Political Insider: New Pastor Eruption Puts Obama on Defensive

Just as news about the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama's onetime pastor and spiritual mentor, was starting to fade from the headlines, a new pastor eruption promised to keep questions of race, extremism and rage before the eyes of voters.

It won't do Obama any good with Jewish voters, either, since the pastor - the Rev. Michael Pfleger, a white Catholic priest - once called Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan a  "gift from God to a sick, sick world," according to an AP report.

In a recent guest sermon at Obama's former  church on Chicago's South Side, an over-the-top Pfleger  mocked Sen. Hillary Clinton, saying she felt entitled to the presidency because she was Bill Clinton's wife - and because she is white.

"When Hillary was crying, and people said that was put on, I really don't believe it was put on," Pfleger told attendees at the South Side Chicago church.  "I really believe that she just always thought 'this is mine. I'm Bill's wife, I'm white and this is mine. I just gotta get up and step into the plate' and then out of nowhere came, 'Hey, I'm Barack Obama,' and she said, 'Oh, damn. Where did you come from? I'm white. I'm entitled. There's a black man stealing my show.'"

(Watch video clips of the sermon here:)

Obama responded quickly as video clips of the sermon spread virally on the Internet.

 "As I have traveled this country, I've been impressed not by what divides us, but by all that unites us,"  the Democratic hopeful said in statement.  "That is why I am deeply disappointed in Father Pfleger's divisive, backward-looking rhetoric."

In a statement Pfleger expressed "regret" about his words and sorrow "if they offended Sen. Clinton or anyone else who saw them."

But the new controversy seems certain to keep the Jeremiah Wright controversy alive - and add to Obama's problems with many white voters, since  Pfleger is a longtime Obama supporter and friend.

For an interesting analysis of the newest pastor crisis, check out this blog by  Jacques Berlinerblau , program director and associate professor of Jewish Civilization at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University.

As Berlinerblau says, it's going to be a "long weekend for the Obama people."

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Behind the Headlines: Obama A Threat To Israel,  Mideast Expert Charges 

Tel Aviv -- Judging from the views of Israeli academics at a panel Thursday afternoon, Israel has much to worry about if Barack Obama is elected president this fall.

Barry Rubin, a well-known and respected Mideast expert and academic, told an audience today at a conference at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies (BESA) at Bar-Ilan University here that an Obama victory would precipitate "the most dangerous crisis facing the world."

After citing his own credentials as a former Washingtonian who worked for the campaigns of numerous Democratic presidential candidates, going back to John Kennedy in 1960, Rubin described Obama as "not the candidate of the [moderate] Arab states, but the candidate of the Islamists, whether he knows it or not.

"If elected, he will be the most anti-Israel president in American history," asserted Rubin, who is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center at IDC, the Interdisciplinary Center of Herzliya, and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal.

He said that while Obama speaks of his willingness to meet with autocratic leaders of countries like Iran and Syria, he only uses the carrot half of the carrot/stick equation.

"He never mentions what he would do if the talks fail, and he doesn't talk about the need for the U.S. to show its strength."

Rubin predicted that Obama would choose Robert Malley, a former State Department official who criticized Israel for its role in the failure of the Camp David peace talks in 2000, to be director of policy planning, if elected. And Rubin said it was no accident that Obama's recent reference to the Israel-Palestinian conflict as "a constant sore" was the same phrase Rashid Khalidi, a professor of Arab studies at Columbia University,  has used in an article in The Nation.

Another Israeli panelist on Thursday, Eytan Gilboa of the sponsoring BESA Center, was not as critical as Rubin. But he said that Obama has the American Arab vote "in his pocket" and that his lack of experience and seeming eagerness to talk through any problem were "worrisome" traits.

The other two panelists were Robert Lieber of Georgetown University and me.

Lieber said Obama is not anti-Israel and indeed appears supportive of the Jewish state. But he said the Illinois senator would face a serious problem if, as president, he tries to reason with American and Israeli enemies like Iran, whose leaders have proven intractable for decades. "It won't get him very far," said Lieber, who also spoke of Obama's inexperience, predicting that he would be tested early on by U.S. adversaries.

In my presentation, I said there was "a good deal of discomfort and unease" with Obama among American Jews, particularly those over 40, and that it was difficult to tell how much was based on his policies or lack of experience, how much on his association with Rev. Jeremiah Wright, and how much on race, among other factors.

The two-day conference theme was "Whither American Zionism?" But most of the presentations dealt with the past, with several speakers, including former Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Arens, pointing out that the movement's golden years were its early ones, in the first two decades of the 20th century.

The movement had "an auspicious start," noted Arens, who cited early leaders like Justice Louis Brandeis and Justice Felix Frankfurter. "But it didn't live up to expectations," he said, citing the low figures of American aliyah.

Large-scale aliyah from the U.S. "could have made all the difference," Arens said, in Israel's struggles with its Arab neighbors.

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Political Insider: Lieberman Sticks with Preacher McCain Rejected

This week's Jewish Week asked whether Sen. Joe Lieberman, a Connecticut independent and top John McCain supporter, would keep his promise to speak at pastor John Hagee's Christian Zionist summit in July, now that the minister's endorsement has been rejected by McCain.

It didn't take long to get an answer: on Wednesday, Lieberman said he had no plans to reverse his decision. Here's his statement in full:

"I believe that Pastor Hagee has made comments that are deeply unacceptable and hurtful. I also believe that a person should be judged on the entire span of his or her life's works. Pastor Hagee has devoted much of his life to fighting anti-Semitism and building bridges between Christians and Jews. The organization that he has helped build, Christians United for Israel (CUFI), is a vital force in supporting the war against terrorism and defending our ally, Israel. I will go to the CUFI Summit in July and speak to the people who have come to Washington from all over our country to express their support of America and Israel,  based on our shared eternal values and our shared contemporary challenges in the war against terrorism. At that conference, I will also make it clear that it is imperative that our language is always respectful and tolerant of all of our fellow citizen."

Why is Lieberman sticking with Hagee when McCain, his choice for president, has rejected the televangelist?

Several political activists close to Lieberman say the answer is simple: whatever his reservations about Hagee's theology, the independent senator and only Orthodox Jewish in the Senate believes that in a world where Israel seems increasingly isolated, the friendship of a man who commands a religious audience of over 100 million every week can't be spurned.

Liberal groups are making hay out of Lieberman's decision to speak at the conference, but as the Jewish Week reported this week, Lieberman's decision doesn't seem to conflict with the views of most American Jewish leaders, who are willing to overlook Hagee's writings and sermons because of his support for the Jewish state.

Lieberman's decision also reflects a politician who, having survived his own party's rejection after he lost a Democratic primary in 2006, doesn't like to be pushed around, Capitol Hill observers say.

For some Democrats, Lieberman's decision is a welcome one.

One way they hope to minimize his impact on the presidential election and his appeal as a former Democrat who now believes the presumptive Republican nominee is better on terrorism and national security is to portray him as someone who is in synch with the Republicans on a whole range of issues.

How better to do that than to point to his continued association with the controversial televangelist?

What remains unclear is how Lieberman's Hagee connection will play with the Jewish voters he is expected to target on behalf of McCain, especially in Florida.

The conventional political wisdom is that the influence of the Christian right is a primary reason why Jews tend to stick close to the Democratic Party on election day.

The Democrats will do their best to keep attention focused on Hagee's controversial statements about the Holocaust and his apocalyptic writings; McCain may have thrown Hagee overboard, but Lieberman's continued connection to the pastor and his appearance at this summer's CUFI conference will help them keep the issue alive.

That, they hope, will help keep a strong majority of Jewish voters in the Democratic fold.

But the Republicans are already hard at work exploiting anxieties about Sen. Barack Obama's pro-Israel commitment;  for the swing Jewish voters they are targeting, Joe Lieberman's status as a Jewish icon and a top defender of Israel may trump traditional concerns about the religious right.

As more and more analysts are saying, the presidential election could once again hinge on Florida - a state where Joe Lieberman's stature among Jewish voters may not be diminished by his continued Hagee connection.

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Political Insider: Sliwa Could Be Jewish Favorite In Race For Vito's Seat

Curtis Sliwa isn't Jewish. But you'd be hard pressed to find a more passionate defender of Israel and just about any other Jewish cause. And he's probably been the guest of honor at more Jewish institution dinners than many a Jewish politician.

Speaking at yeshiva dinner in Brooklyn a couple of years ago, the streetwise Guardian Angels founder and radio host implored the students to be proud of their identity and "never let anyone try to take it away from you."

So the report today that Sliwa sent a letter to the Staten Island Republican chairman expressing interest in the race to succeed scandal-plagued Rep. Vito Fossella should generate some excitement in the borough's growing Jewish community.

"I'm sure that you will be able to find a well-known or well-qualified candidate, with a distinguished record of public service," Sliwa said in a letter to John Friscia yesterday, as reported by the Staten Island Advance. "If however the party is unable to, if you think it would be of help, I might be willing to be considered as a possible candidate."

There were about 51,000 people living in Jewish households as of the 2002 Jewish Community Study, or about 12 percent of the overall population of New York's least populous borough. That number has likely increased with an influx of Russian-speaking Jewish immigrants, who tend to be conservative voters. The congressional district now held by Fossella also includes part of Brooklyn's Bay Ridge.

Rabbi Chaim N. Segal of Staten Island's New Springville Jewish Center , said Sliwa was well-known  among the 200 families in his congregation.

"Curtis has been to our shul in good times and not so good times and has always been a friend when we needed one," said the rabbi. "Everyone judges a candidate on many different things, but from the perspective of a community rabbi he has always been there when we needed him."

Fossella recently announced he'll finish his term this year but won't seek re-election following an arrest for drunk driving, which led to revelations that he has a child with a woman other than his wife, a former military liaison he met on a foreign junket.

The Democrat seeking the seat will most likely be City Councilman Michael McMahon, the Daily News reported.

A New York fixture for three decades,  Sliwa is one of the most identifiable New Yorkers, still sporting the red beret and satin Guardian Angels jacket he originated in the 70s when he formed the civilian patrol (some say vigilante) group. He has few negatives, other than his own admission that he fabricated some of the Angels' exploits in the beginning for the sake of promotion.

During the 1991 Crown Heights riots, Sliwa organized his Angels to ferry besieged Jewish residents from their home to safety in a patrol member's truck.

In a 1994 interview with The Jewish Week, he told Stewart Ain that as a child he had been influenced by relatives and teachers to fear Jews, but later resolved to fight anti-Semitism, often telling non-Jewish audiences to "knock off the Jew-bashing crap."

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Political Insider: McCain Faces Evangelical Dilemma After Hagee-Parsley Repudiation

Sen. John McCain's decision to reject the endorsements of Pastors John Hagee and Rod Parsley (see this week's Jewish Week story here ) could bolster support from centrist swing voters - including some Jews who are inclined to vote Republican but remain concerned about the influence of the religious right on the Republican Party.

But as political scientist John Green noted in the Jewish Week story, the repudiation could hurt McCain with GOP evangelicals whose strong support he still needs in November.

Today the Washington Post looks more closely at how McCain's repudiation could impact the evangelical vote ( read it here ).

The Post story focuses more on Parsley, an Ohio megachurch pastor, than on Hagee.  Parsley, the Post notes, "calls Islam a 'false religion' that God has told America to destroy."

But the preacher has "growing clout" among evangelical Christians, the Post notes - and his ministry is based in Ohio, a critical swing state.

So while possibly helping McCain with non-evangelical swing voters, his repudiation of Parsley and Hagee - who have a combined TV and radio audience of over 100 million -- could worsen the presumptive GOP nominee's problem with evangelical voters.

Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics, in an email interview with the Jewish Week before the latest chapter in the Hagee-Parsley saga, said that McCain faces a difficult balancing act as he deals with an evangelical constituency that remains deeply skeptical about his commitment to their social values agenda.

"McCain is dancing on several high wires simultaneously," Sabato said. "He has to keep Bush's remaining 30 percent (in public support) but he has to appear sufficiently anti-Bush to win 20 percent from those disaffected with Bush.  He needs the fundamentalists but if they are too public and happy with McCain, he can't capture enough highly educated, high income suburbanites. So he tap dances across the wires."

In fact, his repudiation of the televangelists' endorsements fits with a high-stakes gamble the McCain campaign is making.

Instead of focusing efforts on the GOP core - the strategy George W. Bush rode to the White House twice - the campaign will work hard to win over swing voters.

The risk with that strategy: the McCain campaign can't afford too much of a backlash from the evangelicals, the GOP's most reliable supporters.  A decision by millions of evangelicals to sit out this year's presidential contest  -- something that may be more likely with last week's Hagee-Parsley eruption -- could prove disastrous for McCain.

It should be noted that Barack Obama, the likeliest Democratic nominee, faces a similar problem. He needs the party's liberal base and a huge turnout from African-American voters to win in November.  

But too much of a focus on those groups in the campaign could turn off critical swing voters, especially in the South.

And that includes some Jewish swing voters.

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A Rabbi's World: Can You Hear Me Now?

Is there such a thing as "virtual closeness?"

As I write, my married son and his wife are in Israel for the year, my older daughter is living in Manhattan, my younger daughter is in Poland with her senior class and about to depart for Israel for a year, and one son remains at home. 

As I get older and my children move, one by one, inexorably away from the nest, I find that what I crave the most is having them all in the same place at the same time.  It is increasingly rare to achieve my favorite actualization of that longing- to have them all sitting around our Shabbat dinner table, like the fruitful vine that the ancient psalmist envisioned. 

I find it the harshest realization of aging.  Though it is the way of nature, watching them leave one by one nonetheless reflects a loss of something more precious than words, a stage of life that can never be reclaimed.

More than any generation that has ever lived, ours is blessed with  technology that "connects" us to those who are far away, in immediate and previously inconceivable ways.  I can be on top of an ancient shrine in Teotihuacán in Mexico and call my wife in her office in Manhattan, as I did on my cell phone a few years ago (just to make her a bit jealous…).  I can video-skype with my children in Jerusalem, e-mail one daughter, g-chat the other…. Yes indeed, the technology is amazing and awe-inspiring, but at the end of the day, it's all "virtual" contact, lacking the immediacy of a good hug, or a sweet kiss.

And, of course, the same technology that enables this "virtual connection" also enslaves people like me in our work lives.  It used to be the case that one could be unreachable occasionally, and the world somehow continued to spin on its axis.  Even rabbis.  But these days, there is no such thing as being unreachable.  Data phones, laptops, wifi…. Is one ever alone?  It is so ironic to me that the same technology that works so hard to connect us in positive ways has also served to deprive us of any solitude.  The technology is wonderful, but not redemptive.

I increasingly hear discussions of the potential for technology to bring people together, and it sounds wonderful. 

People are talking about "virtual minyans" to connect the home-bound to a synagogue service (but can you say kaddish from your bedroom when the minyan is somewhere else?), and, of course, using teleconferencing to more effectively reach those who might never be able to come to a convention.  But in both cases, it seems to me that something precious is lost without the human contact and sociability that are part of real encounters.

All in all, I'd rather have all this imperfect technology than not have it.  Like so many people, e-mail is my primary means of communication for work, and my iPhone enables me to actually do work no matter where I am.  But when all is said and done, I'd still like to have my kids around the Shabbat table….

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Political Insider: The Last Word on Obama-as-a-Muslim (Well, Probably Not)

Is Sen. Barack Obama, the leading Democratic presidential candidate, a secret Muslim? He says he isn't, but sources who claim to know better - anonymous emailers, mostly, along with some conservative bloggers who say being a Muslim is a matter of blood, not belief, say he is.

The saucy internet publication Jewcy has the most creative response to the ongoing Obama-as-a-Muslim rumors. On their front page Jewcy editors boldly ask: Is Barack Obama a Muslim? 

Their succinct answer can be found here, along with links to prove their point.

But how can CNN, MSNBC, several reputable urban legend debunking sites and even Fox News possibly know as much as your Uncle Manny in Boca, who passed on the latest anti-Barack email?

Convinced?  No, I didn't think so.

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Route 17:  Obama Backer: Zionists Wanted Holocaust

That sure was terrible, what Rev. John Hagee said about the Holocaust, that it was God's way of sending the Jews back to Israel. Almost as bad as what Hamas says about the Holocaust and Jews.

Hagee, of course, was a major supporter of John McCain, until this fuss led McCain to reject Hagee' endorsement, and Hagee to withdraw his endorsement after McCain's rejection.

And Obama has rejected his endorsement by Hamas.

Have you ever heard of a rabbi linking God's will, the Shoah and the founding of Israel? You've heard dozens of rabbis do that.

Let's be honest. No one takes Hagee's theology seriously, not McCain and not the many Jewish journalists who are all over the Hagee story.

The main goal for too many journalists on this story is that it is a chance to hurt McCain by balancing out the flack over Obama's crazy preacher and his other crackpot supporters.

Hey, you see, McCain has a nutty preacher, too, so there. (Even if McCain didn't sit in his pew and write him checks for 20 years).

Of course, some of the same Jewish journalists who are chasing down every angle of Hagee did next to nothing to chase down the Jeremiah Wright embarrassment (until that story was too big to ignore) and did nothing to chase down the Hamas endorsement of Barack Obama and nothing about what Hamas has been saying about Jews and the Holocaust almost every week.

Let's see, it's politically incorrect to say Obama's middle name, his father's religion, his childhood education, his wife, his radical Palestinian supporters in his home district, his association with former terrorists from the Weathermen underground, and now we can't bring up the Hamas endorsement - all official "smears." For the first time in American history, a candidate's unauthorized bio is off-limits. And too many journalists, usually so quick to defend and revere the media's crucial role in informing the public, so quick to defy any repression, go meekly along with Obama's censorship because, well, some of them want Obama to be president, simple as that. Nothing that might embarrass Obama is important, just a coincidence.

It's just a tremendous coincidence that when an endorser of McCain says something embarrassing, it's a huge story, and when Hamas endorses Obama and that could embarrass Obama, it's ignored for weeks.

Just two weeks ago, The Jewish Week published an editorial against "Guilt By Association,"  encouraging readers not to presume Obama's guilt because of his many troubling associations. Presumably, Obama supporters who cheered the wisdom of that editorial will not make a big deal about McCain's association with Hagee.

Yeah, right.

And since the Jewish media is so concerned with what Hagee said about Jews and the Holocaust, here's what Obama's Hamas supporters say about Jews and the Holocaust, because clearly it is very important what endorsers say about Jews and the Holocaust: Obama's supporters in Hamas say that Ben-Gurion and the Zionists were OK with the Holocaust as a way to get rid of the elderly Jews and the weak Jews that the new Jewish State didn't want or need.

You can see a video clip from Hamas television here , read it here , and here.

You want another good clip? How about this TV clip from Al-Jazeera
 showing how radical Palestinians have put together a sophisticated (albeit unofficial) campaign office for Obama in Gaza?

I'm told that I should be sacred of McCain's Christian Zionist supporters but I should not be scared of Obama's anti-Zionist Islamic supporters.

But the guys in Hagee's church don't want to kill me.

The guys on Al-Jazeera do.

I bet some guys in Wright's pews wouldn't mind, either.

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Political Insider: Put Relations with Hagee's Pro-Israel Group on "Hold," Foxman Says

As Sen. John McCain was cutting ties to Pastor John Hagee, the controversial Christian Zionist leader whose endorsement he sought, a top Jewish leader also changed course and called for ties to Hagee's pro-Israel group to be put on "hold," the Jewish Week has learned.

"It's now necessary for us to look at the totality of (Hagee's) views, said Abraham Foxman, national  director of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), in a Jewish Week interview on Thursday.  In the past Foxman has defended the growing nexus of relations between Jewish and pro-Israel groups and Hagee's Christians United for Israel (CUFI).

Hagee has "started to deal with some of the issues" raised by his controversial books and sermons, which deal extensively with Biblical prophecy and the role of Israel and the Jews, "but not in a satisfactory manner; it's not quick enough and not sufficient," Foxman said.

The latest Hagee eruption started with newly surfaced audio tapes of a sermon in the late 1990s in which the CUFI leader, citing Jeremiah, likened Adolf Hitler to a "hunter" sent by God to force creation of a Jewish state. 

"A hunter is someone with a gun, and he forces you," Hagee said. "Hitler was a hunter. . . . How did it happen? Because God allowed it to happen. Why did it happen? Because God said, 'my top priority for the Jewish people is to get them to come back to the land of Israel.'"

Last year, the Jewish Week reported on statements in Hagee's books that the Jews' "disobedience and rebellion" were in part responsible for "the opposition and persecution that they experienced beginning in Canaan and continuing to this very day... Their own rebellion had birthed the seed of anti-Semitism that would arise and bring destruction to them for centuries to come."

After announcing Hagee's endorsement in February, the presumptive GOP nominee faced growing pressure to repudiate the megachurch minister, first from a Catholic civil rights group which expressed concerns about some of Hagee's pronouncements about the Church, and gay groups, upset about Hagee's statement that Hurricane Katrina was, in part, God's judgment on New Orleans because of its tolerance of gays and lesbians.

But major Jewish leaders - with the exception of Rabbi Eric Yoffie, president of the Union for Reform Judaism - were mostly silent, in part because of the political support for Israel Hagee was seen as able to mobilize, in part because of the millions of dollars he has raised for the Jewish state.

Hagee was a keynote speaker at last year's policy conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), an honor that has helped insulate him from criticism from pro-Israel leaders.

In a letter to Hagee this week, Yoffie said "to blame the victims for the Holocaust and to suggest that they brought it on themselves is a desecration of their name and their memory, and an insult to the survivors and their descendents who thankfully remain in our midst today,"

While earlier revelations prompted McCain to say only that he rejected some of Hagee's views, the newly revealed tapes led the lawmaker to sever ties with the controversial pastor.

"Obviously, I find these remarks and others deeply offensive and indefensible, and I repudiate them," McCain said in a statement on Thursday. "I did not know of them before Reverend Hagee's endorsement, and I feel I must reject his endorsement as well."

Hagee, minutes before McCain repudiated his endorsement, said his views were "grossly" misrepresented.

"I am tired of these baseless attacks and fear that they have become a distraction in what should be a national debate about important issues," he said. "I have therefore decided to withdraw my endorsement of Senator McCain for President effective today, and to remove myself from any active role in the 2008 campaign."

A big question mark in the wake of the controversy: what will it mean for relations between CUFI, Hagee's pro-Israel group, and the Jewish groups that have been expanding ties to it?

Foxman's statement that relations should be put on "hold" could represent a turning point in those relations, several veteran Jewish observers said this week.

His big financial contributions to Israel, Foxman said, "do not vitiate and cleanse" Hagee. "Pastor Hagee is entitled to support Israel from any perspective he wants. But his comments damage his relationship with the Jewish community."

It will also be harder for Jewish leaders to ignore Hagee's apocalyptic writings when John McCain himself deemed his sermon remarks about Hitler "crazy and unacceptable."

Also unclear: has Sen. Joe Lieberman, a top McCain supporter who last year likened Hagee to Moses at the CUFI gala in Washington, had a change of heart about the preacher?

A Lieberman spokesman said the senator was traveling this week and so is unavailable for comment.

McCain also cut ties with the Rev. Rod Parsley, whose anti-Islam sermons have stirred controversy.

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A Rabbi's World:  Israel After Bush

Now that the love-fest is over and President Bush has "left the building," so to speak, Israelis are left to ponder life after him.  The conference on tomorrow organized by Shimon Peres afforded the Israeli government the chance to say thank you to the man who has been, in his gut, arguably the most sympathetically inclined towards Israel's precarious security position of any American president in recent memory.

But George Bush is a lame duck, and like Americans, Israelis are contemplating what is to follow.  To be sure, the average Israeli cares not a whit about American domestic policy, what kind of judges the next president is likely to appoint to the Supreme Court, or the future of Social Security.  Israelis care only about how the next president will feel about their particular situation vis-à-vis the Palestinians, Hamas, and Hizbullah, and George Bush's imminent departure from office has them feeling downright queasy.

Nowhere was this more apparent to me during my recent visit than when I spoke with people in what we might call here the "modern Orthodox" community- the religious Zionists most commonly identified by their kippah s'rugah (crocheted kippah). 

Almost to a one, the religious Jews that I spoke to evidenced a visceral distrust of Barack Obama, bordering on hostility.  At first I thought it had mostly to do with Senator Obama's minister, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, and his bizarre take on Israel and the world.  But after having many of these conversations (transplanted Americans were so anxious to talk about this!), it became much clearer to me what the source of their anxiety was.  They were used to Bush and his certainty about things.  Black is black, white is white, you know who the good guys are and who are the bad guys are, end of story.

Not so with Barack Obama, they said.  And the truth is, they're right.  Barack Obama is, by all appearances, a much more cerebral and contemplative person than George W. Bush.  He doesn't see the world in absolutes, and is much more inclined to appreciate and embrace the complexity of an issue- any issue- than to whole-heartedly adopt one side to the exclusion of the other.

Here in the United States, there is mounting evidence that large numbers of Americans are yearning for just that kind of president.  Many Americans are  maxed out on post 9-11 anxiety, and regard the ongoing war on terror and its accompanying assault on civil liberties as a catastrophe for this country.  Abu Ghraib, water boarding, checking library records, wiretapping… one has the sense that there is a collective readiness to breathe in different air, and work towards repairing America's eroded position in the world as a beacon of freedom and liberty.  They do not see a war on terror and the civil liberties that are the hallmark of this country as mutually exclusive.

For my friends and family in the religious community in Israel, this willingness to not only admit to the existence of gray areas but actually predicate policy on it is terribly threatening.  What many Americans see as President Bush's simplistic view of the world, they see as moral clarity.  For them, of course, it is an existential issue.  There's little room for gray in the world as they see it, when katyushas are landing on your shopping centers,  kassams on Sderot, and the president of Iran is declaring you to be a "rotting corpse."  But they also know that Americans have concerns other than Israel… and that is terribly unsettling to them.

I understand them, and I understand us.  What makes it so complicated, of course, is that I- and so many like me- are both them and us.  For me, what Abu Ghraib represents is the nadir of American foreign policy.  I abhor the idea and reality of Americans torturing prisoners.  But I abhor terrorists and terrorism too, and like every lover of Israel, I know that terrorism is real, and threatening.

There are miles to go before I make any kind of decision in all this.

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Political Insider: South Carolina 'Christian License Plates' Irk American Jewish Congress 

South Carolina, the state some Christians want to see secede from the Union to become a political Garden of Eden for evangelicals, has run afoul of the American Jewish Congress.

This week the group weighed in with Gov. Mark Sanford, urging him to veto a bill creating state license plates that say "I believe," along with the image of a cross.

Marc Stern, the AJCongress' tireless church-state warrior and general counsel, said in a letter to Sanford that "it is long since settled that the government may not lend its support to one religion by permanently displaying on its own behalf the religious symbols of one faith."

Private parties, he said, can display whatever religious symbols they want on their cars  - those ubiquitous fish symbols come to mind -- or even purchase vanity plates with religious messages, such as references to Bible verses.

But the state goes too far when it "creates special Christian plates by special legislation, with no assurances that other faiths could obtain similar legislative approval for plates of their faiths," Stern wrote.

In other words, it's a big church-state no-no.

That brings up an interesting point; how would South Carolina legislators respond if Jewish groups sought create a special plate - maybe saying "chosen," along with a menorah? And would the state's reaction be if local Muslims called for plates with their own slogans and symbols?

The South Carolina Senate has already passed the Christian license plate bill; it is pending in the state's General Assembly.

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Route 17: Camelot And Demographics

James Taranto’s “Best of the Web” column at Wall Street Journal Online once suggested a perfect Broadway show tune for the global warming nannies who want to legislate (or dictate) our response to the rumored change in the weather.

“A law was made a distant moon ago here:
July and August cannot be too hot.
And there's a legal limit to the snow here
In Camelot.
The winter is forbidden till December
And exits March the second on the dot.
By order, summer lingers through September
In Camelot.
… The snow may never slush upon the hillside.
By nine p.m. the moonlight must appear.
In short, there's simply not
A more congenial spot
For happily-ever-aftering than here
In Camelot.”

Actually, I wanted to write something about Israel, but global warming got me thinking: The idea that Israel is doomed by Arab demographics has become the most over-hyped scientific theory since global warming – a theory based on statistical possibility that hysterics have confused with an incontrovertible decree, as if the statistics are fate, incapable of reversal without massive legislation.

We have to trust Al Gore more than we can count on God to fix global warming. After all, the Ice Age and the original global warming that melted the glaciers happened on God’s watch, so what does He know? Instead, we decide to be like the Three Little Bears, the weather can't be too cold, the weather can't be too hot, the weather must be juuuuust right. Or panic.

God even decides how many babies are born, so demographics start with Him, too. He hardens hearts and He softens hearts, and from softened hearts come babies. Demographic statistics are about people: People change, parents are blessed, baby booms come and go, fertility rates rise and fall, no reason to panic. I trust God on that sort of thing.

Of course, leftists revel in the demographic threat, not the least because it is the logic behind the demand that Israel has to promptly surrender all Jewish presence on the West Bank (if not the Galilee) or risk losing her Jewish character -- eventually. The left sees demographics as a battle in which Israel can’t be saved by her economic and military advantages, her defeat is pre-ordained.

One can make the case that leftists are as obsessed with apocalyptic End of Days scenarios as are the extreme Christians with their “Left Behind” series. The left just sees the End of Days coming from a different direction, not Jesus rising but a rising thermometer; a rising Islamic birth rate.

In fact, Jewish mothers in Israel (religious and secular) are now having more children (per mom) than anywhere else in the Western world, and more children than in parts of the Arab world.

Even the Arabs are expressing their own doubts regarding their demographic destiny.

In Al-Hayat (April 14), a Lebanese paper, Elias Harfoush asks, “Shall we give birth to our children to turn them into new numbers on the lists of martyrs? Is this the fate we prepare our new generations for while the children of the world go to schools and universities, seeking knowledge and specialization? …. [Is] this reproduction machine, now the only source of ‘our pride,’ limited to the Palestinians alone? Are the Israelis, especially those religiously committed, not ‘working’ in the same way? … Consequently, assuring victory in this bedroom race cannot be guaranteed and may lead us to a new catastrophe if we rely on it to achieve ‘victory’ just as the case was in our political and war races.”

But Harfoush believes the Arab birth rate can still “contribute to the destruction of the Jewish state [every bit as much] as Ahmedinejad’s nuclear project,” but “there is no pleasure involved in Ahmedinejad’s project, whereas our project involves nothing less than full pleasure, and this may be its best advantage and its best raison d’Ítre!”

Well. Two can play that game, and several million Israelis are.

The Cold War had its arms race but is this how the Middle East will end, not with a boom but a baby boom?

For another way to see things, check out this piece in Hong Kong’s Asia Times Online, referred to in this week’s Media Watch, in which Israel is not only projected as the ultimate winner in the demographic sweepstakes but Israel is crowned “the happiest country on earth."

The “happiest country on earth?” Come to think of it, didn't most of us find it a most congenial spot? The weather’s great, the way you’d figure in a land where “the sun stood still, the moon stayed in place,” [Joshua 10:13], and summer lingers through September.

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Political Insider: Huckabee Headlines Jerusalem Reclamation Dinner

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, a dropout from the GOP presidential field who said on Sunday's "Meet the Press" that he'd love to be John McCain's running mate, will appear at the New York dinner of the Jerusalem Reclamation Project on June 2.

The organization, also known as Ateret Cohanim, is devoted to buying formerly Jewish property in and around Jerusalem's Old City to strengthen Jewish presence there.

"Our dinner will be enhanced by Governor Huckabee's presence," said Joseph Frager, JRP's board chairman in a statement.

Unlike other prominent Christian conservatives, such as Rev. John Hagee, Huckabee, who is a Southern Baptist minister, has steered clear of apocalyptic pronouncements about the need to gather Jews in Israel as a precursor to the Second Coming. But he did cause a stir with his 1998 call for Christians to "take this nation back for Christ.."

Political observers say picking Huckabee for the second slot on the ticket could help Sen. John McCain, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee, ensure a strong turnout from the party's evangelical wing - a key worry of his campaign strategists. But choosing Huckabee could also cut into McCain's expected gains with Jewish swing voters.

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Route 17:  The Four Sons Of Pesach Sheni

Today (May 19) is Pesach Sheni, the best holiday nobody ever heard of, the day when there are no sins, only second chances (read the Jewish Week story here )

Was there ever a greater Pesach Sheni than in 1945? Like so many others, my Uncle Zisha was a Nazi slave on Pesach, 1945. He was liberated April 11. Two weeks later, on Pesach Sheni, Zisha had his seder.

This Pesach, Garrison Keillor’s Prairie Home Companion (April 19), on the night of the seder, featured a beautiful version of Adir Hu, gentle as a hymn, and a rollicking Daynenu (is there any other kind? Was there ever any other niggun?) by “The Guy’s All-Star Shoe Band.”

If you missed it, on Pesach Sheni (or any time) you can hear it by clicking here  (and scrolling to the show’s third segment).

We Jews are a lesser people than we were in 1973. That year we were profoundly offended by the cold infamy of Egypt’s attack on Yom Kippur, an attack against holiness itself. In 2008, I didn’t hear one person – not one – speak of the infamy of Hamas rockets being fired into Israel on seder night. As we slink away, deeper into exile, who even notices anymore?

The seder-night rockets and silence (beyond Sderot) surely were inscribed in the Book of Chronicles that will be read aloud in Heaven during the Days of Awe when the world is judged.

Miki Goldwasser, mother of captive Ehud Goldwasser, wrote a letter to her son that was published in an Israeli newspaper (and reprinted, surely, in the Book of Chronicles) before the seder. If you didn’t see it on Pesach, let it be in our Haggadah for Pesach Sheni:

She writes:

“Udi, my child,

“A second Pesach is here. Do you even know that the seder will be held Saturday night? Can you smell the spring? The scents of flowers blossoming, which you love so much? Can you hear the singing of the
birds that you photographed so often?

“My son, my heart bleeds for you. My arms turn to stone when they cannot embrace you. I know that you know. After all, I can feel you flowing through my body.

“Udi, I would like to tell you how in this country, which you went out to protect with the love and dedication that is so typical to you, thousands of people are joining the call to free you and free Eldad and Gilad.

“You know, at the beginning of the struggle I thought that only we, the families, would have to fight against an indifferent government…. Yet slowly we are discovering that thousands upon thousands are joining the fight…. Udi, an entire nation, including its Diaspora, are sending their feelings to you, Eldad, and Gilad. They are sending their hope to see you soon, at home.

“We shall place an additional glass of wine next to the glass of Eliyahu HaNavi, and may you, our abducted sons, enter through the open door.

[signed] “Mom, dad, your Karnit, and your brothers, who all miss you.”

Tonight, and soon, may Ehud, Eldad and Gilad have their seder as Zisha once did -- the Four Sons of Pesach Sheni.

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Political Insider: AIPAC Policy Conference Poses Tough Choices for Obama,  but Does it Matter?

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) doesn't want folks to forget that it is the most powerful pro-Israel lobby in the known universe even as the press chatters about the arrival on the scene of a potential competitor - J Street, the lobby and political action committee intended to boost a pro-peace process point of view.

AIPAC's upcoming policy conference will feature all three remaining presidential candidates - Sen. Hillary Clinton, Sen. John McCain and Sen. Barack Obama - in addition to the usual throngs of House and Senate members, administration officials and political hopefuls.

Reporters will try to portray the reception the presidential candidates get from the AIPAC crowd as a measure of how well they are likely to do with Jewish voters in November. 

But that misses the fact that AIPAC activists tend to be more conservative, more Republican and far more focused on the single issue of Israel than the broader Jewish electorate. 

Last year, Vice President Dick Cheney got an enthusiastic reception from policy conference attendees while House Speaker Nancy Pelosi generated some audible boos - but even Jewish Republicans wouldn't argue Cheney is more popular with Jewish voters in general than Pelosi. 

McCain will offer up tough talk about Iran and fighting terrorism, red meat for the AIPAC audience - as Pastor John Hagee, the "Christian Zionist" leader, demonstrated last year. Obama, who has advocated talking to Iran, will walk in the door with a built-in disadvantage.

The likely Democratic nominee still has some huge pluses with Jewish voters - including his positions on an array of domestic issues and his opposition to the Iraq war - but those advantages will be mostly neutralized before the single-issue AIPAC crowd.

What will be interesting: will Obama talk about his views about Mideast peacemaking? Those views seem similar to those of the Bush administration, the Israeli government and - according to some polls - a majority of American Jews in terms of advocating serious negotiations on the rage of "final status" issues with the goal of creating a Palestinian state.

But expressing those positions at AIPAC could generate a reaction from the crowd that could reinforce the impression he has a Jewish problem; just imagine the YouTube videos.

AIPAC officials, in their contacts with the press, are making it clear that for all the talk about J Street as an AIPAC "alternative," only AIPAC itself can attract all the presidential candidates and congressional leaders.

J Street leaders don't dispute that; it was the press, not the new group's leadership, that depicted it as a kind of instant alternative to the pro-Israel lobby.

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Behind the Headlines: Israel And The Press - An Ongoing Battle

Some things never change.

Taking part in a panel the other night at the JCC in Manhattan on "Israel, The Jews and The Press: Exploding the Myths," my colleagues -- Clyde Haberman of the New York Times and Sam Freedman of the Columbia Journalism School and the Times -- and I felt like we were in a time warp. The questions from the overflow audience of about 100 people began with a request for a response to a 1992 NPR report that appeared to be biased against Israel, and included a complaint about Peter Jennings, the ABC-TV correspondent and anchor who the questioner referred to as "Peter of Arabia." Jennings died almost three years ago.

It's not surprising that people have long memories when it comes to slights, whether it be in their personal lives or in reading, watching or listening to media reports, especially when it comes to caring Jews following the Mideast conflict.

I understand that, and often share the frustration of reading a report that is unbalanced, lacking in perspective or just plain uninformed.

But we also have to realize that the Mideast narrative has changed over the years, and the media has changed with it. When Israel won the 1967 war, it was the darling of the mainstream press. But after the Yom Kippur War six years later and the resulting oil shortage, Israel was transformed from David to Goliath, the powerful military presence in the Mideast oppressing helpless Palestinians.

Israel of the last 25 years is known for enduring two intifadas, the assassination of a prime minister, and widespread charges of corruption in its various governments - not exactly inspiring events. It's also, of course, the country that has led the way in medical, agricultural, scientific and economic advances despite being under almost constant attack from those who would prefer it destroyed.

Israel's story, and message, are complicated. It sees itself as victim, a tiny democratic state surrounded by tens of millions of Arabs who oppose its very existence. But others see Israel as a powerful state still keeping Palestinians from independence.

There is no doubt that the mainstream media is so focused on symmetry and "fairness" in telling the story of the Mideast conflict that it fails to point out the context, most notably that Israeli leaders (and citizens) from left to right now welcome a Palestinian state, while Palestinian leaders across the board are unwilling or unable to meet the minimum requirement for a peace deal: stopping the violence. Or that Palestinians target Israeli civilians on purpose while casualties inflicted by Israeli soldiers on Palestinian civilians are the unintended result of firing on militants who purposefully place themselves in the midst of innocents.

But on balance, American mainstream reporters are doing their best at telling a complex and highly charged story, and we have to recognize our own biases and unrealistic expectations of having every Mideast story reinforce our own point of view.

That was the message our panel tried to convey the other night, but I'm not at all certain we changed anyone's mind.

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Political Insider: Partisan Politics Mars Israel's 60th?

President Bush's trip to Israel to help commemorate its 60th anniversary was supposed to be all about the Jewish state and its accomplishments over six decades. Instead, after his speech to the Knesset and the fierce reaction at home, it was all about partisan politics, at least according to the headlines it generated.

By now you know that Bush blasted those who he said call for "appeasement" with the likes of Iran. He didn't mention Sen. Barack Obama, who says that perhaps negotiations with Iran might be a way to help prevent it from getting nuclear weapons, but most media analysts say he was the obvious target.

Here's what the President said:

"Some seem to believe we should negotiate with terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along. We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: 'Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided.' We have an obligation to call this what it is - the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history."

NBC news called it the "political shot heard around the world."  Watch the complete NBC report here.

Bush's words generated this response from Obama:

"George Bush knows that I have never supported engagement with terrorists, and the president's extraordinary politicization of foreign policy and the politics of fear do nothing to secure the American people or our stalwart ally Israel."

Sen. John McCain, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee, defended Bush's comments about negotiating with terrorists, saying: "Yes, there have been appeasers in the past. The president is exactly right. One of them was named Neville Chamberlain."

But James Rubin, the former State Department spokesman under President Bill Clinton,  dug up an interview with McCain only two years ago, just after Hamas won parliamentary elections, when McCain said this:

"They're the government; sooner or later we are going to have to deal with them, one way or another, and I understand why this administration and previous administrations had such antipathy towards Hamas because of their dedication to violence and the things that they not only espouse but practice, so… but it's a new reality in the Middle East. I think the lesson is people want security and a decent life and decent future, that they want democracy. Fatah was not giving them that."

(Read Rubin's Washington Post op-ed here)

Barack Obama has advocated talks with Syria and Iran, but never Hamas.  A  Newsday blogger asked this: "Will Bush start to call... McCain the Nazi Appeaser?" (Read the complete entry here).

A host of Jewish Democrats responded furiously, claiming Bush broke protocol by using a diplomatic mission  -- and one meant to celebrate the Jewish state, at that --  to take political shots at the Democrats.

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) called his comments "beyond outrageous. To stand before the government of Israel and insinuate that Democrats are akin to those who tried to appease Hitler shows that the President is apparently ignorant of history. The President should know that his virulent and false assessment is even more dangerous than the worst partisan politics."

Ira Forman, executive director of National Jewish Democratic Council (NJDC), said  "It is disappointing that President Bush and his aides would have the gall to use a historic speech to the Knesset in celebration of the 60th anniversary of Israel's independence to launch a cheap and tawdry political attack…it is particularly shameless of Bush to use the red herring of appeasement against those who would suggest changes to his utterly failed polices of containing Iranian adventurism and terrorism in the Middle East."

But Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), a top McCain supporter, praised the president, saying that Bush "got it exactly right today when he warned about the threat of Iran and its terrorist proxies like Hamas and Hezbollah. It is imperative that we reject the flawed and naïve thinking that denies or dismisses the words of extremists and terrorists when they shout 'Death to America' and 'Death to Israel,' and that holds that - if only we were to sit down and negotiate with these killers - they would cease to threaten us."

The Orthodox Union, in its public affairs blog, conceded that "What should have only been an historic moment for the US - Israel relationship has been sucked into the muck of politics by both parties," but said it was because the media drew unjustified conclusions about Obama being the target.

 
And what about the story of Israel's 60th?

Well, it was sort of lost in the storm of controversy about an election 6000 miles away.

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A Rabbi's World:  A Very Thin Line Indeed

You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one.  I hope some day you'll join us, and the world will be as one.

I've spent the past three days wondering what would happen if  I could have put (the late) John Lennon and Israeli President Shimon Peres in the same room.  Like the recurring leitmotif in so many Hassidic folktales,  I think it's possible that the messiah would have come.  Two dreamers, trying to leapfrog over the messiness of this world to see what might lie beyond…

For the past three days, I have been privileged to participate in the special, 60th anniversary conference sponsored by Shimon Peres in Jerusalem.  It was, without a doubt, a most remarkable gathering of world leaders, corporate moguls, technology wizards, writers, poets, playwrights- and relatively ordinary people like myself, representing different subsets of the world-wide Jewish community. 

No matter where I went these past few days, there was always someone of note to talk to, or listen to; Vaclav Havel, Henry Kissinger, of course President Bush, Nathan Englander, Amos Oz, Abby Joseph Cohen, Natan Scharansky, Elie Wiesel, Sergei Brin… so stimulating!  All were charged- within their particular areas of expertise- with articulating a vision of the future, and Israel's place in it. 

But of all these incredibly noteworthy people, none were more impressive- and ultimately puzzling- than Shimon Peres himself.

Bein hazon, yiparah am, wrote Ahad Ha'am.  Without a vision, a nation will come apart at the seams.  Shimon Peres has taken upon himself the challenge of being contemporary Israel's visionary, desperately trying to see beyond the seemingly unending current difficulties to a better tomorrow for his country and his region.

How can you not admire that?  How can you not admire bringing together so many heads of state, Nobel laureates, internet pioneers, in Jerusalem, to celebrate Israel's special birthday and spend a few days in deep thought?  What an audacious idea!  And how magnificently it was accomplished!

But at the same time, where is the line between vision and unreality? 

On the very same day that we were gathered together to celebrate the special relationship between Israel and the United States, and everyone was talking about the inevitable peace that will soon be achieved between Israel and the Palestinians, a shopping mall in Ashkelon was hit by a katyusha from Gaza, and many were hurt.  And this just days after an Israeli woman was killed by a kassam rocket, and another man as well.

I couldn't help but shake my head at the incredible cognitive dissonance of the whole exercise, and wonder who was crazier: me for being mired in today's realities with little hope for any significant improvement in the near future, or Shimon Peres for absolutely refusing to let current realities get in the way of his dream. 

I wish I could share President Peres' vision with the same unvarnished enthusiasm that he musters.  And without a doubt, I'm glad that he is dreaming.  Were he not, who would provide us with a vision to sustain us through the worst moments of the present?  Without it, these days would be even darker.  But I'm afraid there are many painful miles to go in this process before the greatness of his vision can be realized, and I suspect he knows this as well.  Maybe that makes him even greater.

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Political Insider: Why is Obama So Worried About the Jews?

Why is Sen. Barack Obama devoting so much time and energy trying to win over Jewish voters?

On the surface,  the numbers don't add up.  A majority of Jews are going to vote Democratic in November's presidential contest no matter what; does the difference between 61 percent (what Obama scored in a recent Gallup poll) and 74 percent (what John Kerry actually won in 2004) really make that much of a difference?

The word "Florida" quickly comes to mind; the conventional wisdom holds that Florida could once again be decisive, with that state's relatively large Jewish population playing an important role.

But "relatively" is a…well, relative term. There are a lot of Jews in Florida, but they still only comprise about 4 or 5 percent of the total population, although they are a higher percentage of those who actually vote.  And a majority will probably remain in the Democratic column; the only question is how big a majority.

Jewish voters are important  in a number of other "battleground" states such as Pennsylvania, Ohio and Illinois, but the numbers are even smaller and it's hard to imagine how their voting can swing the election unless the margin in November is razor thin.

So why is making nice to the Jews so important to Obama? 

First is the nature of the attacks against him within the Jewish community: that he is a secret Muslim, that he consorts with anti-Israel forces, that he would appease Israel's enemies and make nice to Hamas - charges that go far beyond anything he has said and that stand in contradiction to his stated views.

"He is absolutely obligated to counter those attacks," said Kean University political scientist Gilbert Kahn.  "You can't allow them to go unanswered. There is a lot of anti-Obama feeling in the Jewish community, not just from the Orthodox, and he has to respond to it; he can't afford not to."

Secondly, Jewish campaign giving remains critical to the Democrats and increasingly important to the Republicans.  This year's primaries set spending records, and the general election will make that look like chump change.  Obama can't afford any drop off in giving to the Dems - or to see money shift to the McCain campaign.

And while Jewish voters' decisions are shaped by a broad spectrum of issues, domestic and foreign, Jewish giving tends to be dominated by pro-Israel interests.

Obama also needs to unite a Democratic party badly divided by the brutal, extended primary fight with Sen. Hillary Clinton. Holding the Democratic coalition together in the face of deep political, factional and racial divisions will be hard. 

The Jewish community, traditionally a key element in that coalition, will be a bellwether; if he can't keep the Jews on board in something approximating their traditional presence in the party, he could have a hard time keeping the Democratic coalition from unraveling.

Finally, there's probably a personal element to his emphasis on making nice with the Jews.

Obama's political persona was shaped in large measure by the peculiar politics of Democratic Chicago, where black-Jewish coalitions play a key role.  His meteoric political career has been propelled, to a degree, by his close relations with Chicago's big and politically active Jewish community. 

Maintaining that relationship as he moves onto the national stage is probably personally important to him, as well as politically critical.

In Chicago, his ability to work closely with the Jewish community was a given; it must have come as a rude shock when he found out that things work a little differently on the national level, where miniscule nuances on Mideast questions can spell big trouble.

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This Jewish Life:  The Future

I know where I am going to be until I am 25 years old. 

Last week, I accepted a two-year position at RAC, working full-time on Judicial Nominations-helping the Jewish community and, eventually, the progressive religious community become educated about and more involved with the process.  It will begin a week after my year as a Legislative Assistant is finished. 

I am quite excited about it.  The opportunity to work on Judicial Nominations at the beginning of a new Administration seems impossible to turn down.  And the chance to stay at the RAC for a while longer is incredibly appealing.

And selfishly, I am pleased that I finally have an answer to the seemingly-constant question that I get from friends, family, co-workers, and strangers, "So, what's next in your life?"  Of course, I have learned that having an answer to this question simply prompts people to say, "And then what do you plan to do after that?"  So frustrating.  But, at least I have the first part down.

It's exciting, but it's also a bit overwhelming.  Sometime I can't believe that I have committed myself to something that will not be over until I am 25.  I still feel young enough that 25 should be light years away.  But it's not.  It's only two years from now. 

It's hard for me not to get ahead of myself.    My year as a Legislative Assistant doesn't end until August 8th, but recently, I've been thinking about how my fellow LA's will be leaving soon. 

And, I have been thinking about my new job.  And turning 25.  And wondering what I want to accomplish before I turn 30-because I will only have five years post-RAC to accomplish those goals.  So, all of a sudden, in my head, 30 is just around the corner.

I am reminded of one of my favorite quotes, from Ignazio Silone's Bread and Wine:  "Sometimes I am haunted by the thought that we have only one life and that we live it provisionally, waiting in vain for the day when real life will begin.  And so life passes by.  I assure you that of all the people I know not one lives in the present." 

I think I need to remind myself more often not to let life pass by.  I have decided that working at the RAC and living in DC are fulfilling enough to warrant my hanging around for a while.  So,

I should be taking full advantage of the experiences that I am having here, instead of focusing incessantly on what is coming next. 

But, it's easier said than done… 

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A Rabbi's World: Can You Get There from Here? A Jerusalem Story

As I write this blog, President Bush is making his way to Jerusalem (where I am), to participate in Israeli President Shimon Peres' "Conference on Tomorrow."  The conference itself is quite amazing.  Just this afternoon, Tony Blair chaired a session on visions of the future with Mikhail Gorbachev and some nineteen other heads of state in attendance (all in celebration of Israel's 60th!).  It was heady stuff!  And tomorrow, out of the blue of the western sky (let's see who gets that reference!), comes our own President to join the festivities.  As they would say in Hebrew, yihiyeh po sameah!  It'll be a little loony around here.

Truth to tell, the lunacy has already begun, if only on a practical level.  While here, I'm staying with my son and daughter-in-law who are living for the year in Rehavia, in the center of town.  In their mailbox yesterday was an 8x10 glossy multi-colored sheet detailing all the street closures (and other sundry inconveniences) that the Secret Service is demanding in order to insure the President's safety. And there are already more people wearing the same lapel pin talking into the palms of their hands than you can shake a stick at.  But of course you wouldn't want to shake a stick at these guys; they have no sense of humor.

Basically, they are shutting down downtown Jerusalem.  Not only is the street where the President is staying closed to traffic (King David), but all access roads leading to it, as well as all roads that might conceivably lead to it, are as well.  Additionally, there will be intermittent closures of all the other major arteries (whatever's left!) as both he and his entourage and the other heads of state are shuttled back and forth from the convention center where the conference is being held.

If your car is anywhere near any of these locations, it will be towed.  All of downtown Jerusalem has been warned to "park elsewhere" for the next few days.  You have to know Jerusalem well to appreciate exactly how funny that is.  Parking in Jerusalem makes parking in Manhattan seem like a picnic.  Just "park elsewhere."  Right.

On top of that, almost all of the rental car offices in downtown Jerusalem are across the street from the King David Hotel (where you-know- who is staying).   So if you have to rent a car (which of course I have to do), they are moving their offices and cars to a remote location far away from the center of town (which you won't be able to get to anyway because no taxi will be able to take you there because the streets will all be closed!

Now I'm from New York, and I'm used to street closures.  In fact, former President Clinton visited my synagogue while he was in office, and people are still complaining.  But most of the Jerusalemites I've spoke to would just as soon have President Bush spend the week of sheva brahot for his daughter Jenna in Texas, and leave poor old Jerusalem alone with its regular insufferable traffic.

As an honorary Citizen of Jerusalem for the week of this conference, I must admit to feeling the same way…

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Political Insider: Barack Obama at Israel's 60th Gala

For two days, the Jewish rumor mill in Washington buzzed with talk that Sen. Barack Obama, whose bid for the Democratic presidential nomination now seems all but unstoppable, would show up at the gala Washington celebration marking Israel's 60th anniversary -- joining Vice President Dick Cheney, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and a glittery cast of hundreds.

Sure enough, Obama attended the high-profile gathering and touched all the bases: praising Harry Truman for recognizing Israel, talking about "shared values and a shared history" and  bipartisanship, invoking the name of  Theodor Herzl.

Watch the video here:

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Political Insider: New Poll: Good News for Obama, McCain -- Depending on Spin

Spin is everything in politics, which is why competing campaigns can take the same polling data and convincingly use it as proof their candidates are doing better than their opponents.

That was apparent on Wednesday when Gallup released a new snapshot of Jewish voters (read it here),  and both the Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC) and the Barack Obama campaign sent it out to reporters as if it was unambiguous good news for their side.

The new poll showed Obama doing "better than might be expected among Jewish voters," in the words of the pollsters.

But what, exactly, does that mean? Gallup says it means Obama is "trailing Hillary Clinton only slightly in Jewish Democrats' preferences for the Democratic nomination."

That's good news for the Democratic frontrunner because the assumption from the outset has been that Clinton - with her longstanding connections to the Jewish community, her New York base and her seven years in the Senate - would capture the lion's share of Jewish Democrats.

Perhaps more importantly for Obama, daily tracking polling "finds no recent decline in the percentage of Jewish Democrats favoring Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination," according to Gallup.

Coming after weeks of controversy over the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the Chicago preacher who evokes images of Louis Farrakhan for many Jewish voters, that suggests Obama's "Jewish problem" may not be as deep as Republican spinmeisters claim.

Looking ahead to the general election, the Gallup data shows Obama getting 61 percent against McCain.  That's a solid majority, right?

But that 61 percent isn't particularly good by recent Democratic standards; Sen. John Kerry got 74 percent in 2004.

Thus the enthusiastic press release from the Republican Jewish Coalition.  The poll, the group said, is "another important indicator of the ongoing troubles Barack Obama has with Jewish voters."

The RJC, the release went on, "remains confident that John McCain will continue the trend of the GOP making inroads among Jewish voters."

Indeed, Jewish Republican voting seems on the upswing - unless you take a longer view.  Ronald Reagan won 39 percent of the Jewish vote in 1980, and George H. W. Bush snared 35 percent in 1988, before plunging to 11 percent in 1992.

In fact, the GOP average tally from Jewish voters in presidential contests in the 1970s and 1980s was 34 percent.  Viewed that way, the Republicans seem to be creeping back from some dismal lows in the 1990s and early 2000s.

So: McCain is doing better than recent Republican nominees with the Jews, Obama is doing better than many experts predicted with that same electorate. As usual, the polling data contains something for everybody - except, maybe, Hillary Clinton, whose problem now is mostly Democratic convention delegates, not folks surveyed by Gallup.

But there's only one poll that really counts, and we won't find out how that one goes until November 4.  And the results will be a lot harder to spin.

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Political Insider: UJC Fights for Boost to Emergency Food and Shelter Program

Twenty five years ago, the federal government began a unique partnership with charitable groups to provide emergency food and housing for the nation's neediest.  That program - created in large measure because of the efforts of Mark Talisman, the former Washington director for the Council of Jewish Federations - today faces mounting pressures as the economy sours and more Americans sink into poverty.

So it was fitting that Talisman's successor - now under the banner of the United Jewish Communities (UJC) - is pressing hard to avert cuts to theEmergency Food and Shelter Program (EFSP) proposed by the Bush administration.

"With the current economic situation of the country, organizations are not only reaffirming their support for the program but looking for additional funding," said UJC's William Daroff.