

But while Jews go to the polls in disproportionate numbers, the real story in many states will be other minorities with a bigger demographic footprint.

According to an interesting article on Super Tuesday in political scientist Larry Sabato's Crystal Ball newsletter, seven states voting on February 5 have populations that are 15 percent or more African- American - "four in the South…and three in the industrial Frost Belt (including New York)."

By way of contrast, the Jewish population in the state with the most Jews -- New York - is under 9 percent, and no other state is even close.

Another five states voting on Tuesday have populations that are at least 15 percent Hispanic.

Ethnic politics in America, it seems, is getting more complicated by the day, a shift with profound implications for the Jewish community.

Go to Sabato's site for a Super Tuesday rundown comprehensive enough to satisfy your Inner Wonk.

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Route 17: Obama Through Arab Eyes

For months we've been listening to commentators speculating about how Barack Obama's is "good for Israel," or "good for the Arabs." A problem, though, is that this debate has been almost entirely filtered through non-Arab voices. We thought it might be interesting to look at what Arab-Americans have been saying within the confines of Arab media.

The first item is excerpted from a piece in Lebanon's relatively moderate Beirut Daily Star (Jan. 8), "Whom Should Arab-Americans Vote For," by Arab-American commentator Ghassa Rubeiz. The second item is from The Electronic Intifadah, "How Barack Obama Learned To Love Israel," by Ali Abunimah, who lives in Obama's state senate district in Illinois.

This latter piece is more dated (March 4, 2007) but it is nevertheless revealing how a sophisticated online Palestinian political magazine -- as vehemently anti-Israel as its name,  Electronic Intifadah, would have you believe-anticipated Obama's candidacy. The writer, Abunimah, is co-founder of The Electronic Intifadah.

If it needs to be said, readers should keep in mind that these commentaries do not represent all Arab-Americans anymore than Jewish columnists represent all Jews, but they wouldn't have the outlets they do if they represented no one at all. Over the course of the campaign we'll try to keep our eyes open for other Arab commentaries on the candidates.

The Beirut Daily Star: "When compared to Senators Hillary Clinton and John Edwards, the two rival front runners on the Democratic side, Obama looks better [from the Arab perspective] on issues of justice in the Middle East. However, one has to be realistic: Arab-Americans, and Arabs in general, do not have many close friends among popular American politicians. Israeli policy experts rate Obama as a moderate supporter of Israel and they place Edwards and Clinton significantly ahead of the Illinois senator in sensitivity to the needs of the Jewish state.

"Obama knows relatively little about the suffering of the Palestinians and their need for a viable state. But when he is in the White House he would be in a better position to place the US in the position of honest broker in the peace process.

Among the candidates, "there is more variety of opinion on Iraq than there is on the Palestinian question. The reason is that Israel has won the public relations battle over the Arab-Israeli conflict. But public sentiments may change in America with new evidence and a new president."

Arab-Americans "should not expect a radical change in American foreign policy in the Middle East, regardless of who wins the 2008 elections. However, if Barack Obama wins, there is hope that he will be more open on the matter of Middle East justice than other front-runners in the presidential race. The Obama factor includes many advantages: an international perspective, compassion for minorities, and sensitivity to issues of health care, poverty, and climate change. And finally, Obama has a vision for serious change in domestic and foreign policy."

Electronic Intifadah: Abunimah noted that Obama promised AIPAC to fund work on the Arrow and related missile systems to help Israel "deter missile attacks from as far as Tehran and as close as Gaza," said Obama.

Disparaging the fear that Obama was addressing, Abunimah writes: "As if the starved, besieged and traumatized population of Gaza are about to develop intercontinental ballistic missiles."

[What the writer doesn't say, of course, is that at the time Abunimah was writing his column, more than 3,000 Qassam rockets had already been into Israel from Gaza; rockets that precipitated Israel's recent military action, even if the rockets weren't ballistic.]

Abunimah adds, "While constantly emphasizing his concern about the threat Israelis face from Palestinians, Obama said nothing about the exponentially more lethal threat Israelis present to Palestinians." Obama had said that Hezbollah launched thousands of rockets in an unprovoked attack, "but it's a complete distortion. Throughout his speech he showed a worrying propensity to present discredited [Israeli] propaganda as fact."

Over the years, writes Abunimah, "I met [Obama] about half a dozen times, often at Palestinian and Arab-American community events in Chicago, including a May 1998 community fundraiser at which Edward Said was the keynote speaker. In 2000, when Obama unsuccessfully ran for Congress I heard him speak at a campaign fundraiser hosted by a University of Chicago professor. On that occasion and others Obama was forthright in his criticism of U.S. policy and his call for an even-handed approach to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

"The last time I spoke to Obama was in the winter of 2004 at a gathering in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. He was in the midst of a primary campaign to secure the Democratic nomination for the United States Senate seat he now occupies. But at that time polls showed him trailing. As he came in from the cold and took off his coat, I went up to greet him. He responded warmly, and volunteered, 'Hey, I'm sorry I haven't said more about Palestine right now, but we are in a tough primary race. I'm hoping when things calm down I can be more up front.' He referred to my activism, including columns I was contributing to The Chicago Tribune [that were] critical of Israeli and U.S. policy [and said], 'Keep up the good work!'

"But Obama's gradual shift into the AIPAC camp had begun as early as 2002 as he planned his move from small time Illinois politics to the national scene..... If disappointing, given his historically close relations to Palestinian-Americans, Obama's about-face is not surprising. He is merely doing what he thinks is necessary to get elected and he will continue doing it as long as it keeps him in power."

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Political Insider: Florida Strategy was Classic Rudy

As political observers pick apart the carcass of the Giulani presidential campaign, it seems apparent that the former mayor ran for the White House in much the same way that he ran the city: By concentrating on his strengths, and tuning out pretty much everything else.

The strategy echoes Giuliani's successful election bid in 1993, when he heavily concentrated his campaigning in Staten Island, the city's most Republican borough. Because of a referendum on secession from the city that year, turnout was extremely high there, and combined with enough Democratic votes elsewhere, that support put him over the top.

While governing, Giuliani prized loyalty to him above all else, rewarding acolytes and refusing to meet with critics, including much of the city's black elected leadership, which faulted his response to police brutality complaints. When he was re-elected in 1997, Giuliani in his victory speech promised to reach out to new segments of the city who felt they were not well served in the previous term. Instead, the city became further polarized for most of the second term, until 9-11 changed the city and gave him a new image as well as a political makeover.

Given his difficulty in being solicitous, it's not surprising that Giuliani apparently found it difficult to go to places where he had some support, but had to win over droves in order to get ahead.

"He went into New Hampshire, where he seemed to have a chance, spent a few million dollars there and when the polls didn't change, he pulls out," noted the National Review's Byron York on NBC's Meet The Press last Sunday.

Giuliani appeared supremely confident that Florida would be the "firewall" that would give him momentum heading into Super Tuesday after unimpressive showings in the earlier primaries. That's because he campaigned in areas that already loved him, communities packed with New York retirees, including many Jews. If you believed the throngs who turned out for him in those places, snapping pictures with him and getting his autograph, he was in great shape.

But what was likely overestimated by Giuliani and his advisors was how many of those adulating fans were actually registered Republicans, and of those, how many could be counted on not to abandon him once another candidate appeared more viable, as in the case of John McCain.

"This was clearly a Staten Island strategy - you concentrate on the areas you can win," Baruch College political science professor Doug Muzzio told me on Tuesday. "It was probably the right strategy at the time they developed it because he wasn't going to win Iowa or South Carolina or Michigan. Their strategic assumption that there would be no clear frontrunner was almost right. The only thing they can look back on with regret is New Hampshire, but even there he pumped in 3 million and didn't move the numbers."

Clearly, voters told Giuliani that the bloom was off the rose. Repeated mentions of his experience on 9-11, which seemed to somehow suggest that he had stood up to or defeated the terrorists rather than competently managed the aftermath of a disaster, didn't gain him any traction six years after the event, and negative stories about his personal life and bad decisions while in office certainly didn't bolster his credentials on leadership, the bedrock on which his campaign was built. In nearly a year of campaigning, Giuliani's approval rating in one poll dropped from 58 percent to 29 percent.

Muzzio says Giuliani's defeat not only spells the end of his political future, but could also put a damper on his hitherto lucrative consulting business.

"His national security bona fides have been called into question," said Muzzio. "Not only by the whole command center incident but the firefighters stalking him and his failure to be on the 9-11 commission because his more important duty was to raise money instead of learning the national security terror field better."

In short, for Rudy Giuliani, it is at long last, 9-12.

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Political Insider: Muted Jewish Reaction to President Bush's Last State of the Union

Jewish groups didn't have a lot to say in response to President Bush's final State of the Union address on Monday, but the Orthodox Union was cheered by one element of the speech.

OU officials praised Bush for proposing a permanent extension of his "charitable choice" programs. (read the statement here)

Those programs make it easier for sectarian groups to get federal grant money to provide human services.  Orthodox Jewish groups say that levels the playing field, giving their own services a chance to compete with secular agencies and religious groups operating under old guidelines that require a strict separation of sectarian and service functions.

But church-state groups, including the Anti-Defamation League and other Jewish organizations, say such programs erode church-state protections by blurring the line between functions.

"We applaud the President's commitment to ensuring that faith-based organizations are not restrained from providing services to their communities," said Nathan Diament, the OU's public policy director. "Faith-based organizations play a crucial role in serving the needs of their local communities and should not be prohibited from receiving federal funds for the work they do."

Liberal Jewish groups were unusually silent in response to the proposal - mostly, one leading Jewish activist said, because nobody expects any congressional action on programs like charitable choice this year.

Barbara Weinstein, legislative director for the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, offered a measured response to the speech.

"A lot of what we heard in the speech we've heard before in different formats," she said. "We welcomed his recognition of the need to address climate change; we found some of his comments about immigration positive."

But she said the group has "concerns about where the president is going on issues like stem cell research and health care;  we can't just leave health care to the private sector and health savings accounts."

On a related note:  as usual, many senators and House members sent out statements reacting to the speech hours before it was given - Democrats expressing disappointment, Republicans touting the President's comments.

"Embargoed until speech," many of the press releases were headlined.  Apparently President Bush wasn't expected to change many opinions on key issues of the day.

What did Bush say on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the resolution of which is his administration's top foreign policy priority in this last year?

See that portion of the speech here:

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Political Insider: Romney's Mormonism: Religious Intolerance is Not Dead

So: some Barack  Obama critics are taking flak for spreading untrue stories that he's a secret Muslim - as if being a Muslim is an automatic disqualifier for high office. In response, the Obama campaign put out a flier depicting the candidate as a "committed Christian," earning him criticism from some Jewish groups concerned about the mixing of faith and politics.

But have you noticed a certain silence when it comes to Mitt Romney, the resurgent Republican contender who still faces deep and seemingly intractable religious prejudice because of his Mormon faith?

It's a particular problem for Romney, who has recast himself as a values conservative, because the voters he most needs to survive the GOP primaries - the religious right - are the ones who view Mormonism with the greatest suspicion.

Over the weekend a top official of the political arm of the Focus on the Family ministry, one of the most powerful groups on the Christian right, suggested that Romney himself believes Mormonism is not actually a Christian faith.

"Mitt Romney has acknowledged that Mormonism is not a Christian faith and I appreciate his acknowledging that," Tom Minnery, a senior Focus on the Family vice president, said in a video voters guide put out by the group.

Only one problem: Romney says he IS a Christian, and the Mormon Church takes a dim view of those who claim it is a deviant sect that is not truly Christian.

A poll by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life found that 25 percent of Americans say they would be less like to vote for a Mormon for president. The good news for Mormons is that puts them ahead of homosexuals and atheists; the bad news is that it puts them far behind most other religious groups, including Jews.

Further, 31 percent of Americans say they do not believe Mormons are Christians and another 17 percent say they are unsure.

It became part of the political wisdom after Joe Lieberman's 2000 vice presidential race that being Jewish was no longer a liability to those seeking high office.

But the 2008 presidential contest, with most candidates vying to prove their Christian credentials and some, like Romney, having to defend their faith as genuine Christianity, suggests that religious bias is alive and well in American politics.

And why have Jewish leaders been so silent about the overt religious bigotry in some attacks against Romney?

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Political Insider:  Obama Reaches Out to Jewish Reporters as Critical Primaries Loom

Just how worried is Barack Obama about a rumor campaign heavily targeting the Jewish community and suggesting in unsubtle terms that the Democratic presidential contender is a secret Muslim?

The rumor campaign is generating an underground buzz today, but most Jewish voters "will recognize this as the kind of canard that used to be deployed against Jews and consign it to the dustbin," said University of Florida political scientist Ken Wald.

But the urban legends about Obama's Muslim past could combine with an intensifying campaign from the Jewish right depicting the candidate as soft on Israel to have a small but significant impact in a few key primary states with lots of Jewish voters - including New York and California, which vote on the February 5 Super Tuesday, and the Florida vote tomorrow night, which will not allocate delegates but which will be viewed as another indication of how the fight is shaping up.

With the contest between Obama and Sen. Hillary Clinton closer than ever, every primary result will be seen as an indicator of "momentum" and every single delegate is likely to count.

That's the apparent reason the candidate went on the offensive on Monday with a teleconference with Jewish reporters.

A cautious, well-briefed Obama addressed the rumors about his background directly (see the updated Jewish Week story on the campaign against him here), but also laid out views on some key Mideast issues.

He expressed strong concern about Iran's nuclear program, calling for both tougher sanctions and possible negotiations with the Iranians and expressed doubts Israel-Palestinian peace talks will advance "until we can get the Palestinians to the table not only with the will to ensure Israel's security but also the wherewithal to do so."

It was hardly an accident that he reached out to Jewish reporters a day before the Florida beauty contest and a week before the Super Tuesday brawl.

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Political Insider: Bill Clinton Invokes Jesse Jackson; Obama Supporters Cry Foul

What did former President Bill Clinton really mean on Saturday when he compared Sen. Barack Obama's big win in the South Carolina Democratic primary to Jesse Jackson's primary successes in the state?  (read the Jewish Week update on the South Carolina contest here )
 

"Jesse Jackson won South Carolina in 84 and 88," Clinton told a group of his wife's supporters in Columbia.  "Jackson ran a good campaign. And Obama ran a good campaign here."

On the surface maybe that was a complement, or an attempt to dismiss the Obama victory as unimportant in the greater political scheme of things  - but some angry Obama supporters say Clinton may have meant something else.

"The Jesse Jackson comment was designed to scare Jews in New York and California," said a leading Jewish supporter of the Illinois senator.  "Otherwise why invoke him at all?  We can expect more of the same as the word is that Obama is running strongly even in Hillary's home state of New York among young Jews.

Jackson remains politically toxic particularly among older Jewish voters, this political activist said; Clinton's invoking of his name after South Carolina may have been meant to prompt a strong turnout in Super Tuesday states with big Jewish populations - and perhaps in Tuesday's Florida beauty contest primary.

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This Jewish Life:  Reauthorization and Restraint

The policy issues I work on seem to encompass a lot of programs that need reauthorizing- The State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), No Child Left Behind (NCLB), Head Start and now, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). 

With an educational background in mental health, I know the benefits that programs like SAMHSA and Head Start can bring to communities across the country.  At the same time, as a student of Jewish history, I know that the preservation of church and state has been the chief guarantor of religious freedom for Jews and other religious minorities in United States.

So it has been a challenge to weigh the benefits of programs that meet essential needs against efforts by some elected officials to use those programs to weaken the First Amendment. 

I know that the Reform Movement's adamant and unyielding defense of the separation of church and state has in the past put us in the difficult position of having to oppose reauthorizations of programs that we support.  For example, for 5 years, Head Start reauthorization proposals included provisions that would have allowed religious groups that sponsor Head Start chapters to discriminate in their hiring.  This situation forced the Union for Reform Judaism to oppose attempts to reauthorize a fabulous program.

Luckily, this year, these stipulations were removed and we were finally able to  support the legislation to reauthorize Head Start.  I admit that I am relieved that I came to the RAC in the year that Head Start was uncontroversial because as a student of community psychology and education, I learned about all of the positive outcomes of the Head Start program and I imagine that it would have been quite a challenge for me to keep silent about my support.

This year I am faced with a similar issue-the SAMHSA reauthorization proposal has "charitable choice" provisions, which would allow direct government funding of pervasively sectarian (solely religious) organizations. Among other concerns, charitable choice allows government-funded religious discrimination and threatens a pre-emption of local civil rights laws.  The direct violations of the separation of church and state involved in charitable choice have long been a concern of the Reform Movement.  Rabbi Saperstein has even testified in Congressional hearings on this very issue. 

So, in association with the Coalition Against Religious Discrimination, I am spending time in the next couple of weeks trying to convince members of the Senate Health, Education, and Labor (HELP) committee to remove the charitable choice provisions before advancing the legislation.

I have realized that the RAC's willingness to oppose objectionable provisions within legislation that is overwhelmingly positive, such as SAMHSA, reinforces and strengthens our voice advocating for religious freedom.  As unsettling and uncomfortable as prioritizing the separation of church and state over the possibility of reauthorizing great government programs may be, these decisions gives legitimacy and power to our advocacy on church/state issues.

To read more about Head Start Reauthorization, check out this 2005 New York Times Article

To learn more about the Reform perspective on Charitable Choice, read excerpts from Rabbi David Saperstein's testimony to the House Judiciary Subcommittee here.

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A Rabbi's World:  Barack Obama and the Jewish Problem

In a predictable and terribly disturbing way, the campaign of rumors being waged against Barack Obama in the Jewish community has begun to stick.  I am not at all sure that he is the candidate that I would/will vote for in either the primaries or the general election.  I have issues with his candidacy, as I do with almost everyone who is running. But I find it painful that it is so easy to discredit him by appealing to the basest, most ethnocentric fears of so many in our Jewish communities.

Why is it, I wonder as both a Jew and a rabbi, that when push comes to shove, our buttons get pushed so easily?  Why are we so ready to believe the worst about those from outside our community whom we may perceive as threatening?  And why is Barack Obama threatening to our community?  Is it because he is an African-American?  And if that is the case, as it might well be, why do we need to feel that way?

I mentioned that I have issues with Senator Obama's candidacy, and I do.  The biggest one has to do with his relationship with his minister, whom he regards as a mentor and a close friend.  The fact that this minister lauds the work of Louis Farrakhan does indeed give me pause, and makes me wish that Senator Obama would disavow him (and not just Farrakhan, which he has done).  For better or for worse, if Obama wants to represent me and my concerns as a Jewish American, then I don't want his "mentor" anywhere near the halls of power.

But this concern does not in any way require that I vilify Senator Obama, or imply that he is anti-Israel or anti-Semitic, or studied in a madrassa, or grew up a Muslim (also not a sin, as best as I can tell).  What lies behind this effort to smear him and his campaign?  What is it deep within the Jewish psyche that makes us all too ready to believe the worst about "them?"  It is surely not our most appealing quality as a people, or a community…

One is tempted, in an effort to find an answer to these questions, to invoke the traumatic legacy of our persecution, and particularly the Holocaust, as an "excuse" for our communal neurosis about the "other" that borders on paranoia.  But it's too easy an out, I think.  It's too easy for me, as a rabbi, to rely on that as an excuse for everything we might do as individuals and as a community that is less than savory.  Too easy, and not at all honest.  We are hardly so pure and clean ourselves.

Honestly- I think we all need to be looking in the mirror and wondering if we like what we see.  Our survival instincts are sometimes too powerful, and they get in the way of our ability to see things clearly and accurately. And the price of our mistakes in this regard can be very high indeed. 

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Today, the House of Representatives voted whether or not to override President Bush's (second) veto of the reauthorization and expansion of the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP).  And, yet again, Congress was unable to muster the two-thirds majority necessary to provide 10 million children with affordable, accessible health care.  This bill would have created a $35 billion increase in funding for this essential program, which serves families whose incomes are too high to qualify for Medicaid, but too low to allow them to purchase private health insurance plans.  The failure to override the veto was disheartening, disappointing, unconscionable, and not at all surprising. 

Since the day that I learned I would be the Health Care Legislative Assistant at the RAC, I've been elbow-deep in the fight to pass a comprehensive SCHIP reauthorization bill-- using action alerts, press releases, phone calls, and lobby visits. 

At the beginning, it seemed like a no-brainer-of course Congress will pass and the President will sign a bill that gives 10 million children health care! (Did I mention that I was politically naïve when I took this job?)

 

But, as time progressed, I realized the enactment of this bill was not at all a given and I became part of a nationwide effort to mobilize public opinion and put pressure on Congress and the White House.  We hoped to change minds (and votes) to get this bill passed.  While public opinion certainly leaned in our direction, Congress would not be swayed and we saw SCHIP proposed, passed, vetoed, and our hopes dashed twice over the past 6 months.

 

The uphill battle for SCHIP reauthorization has been my introduction to partisan politics and the many roadblocks that can prevent progress.

 

For months, the Democrats and Republicans have been debating about provisions that seem to be minutia, but are largely reflections of the long-standing, philosophical question of the appropriate role of government in our society.  This SCHIP fight has displayed fundamental differences between the political parties, with the Republicans strongly advocating individual autonomy and the Democrats championing communal responsibility.

And, in the end, we are left with a reauthorization of the SCHIP program sans expansion.  Six million children remain covered by SCHIP, but we make no progress toward covering more of this country's 9 million uninsured children.  A severe disappointment and, in my opinion, a moral failing on the part of our country.

But, a good lesson for me to learn: progress in politics happens very slowly.  And more often than not, morality is not the prevailing factor in political decisions.  More accurately, morality is complicated by the desires and goals of battling political parties.  I've tried hard not to let the SCHIP experience destroy my faith in the political process or my optimism about the potential for change, but I admit that this has been a challenge.

 

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Political Insider:  Obama Gets it from All Sides

Doesn't it sometimes seem like Sen. Barack Obama can't win with the Jews?

As the Jewish Week reports this week (read the story here) , rumors about his alleged Muslim past continue to swirl through segments of the community, despite repeated debunkings; simmering in the background are lingering questions about his South Side Chicago church and its controversial pastor. 

Also this week, some prominent Israelis - including former ambassador Danny Ayalon - have weighed in with concerns the Democratic presidential contender may be too soft when it comes to Middle East issues, or at least too unclear about the details of his oft-stated support for Israel.

In a Jerusalem Post op-ed,  Ayalon argues that "from our perspective, as international spectators for whom Israeli and global security must be of foremost interest, while observing the American elections we should look at the Obama candidacy with some degree of concern as we hope to answer that all-important question, 'Who really is this man, and what policies will he impose?'"

Ayalon expressed unease about Obama's statement that he would meet with the president of Iran and that he has "yet to suggest specific measures he would enact regarding the Jewish State's Qualitative Military Edge."

But the Democratic contender is also getting it from the Jewish left, which is not happy with what some see as his pandering to the pro-Israel lobby.

In a new entry  Richard Silverstein, a influential blogger, chastised the Democrat for yesterday's letter to Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, defending Israel on the question of its response to rocket attacks from Gaza.

"I understand that today the UN Security Council met regarding the situation in Gaza, and that a resolution or statement could be forthcoming from the Council in short order," Obama wrote. "I urge you to ensure that the Security Council issue no statement and pass no resolution on this matter that does not fully condemn the rocket assault Hamas has been conducting on civilians in southern Israel."

Silverstein wrote that Obama's letter is a "perfect example of how election campaigns prostitute legitimate policy objectives. Of course, Israel was NOT forced to put Gaza under siege. To say otherwise is first of all to pander to the right-wing portion of the Jewish electorate and second to distort reality."

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Route 17:  Yom Hashoah Has A Rival

Most Jews don't know it yet, but next week's Jan. 27 is shaping up as the new Yom Hashoah, Holocaust memorial day. The old Yom Hashoah (usually in April, Nisan 27) hit an iceberg of indifference and is taking on water.

There is nothing more dramatic, or ritually more inspired, than Israel's Yom Hashoah siren that stops the country in its tracks, but here in the United States the keepers of the flame have done the one thing that almost defies discussion in polite company: They have made the Holocaust boring.

After 50 years of observance, the observance lacks widely accepted ceremony or structure.

The day itself is inherently boring. Unlike other holy days (the Temple actually burnt on the 9th of Av), nothing in particular happened on the 27th of Nisan.

The Holocaust has no shortage of memorable dates. Kristallnacht happened on November 9; Auschwitz was liberated on January 27; the war started on September 1; the Warsaw uprising began the eve of Passover, April 19; but nothing happened on Yom Hashoah that didn't happen the day before or six months after. If a camel is a horse by committee, Yom Hashoah is Judaism by committee, a Knesset committee. Back in 1951, when Yom Hashoah was created, the Warsaw Ghetto lobbyists wanted to link Yom Hashoah to the day of the uprising but the religious lobby -- speaking for most Israelis -- didn't want Yom Hashoah to collide with the Passover seder, and other lobbies had other days. So the committee selected a date that signified nothing but could win a vote.

Yom Hashoah now falls five days after Passover, which means most people have just lost several days of work and personal time to the holiday and have no interest, so soon, in yet another public  ceremonial situation, particularly one that is theologically and communally incoherent.

Meanwhile, the few other countries that cared started to accept Jan. 27, Auschwitz liberation day, as the defacto Yom Hashoah. The old Allies are proud of that day. The old survivors cherished that day all along. In 2005, the United Nations designated Jan. 27 as the international day for Holocaust memorials.

Even Yad Vashem, Israel's Holocaust museum and memorial authority, is falling in line, sending out press releases announcing that Yad Vashem "will be marking the third annual International Holocaust Remembrance Day in a variety of ways," which is Yad Vashem's way of telling Yom Hashoah, I like you as a friend but we ought to see other people.

Yom Hashoah was established to lead the parade. Now it's playing catch-up.

The United Nations, of all places, has figured out what the Jewish guardians of the Holocaust never could: a memorial day only has power if it's a day worth remembering.

I care about my dead parents but I don't light candles for them on dates they didn't die.

The community would quake if anyone suggested moving  Chanukah to July, or Thanksgiving to April. But admit it, dear reader, you wouldn't be disturbed in the least if Yom Hashoah moved to January, and that tells you all you need to know about how Yom Hashoah had its day - and lost it.

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Political Insider:  Giuliani Sinking in New York? Polls Show Drop, Experts Question Strategy

The stakes in Rudy Giuliani's big Florida gamble keep rising as the Republican presidential contender faces growing questions about his controversial primary strategy.

And that strategy may be affecting the onetime frontrunner's standing in New York, where some polls now show Giuliani trailing on his home turf.

His decision to forgo the early primaries, let his competitors beat each other into insensibility and then clean up in Florida was "either a strategy of utter madness or utter brilliance," said American University historian Allan J. Lichtman, who studies the presidency. "And right now it's looking like utter madness."

The problem, Lichtman said: by removing himself from the national spotlight as his GOP rivals fight one of the most compelling primary battles in recent memory, the former mayor has undercut his stature as a serious candidate. 

The re-emergence of Sen. John McCain as a GOP frontrunner - appealing to the same national security hawks as Rudy - has added to Giuliani's seeming irrelevance, some Jewish Republicans argued this week.

And that could also translate into big trouble on his home turf when New York Republicans go to the polls on February 5 - Super Tuesday - although experts say a big Giuliani win in the too-close-to-call Florida contest next Tuesday could revive his campaign.

A WNBC/Marist poll shows Giuliani now trailing McCain in New York.  According to the survey, 34 percent of registered Republicans now support McCain, with Giuliani a distant second at 23 percent.

More ominous for the Giuliani campaign: 46 percent of registered Republicans surveyed see McCain as the candidate with the best chance of keeping the White House in Republican hands; only 15 percent see Giuliani as the most electable.

And with GOP anxieties growing about their prospects in this volatile election year, that factor could be a huge factor for committed Republicans in New York as well as other Super Tuesday states.

Another poll by the Siena College Research Institute showed Giuliani running 12 points behind McCain in the state, although analysts caution that the small sample size makes the survey less reliable.

Giuliani's strategy "has made him a cipher in the campaign," said Douglas Muzzio, a professor of public policy at Baruch College/CUNY.  "So the only commentary about him is about how he's run behind Ron Paul in the early primaries. He's dropped out of the air totally, not just off the radar screen."

It is McCain, whose fortunes were dramatically revived with his New Hampshire win earlier in the month, who is generating the most media buzz, Muzzio said - a buzz that has a powerful impact on the electorate.

Muzzio said Giuliani also has big problems with Republican Party activists in New York.

"They don't love him; they still haven't forgiven him for endorsing Mario Cuomo in 1994," he said.

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Route 17: A Trend Since 1934

Newsweeklies have, over the years, increasingly looked to religion for trend stories, even cover stories, and as a religious Jew I happen to like it; it flatters me. Unfortunately, religion as a media genre is so unsophisticated that these articles often disappoint.

If a baseball reporter were to tell you there’s been a return to the stolen base as an offensive weapon, you can be sure the reporter and editor would be familiar with the different eras in which that was the case, such as the dead-ball era and the 1960s, as well as those eras when the stolen base was fairly dormant, and why. A sports writer would be too embarrassed to write a trend story if he only had a hunch about how baseball was played prior to the 21st century.

Nevertheless, in U.S. News & World Report (Dec. 13), “A Return to Tradition,” one can read about that trend without any indication about how traditional Jews were in 1970 or 1930 – or now.

Even when writing about tradition, journalists are infatuated with the new. The article tells us, “Even while drawing on deep traditional resources, many participants are creating something new within the old forms.”

So instead of examining why Jews attracted to tradition – defined by the dictionary as “the transmission of customs and beliefs from generation to generation,” and practiced in Agudah-oriented shtiebles, chasidic and neo-chasidic minyans, classic Young Israels—U.S. News & World Report mentions only two Orthodox synagogues by name and example: the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale “where you will see things that push the limits of Orthodoxy,” and Ohav Shalom, in Washington D.C., a synagogue whose rabbi apprenticed at that same Hebrew Institute.

So in all of the United States, the two Orthodox synagogues that we’re told exemplify the “return to tradition” both prefer to brand themselves as being as untraditional as they can be.

Now I happen to have a vast affection for Hebrew Institute, it’s my hometown shul. Despite what the article claims, “pushing the limits of Orthodoxy” is not even the shul’s greatest charm. But within a five-minute walk are three shuls – the Young Israel of Riverdale, the Riverdale Jewish Center, and a Chabad – that are rightfully successful, every bit as crowded on Shabbat and far more traditional. So why was Hebrew Institute chosen by the newsweekly as the embodiment of a national “tradition” trend when it doesn’t even claim to be the most traditional shul in its own neighborhood? Does even a story on tradition have to seek out the cutting edge instead of deciphering the allure of the old faithful?

And why are religious trend stories so singular in examining what young people are doing? The middle-aged can be religiously lost and found as well as anyone, and just as fluid in the religious choices. Regret, the onset of aches, and looming death provokes the soul more easily among the aging and the wounded than among the young.

Aside from general newsweeklies, even in Jewish newsrooms most journalists couldn’t identify trends beyond their personal experience, let alone into the “dead ball” era. Political writers, for example, can easily relate a New Hampshire primary to Eugene McCarthy’s 1968 insurgency. Religious writers often don’t know history in quite the same way.

This week we celebrate Tu B’Shvat and JTA reports (Jan. 12), “Quite recently, young Jews in their 20s and 30s have seized upon the holiday, running Tu B’Shevat seders that are more explicit both in their call to environmental activism and their reliance on Jewish text.”

I went to those exact Tu B’Shvat seders more than 35 years ago, seders just as environmental and reliant on text, just as crowded with other “young Jews in their 20s and 30s.”

How can something at least 35 years old, and reported in newspapers in the 1970s, be declared a phenomenon discovered “quite recently,” except for the insistence on justifying almost all coverage of religion (other than fights and politics) by calling it a trend?

We’re told there’s a large gap between Jewish leadership and the masses and charitable federations are “not the unifying influence” they claim to be since they have only a “comparatively small number of contributors.”

That trendy observation is from The New York Times, May 30, 1934 (“Religion Among Jews Found To Be Waning”). Two days later, a gentleman named Sidney Simon wrote a letter to the editor asking whether those who determine Jewish trends had access to “such pertinent facts” as the synagogue attendance of young Jews, and their interest in Jewish studies, “say, thirty years ago, for comparison with the current situation?”

I wonder who remembers 1978. Mr. Simon wondered, in 1934, who remembers 1904?

“In New York and in other large cities today (1934) there are rapidly growing groups of young men and women who are attaching themselves to the synagogues,” he writes. “Already, their number far exceeds that of the young men and women who attended the synagogue thirty years ago.”

According to Mr. Simon, there was a return to religious tradition, back in Roosevelt’s first term.

It was 1934, hard times, and the letter-writer tells us that Young Israel’s employment office in lower Manhattan received “more than 10,000” applications” from young Jews who “in spite of the present economic situation will not accept work unless the employer will allow them to keep the Sabbath.”

Mr. Simon asks, “Does this indicate a waning of religious feeling?”

It indicates to me that a lack of memory among religious experts is a tradition all its own.

It reminds me that the old people I see on Bronx avenues, preparing for Sabbath, were young and unsure in 1934, many of their fathers without jobs, knowing what was happening in Germany  (reported in the 1934 papers), not knowing if the Depression would last forever, or that war was on the way.

Those 10,000 unemployed, among others, had a Sabbath, traditional or not, after six days of soup lines and filling out job applications when there were no jobs.

I’d like to think they were invited for Sabbath meals; a tradition, even then.

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Political Insider: Hillary Wins Jewish Demcratic Vote in Nevada

If anybody harbored lingering doubts that religion would be a factor in the 2008 presidential election, take a look at this weekend's results from Nevada and South Carolina.

In Nevada's caucuses, exit polls show that winner Hillary Clinton was the overwhelming choice of Jewish Democrats, picking up 67 percent of their votes - the highest proportion of any identified religious group.  Second-place finisher Barack Obama got only 25 percent of the Jewish vote and John Edwards, whose campaign is sinking into the region of negative momentum, got 5 percent.

What factors went into that gap? Race was undoubtedly one, but Democratic insiders say the experience factor loomed larger.  Jewish Democrats know Clinton and don't know Obama, they say; in today's complex environment, that counts for a lot with Jewish voters, who tend to care more than other groups about domestic and foreign policy experience.

Clinton's "ready to lead on day one" theme sells well with Jewish voters, several analysts said this week.

 
But race was a big factor overall;  Clinton won only 14 percent of the black vote, compared to the 83 percent won by Obama.  The Hispanic vote, on the other hand, went overwhelmingly to Clinton, with Obama getting only 26 percent.

Analysts love to talk about black-Jewish friction in politics, but the Nevada results point to a more important divide between Hispanics and African-Americans - the nation's two largest minority groups.

On the Republican side, winner Mitt Romney won an overwhelming 95 percent of the Mormon Republican vote in a state where Mormons comprise about 25 percent of the electorate.

The Jewish Republican vote was too small for exit poll data.

In South Carolina's Republican primary, religion was expected to be a huge factor. It was - but not in the way some analysts predicted.

While Mike Huckabee won 43 percent of that state's big evangelical Republican vote, the former Arkansas governor and Baptist minister won only 14 percent of the non-evangelicals.  And McCain made significant inroads with evangelical voters. 

That wasn't good news for second-place finisher Huckabee, the Iowa surprise winner who hoped to build a successful bid for the nomination on that devout base.

The lesson here: preaching in churches and talking about rewriting the Constitution to reflect Godly principles gets you only so far, even in conservative states like South Carolina.

According to exit polls, South Carolina Republicans said the economy was the most important issue on Saturday, followed by illegal immigration, the war in Iraq and terrorism.

The Jewish vote in South Carolina was too small to register in exit polls.

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Political Insider:  Orthodox Jewish Leader Hints About Obama Muslim Connections / James Besser in Washington

Despite warnings by a broad coalition of community leaders, some Jewish political activists continue to promote the idea that Sen. Barack Obama, locked into a fierce battle for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination, is a secret Muslim.  (See the Jewish Week story on another line of attack against Obama - his relationship with a controversial South Side Chicago pastor).

Dr. Mendy Ganchrow, the longtime leader of a pro-Israel political action committee and former Orthodox Union head, this week hinted in his blog that the Muslim environment in which Obama spent four childhood years will inevitably affect his judgment.

"In the Jewish religion when someone is far away from observance, however at a certain time he has a spark of Jewishness, we call it a 'pintele Yid' -a smattering, or a deep seated unconscious attachment to ones roots," Ganchrow wrote. "With a Muslim father, and being surrounded in his early youth in a Muslim environment, is there such a thing as a 'pintele Muslim,' with deep seated feelings which could color decisions re: terrorism and the Middle East?"

Ganchrow's comments come only a day after leaders of nine major Jewish groups - including his own OU - issued a joint statement condemning a campaign of "hateful emails that use falsehood and innuendo to mischaracterize Senator Barack Obama's religious beliefs, and who he is as a person." (Read the letter here .)

Such tactics, the group wrote, "attempt to drive a wedge between our community and a presidential candidate based on despicable and false attacks and innuendo based on religion. We reject these efforts to manipulate members of our community into supporting opposing candidates."

In addition to the OU, the letter was signed by leaders of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, the United Jewish Communities, the Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Congress, the American Jewish Committee, the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, the National Council of Jewish Women and the Jewish Council for Public Affairs.

According to most reports, Obama's Kenyan father was an atheist and his stepfather a secular Muslim; in his four childhood years in Indonesia, he attended both a predominately Muslim public school and a Catholic parochial school.

But some leaders of some of the groups signing the letter concede it will be impossible to tamp down the Obama-as-secret-Muslim rhetoric, which they say is emanating mostly from right-wing Jewish activists determined to defeat any Democratic presidential candidate.

Once a charge like that is out there, "it is like you plant the seed in the mind of the jury even if the judge sustains the objection--it is out there," said Kean University political scientist Gilbert Kahn.  "The suspicion persists and has legs of its own."

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This Jewish Life:  Introducing Jessie Weiser 

Looking back, my major problem with college was that we spent so much time analyzing what was wrong with the world and so little time trying to change it.  Now, as an Eisendrath Legislative Assistant at the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism (RAC), I spend every day advocating for a better world.  It's certainly a full-time job--and a welcome change of pace.

I never took a politics class in college and my chosen medium for tikkun olam was generally direct service, so working at the RAC has come with a steep learning curve. 

At first, I asked questions like, "Who is Harry Reid?" (Senate Majority leader) and "How many votes does it take to override a Presidential veto?" (two-thirds majority in both chambers).

But I've quickly become engaged, informed, and enthralled with the political process and the issues that I advocate for every day.  I find myself making political jokes (that I would not even have understood 6 months ago), seeking out conversations about health care and religious freedom, and answering questions from friends about what's going on in Washington.

Many of my friends who recently graduated from college are stuck in jobs where their days are monotonous, their work menial, and their responsibilities minimal.  I am on the other end of the spectrum.  I am constantly busy-- shifting between tasks and political issues and maintaining a largely self-directed to-do list that is pages long.  I lobby Congressmen, attend coalition and working group meetings, draft press releases and action alerts, write educational programs, teach students about the intersection between public policy and Jewish values, and call Rabbis across the country to encourage them to get more involved with the RAC's work.

And, I can only be a legislative assistant for a year, so I get to throw myself into the experience completely, without being too worried about burn-out or exhaustion.  Though, I have to admit, all of this work can be quite tiring at times.

Every year, the RAC entrusts recent college graduates with the responsibility of conducting the RAC's legislative and educational programs.  Each legislative assistant is given a portfolio of issues and full responsibility for the RAC's work in those areas. After negotiations with my fellow legislative assistants, I ended up with the fitting portfolio of Church/State separation, Education, Children's Issues, Bioethics, Health Care, and Mental Health.

This diverse portfolio allows for many wonderful opportunities, including the chance to work closely with Rabbi David Saperstein, Director of the RAC and a leading expert on the separation of Church and State, and the responsibility of being the coordinator of a major new Union for Reform Judaism initiative to promote state-level advocacy for health care reform.

So, I've transformed in the past four months- into a passionate and informed advocate speaking on behalf of the Reform Movement.  I've retained my love of community service and the academic scrutiny of social issues, but I've added political activism as a dimension of my social justice pursuits.  My blog posts over the next few weeks will be reflections on this new focus of my life--- politics and life in the beltway.

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Political Insider: A McCain/Lieberman Ticket? / James Besser in Washington

Joe Lieberman, an erstwhile Democratic, is hitting the campaign trail for a Republican presidential contender, reviving speculation the Connecticut senator may be in line for the vice presidential nomination on a GOP ticket with the man he is supporting --  Sen. John McCain.

But not so fast, some Republican insiders say; while a fusion ticket might have appeal to an electorate fed up with the hyper-partisanship in Washington these days, it's far from clear whether party regulars would accept a former Democrat in the second slot on the ticket.

And if McCain gets the nomination, there will be strong pressure to balance the ticket with a vice presidential candidate from the conservative Christian wing of the party - someone like former Arkansas Gov. and former Baptist minister Mike Huckabee, for example.

Lieberman has said he isn't interested in another VP bid, but an offer from McCain, his old friend and Senate colleague, could prove hard to resist.

But sources close to Lieberman say he probably wouldn't turn down a chance to serve as Secretary of Defense in a McCain administration.

The McCain folks are obviously hoping Lieberman will provide a boost in the increasingly fierce battle against former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani in Florida, a contest where Jewish voters could be poised to play a big role (read Rudy on the Ropes in the current Jewish Week).  Polls show McCain with a narrow lead in the Sunshine State; luring Jewish Republicans away from Giuliani, an early favorite, could prove fatal to the former New York mayor's campaign.

They're also hoping he will help with the battle for the much bigger evangelical Christian vote, which is one reason Lieberman was in South Carolina this week. That state's primary is on Saturday, with McCain slugging it out with former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and actor/ex-senator Fred Thompson (former Mass. Governor Mitt Romney is mostly bypassing South Carolina and focusing on Nevada).

And McCain badly needs an injection of campaign cash, now that it looks like the GOP nomination fight -  the first three primaries and caucuses produced three different winners - could drag on for a long time.  Lieberman may be anathema to the Democratic Party he abandoned, but he remains a strong draw on the fundraising circuit.

But Lieberman isn't exactly magic; his effort to draw independents into the McCain fold in Michigan wasn't enough to avert a big loss to Romney on Tuesday.

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Political Insider: In the Dark on Mideast Policy / James Besser in Washington

Isn't it interesting how all the Democratic candidates for president try to talk about Israel and the Middle East without saying a thing?

Of course, that hardly makes them unique; their Republican counterparts, fighting for a share of the small Jewish GOP vote, aren't exactly offering a wealth of detail about Mideast policy, but at least there are some small distinctions among them.

The Democratic party doesn't fear a wholesale abandonment by Jews worried about their candidates' positions on Israel, but party leaders worry about erosion at the fringes. If November's election is a Democratic blowout, that won't make a lick of difference; if it's as close as the last two, it could be huge.

And although most Jews vote heavily on domestic issues, controversy about Israel - real or manufactured by the political spin doctors - can affect the Jewish swing vote.

So the goal for the Dems is simple; each candidate tries to inoculate himself or herself against opposition attacks while saying as little as possible about what their Mideast policy would actually look like.

The object is to keep the focus on domestic affairs, where they enjoy a huge advantage over the Republicans with Jewish voters; getting enmeshed in Mideast controversy is a no-win proposition for the Democrats.

It's an environment in which every word must be parsed, every idea analyzed not for its merit but for how it can be used by the opposition.

Does Barack Obama want to talk to Iran? Heavens; that means he wants to bolster Israel's most dangerous enemy (but never mind the Republican candidates like Mike Huckabee who say they same thing).

Does Hillary Clinton support Palestinian statehood? What is she, a Hamas agent?  Oh yeah, Palestinian statehood is the policy of the current Republican administration, but never mind.

So the Democrats keep quiet; they talk only in bland generalities and avoid any hint of a plan for dealing with the Middle East.

Things are a lot easier for the Republicans; while the Democrats want to shift the focus to other issues, the GOP approach to Jewish voters is  all Israel, all the time.

The goal is to keep shifting rightward the definition of what it means to be pro-Israel with hawkish statements meant to make things awkward for the Democrats, who must pay attention to the liberal base.

So Rudy Giuliani opposes Palestinian statehood, even though his party leader vows to accomplish that by the end of the year; Mike Huckabee says a Palestinian state is okay, but not in Palestine.

But in the end, we know no more about how they would actually deal with the intricacies of the region than we do about the Democrats.

Jewish voters are among the most informed and active in the nation, but on the Middle East, we are increasingly clueless about what candidates in either party would do if elected.  And apparently we are happy to stay that way, judging by the lack of tough questions for the candidates.

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A Rabbi's World: The Challenge of Change / Rabbi Gerald C. Skolnik

I have been following the recent ups and downs of the early presidential primaries with a kind of wary interest.  The rational side of me realizes how very early it is in this process. With the relentless news coverage that has become a numbing voice-over for the political landscape, it has become difficult to discern any statement on the part of almost anyone that actually goes beyond the cliché. 

On the other hand, there are those few moments when one begins to hear broader themes emerge, and that is when my rabbinic ears perk up.

I am particularly fascinated by the preoccupation with change- this campaign's emerging mantra- and its perceived antithesis, "experience."  

What I am writing is in no way to be construed as an endorsement of any particular candidate or as a negative statement about another, but it's hard to miss the not so subtle message of much of the recent polling.

It seems that Americans, whether Democrat or Republican, regard the stated desire to change the status quo as a greater claim to leadership than experience in governing.  I guess it's a statement on how very unhappy people are with the current administration.  The real-time obstacles that lie before the person who claims readiness to "change the way business is done" are simply not a crucial consideration.  Experience is nice, but it implies "old school."

In my line of work, I hear a constant clamoring for change.  Mostly, it comes from the younger members of my movement.  They tend to regard the more formal style of worship so characteristic of synagogues of the past generation as an insurmountable obstacle to spirituality.

But it's a funny thing about change as it manifests in a religious context.  So much of the experience of religious practice is rooted in the charm of the familiar, and the majesty of the traditional. 

Ask any Cantor what happens if he/she tries a new or different melody for a section of the Shabbat morning service, even  Adon Olam.  People consider it an affront to their prayer experience. "I come to synagogue to her that melody!"

The more I witness this complicated dynamic, the more I sense that people want change, as long as they're the ones doing the changing, and the change reflects their particular tastes.  Change is problematic when it comes from the top down.  It has to trickle up to be valid and compelling.

And what trickles up to me tends to be conflicting messages.  I have people who would do anything to change the way things have always been done, and others who would do anything to preserve that way.

Change is not a simple process, in politics or in synagogues (not that synagogues have politics, of course…).
 
 

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Route 17:  Who's Juicing The Agunah Numbers? /  Jonathan Mark in New York

It was recently reported that the United Nations AIDS agency overestimated the size of the AIDS epidemic by a whopping six million cases, a big percentage of the worldwide actuality (33.2 million).

You'd think AIDS advocates would be happy, but no. The New York Times said that AIDS advocates were concerned that they now wouldn't raise as much money as they hoped.

As politicians know, fear is good for business.

It is remarkable on how many issues, such as agunot (women who are denied a Jewish divorce by their husbands), Jewish journalists and academics simply guess at the numbers involved, without any statistical certainty. Sympathy for the feminist cause in most newsrooms likely has Jewish journalists overcooking the estimates of how many agunot there are. Or else, journalists are taking advocates' guesses as gospel. The agunot issue has become the BarryBonds of Jewish statistics: Juiced and pumped beyond credibility.   

Bari Weiss, in The Wall Street Journal (Aug. 24), argues that in Israel "there are 10,000 women refused divorces, but in the U.S., Orthodoxy has no centralized legal body, so the number of agunot is impossible to calculate." Actually it is possible to calculate. There are a finite number of major Orthodox organizations. There are a finite number of rabbinical courts. They keep records.

If there are 10,000 agunot in Israel, there ought to be at least several thousand in the United States. But that doesn't sound right. Think about your own synagogue, if you live in a major population area. There might be hundreds of families who are members of your local synagogue. How many agunot have there been in your community, out of those hundreds?

Rabbi Yona Reiss, of the Rabbinical Council of America's Bet Din, told me that RCA court -- the largest Orthodox court in the United States - for the past five years handled "approximately 350" divorces each year. "I went through all our logs," said the rabbi, "and checked how many cases were still unresolved or outstanding, and if I recall, there were five to ten cases that hadn't been resolved after three or more years."

That's "five to ten," not "thousands."

This is not unlike the Jewish journalistic fad in the 1970s that insisted, in dozens of articles, that young Jews were joining cults by the thousands. In the wake of the 1960s, parents were afraid. To Nixonian minds, the whole idea of the "counterculture" seemed like a cult. I began to wonder: How is it possible that I had been living in two heavily populated Jewish neighborhoods (Riverdale and the Upper West Side), and I knew only one Jew - just one -- who actually joined the Moonies, or any cult for that matter?

How come, with all of my professional and personal acquaintances in the Jewish community, surely more than a thousand people, I wasn't on a first name basis with even two women who have ever been agunot? How can that be if there are thousands of them out there? I'm inclined to believe Rabbi Reiss. The numbers were low. That ought to be good news. After all the conferences, that ought to be a front page story. But it's not. Maybe Jewish feminists, like the AIDS advocates, would rather you not know the truth.

What numbers there are can be warped by advocates who twist criteria to their advantage. We have to know the length of time in which a divorcing couple can haggle before a woman becomes an agunah, since every divorce involves haggling and that has to be considered normative, not a reflection on the unique inequity of Jewish divorce law. But some advocates say a woman can be an agunah if there is even a one-day negotiation, or even several weeks, a shorter time period than most civil divorces can possibly take, even without religious complications.

I believe intermarriage statistics. They tell me that intermarriages are near 50 percent and I'm familiar with dozens and dozens of intermarriages. The statistics sound right.

But on too many Jewish issues, there are too many Jewish journalists and too many advocates who are bluffing.

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Political Insider: The Huckabee Conundrum / James Besser in Washington

The New York Times has an interesting story  today on the Mike Huckabee campaign and evidence it is causing a split between major evangelical leaders and their movement's younger rank and file.

Although the story doesn't say it outright, the split suggests that some top evangelical leaders really don't care as much about the "values" agenda as they do about traditional Republican economics issues.

Many younger evangelicals, according to the story, are attracted to Huckabee's blend of tough talk about a sinking middle class and an overt focus on his religion.

But "much of the national leadership of the Christian conservative movement has turned a cold shoulder" to Huckabee's campaign because they are "wary of his populist approach to economic issues and his criticism of the Bush administration's foreign policy," the story goes on.

His candidacy "is threatening to drive a wedge" into the Christian conservative movement.

How's that again?

Huckabee is an ordained Baptist minister who in 1998 called on Christians to "take this nation back for Christ," and who in recent interviews has defended that statement. He's not a late  convert to the anti-abortion cause, like some of his GOP rivals. He talks about the role of his Christian faith more than anybody else on the campaign trail.

Initially, there were reports evangelical leaders were holding back because they didn't think the unknown Huckabee could win. But now he has the Iowa victory under his belt - and some polls show him leading the GOP pack nationally.

So what's the deal?

The Times says one reason may be the entrenched Washington character of some of the big evangelical groups, which may be out of step with the evangelical grass roots.

But there are other factors, as well.

Former Sen. and actor Fred Thompson, a GOP underdog, has won the endorsement of some of the evangelical leaders who have shunned Huckabee; he has been attacking Huckabee in recent days as someone who would promote "liberal economic policies," according to the Times.

All of which points to this question: are the big Christian right organizations really driven by issues such as abortion and gay marriage? Or are those simply wedge issues they use as tools to promote a more traditional Republican economic agenda?

Why do so many evangelical talk show hosts vehemently argue against efforts to stop global warming, even denying the scientific validity of the problem?  What does that have to do with protecting the family?

Is this really about family values or about lower taxes, smaller government and deregulation, with abortion and gay marriage just the hook to grab evangelical voters?

The top evangelical leaders, if asked, might say they are just the flip sides of the family values question - policies that help families.

But that doesn't explain why these leaders are still refusing to support Mike Huckabee, so clearly one of their own.

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Political Insider: Nevada Voting on Shabbat? / James Besser in Washington

Kudos to the Washington office of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs (JCPA) for noticing a bit of insensitive scheduling in the presidential primaries and caucuses.

Democratic and Republican activists in Nevada will hold their party caucuses on January 19.  In case you don't have a calendar handy, that's a Saturday, which could make things hard for Orthodox Jews in a state where the Jewish population is burgeoning.

JCPA policy associate Melissa Boteach got wind of the scheduling conflict and began making some calls. Read what she learned - and the "mixed results" of her efforts - on the JCPA blog.

"There are two elements of Nevada’s political parties’ decision to hold the caucus on Shabbat that make it especially disturbing: the fact that it is entirely avoidable (the caucuses could have easily been held on a weeknight or even after Shabbat ended), and the fact that it categorically excludes an entire group of people based on their religious identity," Boteach writes. "This is especially ironic in a year where candidates in both parties have touted their religious credentials and spoken openly about the importance of their own faith as well as respecting people of faith."

Nevada's caucuses gained new importance with this week's stunning New Hampshire victory by Sen. Hillary Clinton, who believes she may now be competitive in the state - despite the endorsement of her chief rival, Sen. Barack Obama, by the 60,000 member Culinary Workers Union,  a Nevada powerhouse.

On the Republican side, the South Carolina GOP primary the same day is garnering most of the attention from candidates, but Nevada could give another boost to Sen. John McCain, who is coming off a big win in New Hampshire.

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Route 17: The Hobbits Of Chabad / Jonathan Mark in New York

The messianists of Chabad are harmless, the equivalent of theological hobbits. They are more of a phenomenon than they are significant. They are still in mourning for the one they loved; more to the point, the only one from whom they felt such love. One would think the etiquette of the more enlightened among us might indulge a depression masquerading as eschatology. Yes, they are an annoyance and embarassment for mainstream Chabad, but they seem to have a "Kick Me" sign on their back that brings out the bully in others, particularly those who are messianists themselves, albeit messianic Zionists.

In the modern religious world that makes a fetish of pluralism, and welcomes any fetish into the pluralist's big tent, why the venom?

A few week's ago in Israel, a non-Jew who apparently studied with a Chabad messianist, attempted to convert to Judaism under the auspices of an Israeli rabbinical court. The court's judges are believers in religious Zionism - the belief that the State of Israel itself has messianic implications.

Israel is surrounded by enemies. Rockets are landing daily. Terrorists are conniving to get a nuclear bomb. And the rabbis had one last question for this émigré from the old Soviet Union who wanted to share the fate and destiny of the Jewish people.

It was like the question that got Arlo Guthrie -- litterbug in "Alice's Restaurant" - rejected by his draft board: "Kid, you ever been arrested?"

Kid, you believe the rebbe is Moshiach?

The wannabe Jew said "yes." After all, who cared about this poor guy back in Russia? A rebbe who never saw him, sending emissaries to teach him, even feed him, who promised him redemption.

"Yes," said the yearning soul.

"No," said the court, conversion rejected. The poor guy stays a goy until Israel's chief rabbi, another messianic Zionist, hears the case on appeal.

How many in Chabad actually believe the rebbe is the Messiah? You'd think with all the experts around, we could get a number.

In a story on the rejected conversion, Arutz Sheva (Jan. 3) estimated "several thousand." Whose estimate? They don't say.

The Jewish Week (Jan. 11), in its infinite editorial wisdom, reports that messianists only consitute a "segment" of Chabad, a definition that avoids placing a number on something that no demographer or pollster has ever determined with any respectable methodology.

David Berger, professor of Jewish Studies at Yeshiva University, and the biggest, meanest, anti-Chabad hunter of them all, wrote in Dei'ah V'Dibur (July 12, 2006) that "a substantial majority" of Lubavitchers are messianist.

In Dec. 2005, Samuel Heilman, a professor of Jewish Studes at Queens College, in an interview with the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, does not say there is a substantial majority, only a "split" within Chabad; shluchim (rabbinic "emissaries" at Chabad Houses around the world) are "much less messianist," than the others, says Heilman.

At the last several gatherings of American and international shluchim in Crown Heights that I've covered, there was not a single verbal, visual or even veiled reference to the rebbe as moshiach.

But for years now, on the very same weekend as the international shluchim banquet, there has indeed been a split. Each camp has a dinner for itself. A few hundred attend the messianist  dinner; more than 4,000, including almost every emissary, the top financial backers such as Lev Leviev, and the top Chabad leadership, attend the non-messianist dinner. For a Chabad Kremlinologist, that says "a substantial majority" is not messianist at all.

Berger's Yeshiva University is the epicenter of messianic religious Zionism. YU's graduates are foremost among those who say one ought to say Hallel on Yom Haatzmaut; that it is a borderline sin not to spend  a year in Israel after high school, let alone the alleged obligation of aliyah.

On Shabbat they say the Prayer for the State, a messianic prayer proclaiming that the State of Israel is the beginning of the redemption.

Why is it such a problem that Chabad messianists sing a rebbe-messianist song at the end of prayer services and it is not a problem that one Zionist messianic Orthodox shul has dumped the singing of Adon Olam on Shabbat morning and replaced it with Hatikvah -- substituting Israel worship for God worship during davening? (Aside from eliminating God, here's the "church-state" problem: When Hatikvah is a national anthem, sung outside of a prayer service, it is a political statement that allows for democratic dissent; when it is part of davening, it is in a realm that has no dissent.)

What ought to be more problematic: A chasid believing a dead man is the messiah and doing nothing of any consequence about it, or religious Zionists giving a messianic imprimatur to the very flawed, sometimes corrupt, very earthly Israeli political system? (A messianism, of course, that Israel's founding fathers never claimed, even going out of their way to use a euphemism rather than acknowledge God in Israel's Declaration of Independence.)

It is a vicious slander to blame Orthodox messianic Zionism for two of its adherents, Yigal Amir and Baruch Goldstein, but that is still two more idologically-driven murderers than Chabad ever produced. But imagine if Amir and Goldstein were Chabad messianists: Would Berger and the other critics then say that the murderers and their schooling were a coincidence or the mark of a messianic Cain?

Take a look: Most of the Jews who rush to delegitimize Chabad are  comfortable,  people who are tenured in life. Knocking Chabad is the luxury of the luftmentch. It is for those who sleep in Jewish neighborhoods, not for those who tonight are in transit in distant lands where the only kosher meal or Jewish warmth comes from a Chabadnik.

Tonight, almost half of Africa is at war, perhaps the worst sustained horror on the planet since World War II. And there's a Chabad rabbi, Shlomo Bentolila, who with his wife Miriam, and their children, are on the ground, operating out of the Congo, negotating a spiritual space where  spiritual spaces are increasingly hard to come by. He and his crew have been doing God's work in a half-dozen African countries that are not Godforsaken - no place is forsaken by God -- but forsaken by the rest of us.

You can be sure that this Friday night - at Kinshasa's 251 Avenue Lukusa, if you're in the neighborhood - in Rabbi Bentolila's minyan, and he has one, the congregants won't care if he is a messianist or not. They'll only care that he is acting messianically.

In case you're wondering, he is not a messianist. I saw him at the non-messianist shluchim banquet in New York in the autumn. But really, even if he was…

All Chabadniks are infatuated with the rebbe, messianist or not. If that is a flaw, so be it. As Lincoln said to the critics of Grant, "find out what he's drinking and give it to the rest of my generals."

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Political Insider: Quick Draw Dems / James Besser in Washington

Don't those guys at the National Jewish Democratic Council (NJDC)ever go home?

Minutes after the news networks declared Sen. John McCain the victor in Tuesday's Republican primary in New Hampshire, the group emailed a "fact sheet" on the candidate warning that the "former maverick" is now bad news for the Jews.

The new McCain is "a very different candidate that the victor of the 2000 primary," said NJDC director Ira Forman.

The alert went on to document an array of McCain sins, including his agreement last year with the claim that America was created as a "Christian nation" and his positions on abortion, gay rights and civil rights.

Maybe NJDC was so fast on the draw because it has some practice under its belt; a week before, it launched a similar fact sheet on former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee only minutes after his first-place finish in Iowa.

An NJDC official declined to say if the group had similar documents ready to go for other possible winners of the two contests.

On the other side of the fence, the Republican Jewish Coalition has maintained a lower profile during the primaries - perhaps because some of its leaders are also very active in the new "Freedom's Watch" organization, created originally to generate support for President Bush's Iraq policies but which has recently started running ads slamming Democratic congressional candidates on illegal immigration, an issue the GOP still thinks will score big for them in November.

Asked about the quick-response campaign by the Jewish Democrats, RJC director Matt Brooks had this to say:  "If the NJDC wants to telegraph to us and the campaigns their talking points and research on the GOP candidates, I encourage them to go right ahead and continue to do so."

He said his group will talk about its "concerns with the Democratic nominee, on the issues the Jewish community cares about, at an appropriate time of our choosing and in the different media that we choose."

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A Rabbi's World:  Re-Entry / Rabbi Gerald C. Skolnik