Pajamas Media

49 Comments

1. P. Ami:

Danny,
There are plenty of Leftist Jews. Many of them consider themselves Jewish in spite of their low regard for faith or G-d even. Most don’t keep any form of kosher. Most do not keep the Sabbath holy. Quite allot of these Jews are intermarried. I’m not personally calling these acts sins, even if historically this is literally what these acts are, seeing that I am not interested in condemning the life-style of these people on this comment thread. I do think that your riff on “stranger in a strange land” is a pretentious and shallow take on the Jewish identity. Perhaps this “stranger in a strange land” idea does resonate in Leftist Jews but their connection to Judaism is pretentious and shallow as well. They tend to be minimally educated in Jewish Scholarship, only familiar with some of the most famous one liners of the most famous rabbis and the theme music to “Fiddler on the Roof”. They will not have learned Hebrew well enough to speak it fluency or to read any higher then a a young school child’s level. These Leftist Jews, in spite of their near illiterateness, will be critical of scholarship whose mental and spiritual depth stands equal to the greatest records of philosophical, judicial and spiritual geniuses of any people. It would be like elementary school children getting through arithmetic and deciding to argue the demerits of the Theory of Relativity.

Okay, so I’ve spent this comment on an ad hominem attack on a substantial segment of our people. But, this makes no real point against why they might not vote Obama but you actually make a fair assessment of the situation. I know precisely the Jews you speak of. I honestly think both you and this Leftist segment are a fools for seeing so much into Obama. You clearly are in his thrall and that is your right. You have your polls and they may prove correct. But, I am praying.

I pray that G-d puts a little sense into the minds of people. I pray that they recognize Obama for the pandering, manipulative, hater that he is. One hopes they recognize the threat he poses to both the United States and to Israel. Obama has befriended too many Jew haters to be good for either nation.

Jun 24, 2008 - 1:49 am 2. David Thomson:

“Obama has befriended too many Jew haters to be good for either nation.”

That is the understatement of the year. Have we already forgotten Rev. Jeremiah Wright? Barack “Barry” Obama is a self hating American who believes that we (and Israel) have crapped on the dark skinned victims of the Third World. We are supposedly responsible for their rage and bitterness. Moreover, an incredibly high number of anti-Israeli leftists are firm supporters of Obama. They are convinced that he is on their side. Who is being conned? Both sides can’t be right. Lastly, it’s time we thoroughly ask tough questions of the military advisors to the Obama campaign. I am convinced that probably each and everyone of them is hostile toward Israel. There may not even be one exception!

Jun 24, 2008 - 2:15 am 3. Dave II:

“The otherwise inexplicable angst, hesitation, and “on the other hand”-ism he frequently displays in answering what ought to be straightforward questions…”

“..a soul-sickness carrying the potential both to debilitate…”

“grasping for and unable to find concrete, stable concepts of identity and historical progression by which to gain a foothold on their world..”

“…and the risks of elevating him to the presidency.”

And THIS is the man you want to make PRESIDENT???
(Say it with an elderly Jewish lady’s accent for full effect!)

Really, though… P. AMI, your last two paragraphs said it all!

While I have no doubt Obama will win the majority of the Jewish vote, it is a very small percentage of the population, and…it is concentrated in New York, New Jersey, California, and Florida…

Obama will take the first 3 states, but not Florida!

I.E. ..no big unexpected advantage for him in the EV count.

Jun 24, 2008 - 3:08 am 4. Andrew Ian Dodge:

Any Jew, who is not completely secularised, who votes for Obama is just nuts. The man has dubious history with jew-haters and other extremists. If he doesn’t agree with them he is really duplicitous; using them to help his career. One speech at AIPAC does not erase all the Israel/jew-hating nutters he has had time for.

Jun 24, 2008 - 3:49 am 5. SAF:

There are many good reasons for Jews to vote Democratic, Obama isn’t one of them.

Bush has been terrible for Israel. His pushing on a settlement with people who continually insist that Israel shouldn’t exist is an incredible lack of leadership. If he had just insisted that the Palestinians affirm the right of Israel to exist, which are mere words, before any positive action is taken things would be different.

So the argument that republicans are better for Israel has been totally destroyed by this administration. I believe McCain would be better but there is so much blind and justified hating of the republicans that Jews don’t see the disaster Obama will be.

Full disclosure: I am Jewish and I voted for Bush twice.

Jun 24, 2008 - 3:50 am 6. Dave II:

The DAY AFTER Obama said in a speech to AIPAC:
“Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided”, he promptly threw that idea under the bus! Such is the “angst, hesitation, grasping for and unable to find concrete, stable concepts” that is Barry Hussein Obama.

Read what Michael Medved (a Jew) has to say about this wanna-be Waffler-In-Chief, his speech at AIPAC, and “the core weakness of his campaign: the huge gap between compelling style and empty substance, and the enormous distance between inspiring words and any practical policies to achieve his noble goals.”

http://michaelmedved.townhall.com/columnists/MichaelMedved/2008/06/11/obamas_undivided_jerusalem_-_more_meaningless_words

Jun 24, 2008 - 3:51 am 7. Don:

I’m sorry, perhaps for the “Self Loathing” voting for him could be considered some sort of “absolution”, but come now. With OB’s recent praise of how the first WTC bombers were “handled” he has revealed his weakness for any paying attention. WTC1 led directly to WTC2, threats of “legal action” intimidate those who value their property, freedom and lives. When a suicide bomber is presented with such a threat it is meaningless. If the Jewish community is so wedded to one party that it ignores the consequences of such “blind obedience ” then they will be part of the cause of the future bill (in blood) that our people (and the Israelis) will pay.

Jun 24, 2008 - 4:04 am 8. vb:

This article seems to say that Obama is in a permanent adolescent identity crisis. How reassuring!

Jun 24, 2008 - 4:29 am 9. T. J. Babson:

Thank you, Daniel, for reminding me why I studied physics rather than philosophy.

Jun 24, 2008 - 5:06 am 10. AJ:

This is silly and naive. Any sane Jew—so remove the insane far left—knows Israel and our religion’s proud 5800 year history is paramount. Obama believe in none of that, nor do his friends. He proves that all the time, and one preachy speech in Boca Raton does not make up for it.

It takes a Yale grad to avoid making the obvious correct judgment.

I am Jewish, and 90% of my Jewish Democrat friends will vote for McCain. They know Obama is NOT “good for the Jews.”

Jun 24, 2008 - 6:09 am 11. jerry:

Mr. Koffler:

Far be it for me to attempt to pull you out of your self-deluded fantasies. Yes, Obama has fine words of support for Israel and the Jewish people but words are cheap. Obama has a long history of association with Jew-haters ranging from Reverend Wright to Gen Merrill McPeak and everybody in between. His official website is rife with anti-semeiotic postings and his core supporters seek the destruction of Israel. His desire to appease and placate Iran despite the Mullahs’ stated objective to destroy Israel says much about him. At a minimum he is indifferent to anti-Semitism which to paraphrase Orwell is objectively support for Jew hatred.

Continued Jewish support for socialism regardless of socialist actions that have systematically led to grief for the Jewish people boggles my mind. You don’t have to go back to the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact to see how slavish Jews are to socialism. During the early 1980’s I saw a classic-stickered up Volvo with a bumper sticker on the left that read save Soviet Jewry and Nuclear Freeze now on the right as if their were no connection between Soviet attempt to blackmail the West on the one hand and Soviet/.Socialist anti-Semitism on the other.

Mr. Koffler, let me clue you on something. The main difference between Socialists and Nazis is that Socialists lie and Nazis tell you what they are thinking. Jews should form their opinions on Obama by looking at his actions and not be comforted by his smooth and oily words.

Jun 24, 2008 - 6:26 am 12. elixelx:

Koffler calls himself Jewish and thinks that Hitler´s planned genocide was the first planned and practiced on the Jews! Yeah, Koffler, I´m sure your forefathers came to America because they were well treated in the Pale!

Tell you what, Koffler: put your blood money for this article where your mouth is; If you think Obama is going to get 4/5 and more of the jewish vote, I´ll give you a dollar for every point over 80%, and you can give me a dollar for every point under! Hell! let´s make that $100 per point!

The point about shills, like you, Koffler, is that you stand outside the joint trying and crying out desperately to attract suckers, when you yourself will never know what´s really going on inside! Are you paid by the word or by the Schmucks you bring into the “tent”?

“Once and future Obama advisor” Samantha Power: If you wanted to alienate the Jewish vote you´ve certainly hit one of the right notes!
Don´t forget “once and future Pastor”, “once and future financial adviser” “once and future unmarried mother”, “once and future racist grandma”, “once and future partner for peace” and last but not least “once and future talmudic Scholar”!

Jun 24, 2008 - 6:29 am 13. Valerie:

The Democratic national party has a history of engaging in unauthorized diplomacy overseas. For example, during the 2004 election cycle, the Kerry campaign tried to influence the outcome of the Australian election. We have had visits by Obama surrogates to at least Syria and Palestine, and now we have a wave of claims from the Middle East about fundraising by the Obama campaign overseas and what an Obama administration will do if elected. Those claims are at odds with the content of this article.

We have confirmed experience that the Obama campaign contacted a foreign government (Canada) and directly contradicted the substance of Barack Obama’s statements on NAFTA. Further, the Obama Campaign trained its supporters to contradict Barack Obama’s statements on what he would do in Iraq.

This situation begs the question of whether the Obama Campaign or its surrogates have been in contact with foreign governments, and if there have been any promises made. This is a question that must be answered before the election. This article doesn’t even come close.

Jun 24, 2008 - 6:30 am 14. Smarty:

AJ, that’s the point. Liberalism is a mental illness, and most Jews are crazy as bedbugs. They fear the Islamists, but they have a pathological hatred of Christians. They would choose to play Sonderkommando for the anti-semetic left and their muslim allies vs. actually standing by the Christian right, whom they fear may actually (gasp) judge them.

Jun 24, 2008 - 7:04 am 15. REB SHLOMO:

Sen. Obama is first & foremost an ambitious politician who wants to be president. We look to his past, he started 30 points behind; the Jewish movers & shakers didn’t run to him, he took in a bunch of rag-tag democrats, whoever volunteered to help him. Now its different,Ted Kennedy endorsed him, he has powerful senators, governors,& congressional people in his camp. He doesn’t have to be obsequious to the Moslems, he can tell the Jews what he thinks they want to hear, he can make bold promises &generally do all things necessary to realize his ambition. REB SHLOMO

Jun 24, 2008 - 8:36 am 16. funky chicken:

http://4rwws.blogspot.com/2008/06/video-hannity-on-obama-khalidi.html

Video: Hannity on the Obama-Khalidi connection

It’s not just “Reverend” Jeremiah Wright publishing Hamas, supping with Edward Said, marching with “Minister” Louis Farrakhan, video endorsements from Ali Abunimah or Hamas or Iran or Hatem El-Hady, or his delegate James Yee…

Nope, apparently there is much more to the relationship with the PLO’s Rashid Khalidi:

Ed Morrissey:
Khalidi, a Yasser Arafat toady, got $75,000 through Obama and Weather Underground terrorist William Ayers from the Woods Foundation, and later Khalidi returned the favor by hosting a fundraiser for Obama. Obama “lavished praise” on Khalidi in 2003 when the former PLO functionary took a job at Columbia University, according to an LA Times article last year. It’s hardly ancient history, and Khalidi is hardly an acquaintance.

How long will it take before Obama claims that Khalidi “isn’t the man he knew”?

Jun 24, 2008 - 9:39 am 17. funky chicken:

comment moderation?

Jun 24, 2008 - 9:40 am 18. Lynn:

SAF: “Bush has been terrible for Israel.”

I am calling you out on that one. You can say all you want about him but not that. It is a lie. Everyone opened their eyes and looked up when President Bush said, “Israel has the right to defend herself”. The truth of it was stunning.

Jun 24, 2008 - 11:07 am 19. Fat Man:

Daniel Koffler:

Baruch Obama? Man you need to start distinguishing between your fantasy life and the real world.

First item. The dude’s name is Barack Hussein Obama, which seems to be Arabic in origin. Now Arabic and Hebrew are both West Semitic languages, and they have a lot of cognate vocabulary. Obama’s given name may be from the Arabic word that is cognate to the Hebrew baruch, which means blessing. Or it may be from the word that means lightning. Without knowing the Arabic spelling of his name (something that could probably only be garnered from his late father’s papers), neither he nor you knows which it is. I believe that he has cited both possibilities. You, by your choice, show a charming naivety, but absolutely no critical facility.

Second item. You have chosen to recite Obama’s personal narrative of marginalization to buttress his claim of philo-semitism. It apparently makes you all warm and gooey inside, but it does not prove anything other than that he is a skilled story teller. This particular friend of the oppressed has also said, in this campaign, that” “Nobody is suffering more than the Palestinian people.” Victimization narratives should not get you any points.

Third item. Obama zigged away from the suffering of the Palestinians, and zagged toward the AIPAC meeting last month, where he adopted the slogan of “Jerusalem, the undivided, eternal, capital of Israel”. No sooner had he finished the speech than he found out that he was holding a hot potato, which caused him to zig away. All this proves is that he is a politician, not that he is a friend of the Jews.

Fourth item. Many of his associates from his early career, such as Rev. Wright and Bill Ayers. Are hard left and anti-Israel. This does not prove that he is. But it takes a lot of will power to hold it irrelevant.

Fifth item. Obama’s foreign policy advisers, most of whom come with handles so they can be swiftly tossed under the bus, seem to be from the school of foreign policy that thinks the Israel-Palestian conflict is “this constant wound, that this constant sore, does infect all of our foreign policy.” [those are O's words from the Golberg interview linked above] The thought that typically goes with that idea is that if it can be resolved, all problems in the Middle East will melt away.

They also believe that it is the Israelis and their infernal settlements that are the chief source of the conflict. “if Israel is building settlements without any regard to the effects that this has on the peace process, then we’re going to be stuck in the same status quo that we’ve been stuck in for decades now” [same interview]. The logical conclusion is that the US needs to beat Israel into making more concessions for the sake of the “peace process.”

I may be obtuse, but somehow, building apartment flats and townhouses is not the moral equivalent of firing missiles into civilian areas. Future occupancy of the flats can change, but the missile warheads produce nothing but entropy. Further, if the land between the river and the sea evaporated tomorrow, the region would still be riven with conflict. See, “The myth of linkage” by Martin Kramer at MESH posted on Jun 12th, 2008.

This leaves Obama in the position of promising hugs and kisses for Amadrasdinnerjacket, and a stern talking to for Israel. But, what are friends for, anyway?

None of this makes Obama an anti-Semite. But none of it makes him a Zionist either.

Sixth item. Obama has no track record on foreign policy issues. Not only is he young and inexperienced, but his focus was entirely on the South Side of Chicago, until it became running for President. Pardon me if I am skeptical. The last Democrat Presidential candidate with that kind of profile was Jimmy Carter. Personally, a return to the Carter era is not something I want, but I suffer from the twin disadvantages of having lived through the first one, and having never been at Yale.

Nothing I say will alter your perspective. There are a large number of Jews who think that the platform of the Democrat party is a tractate of the Talmud. They also believe that “No Enemies on the Left” is the first of the 613 mitzvot.

The sad truth is now that socialism has proved itself a foolish policy, the left has taken up the socialism of fools as its replacement. Jews who do not realize that and act on it are condemning their brothers in Israel to a great deal of suffering and themselves to a great deal of misery.

Jun 24, 2008 - 11:08 am 20. AWOL Civilization:

American Jews are probably not very different than other Americans who are educated and reasonably affluent. All are sleepwalking their way into the Obamamite nightmare. When America is on the brink of destruction from this Leftist plague, perhaps everyone will look around and say, hmm, maybe America wasn’t so bad the way it was.

Here’s what we have to look forward to in an Obama administration:

http://awolcivilization.com/?p=169

Jun 24, 2008 - 12:10 pm 21. P. Ami:

Lynn,
Perhaps you would think we are asking for too much of Bush. One can understand that Bush’s standing aside while Olmerd let dozens of Israeli soldiers, hundreds of Lebanese citizens and billions of dollars worth of infrastructure and weapons be wasted while none of the stated IDF objectives be realized is an act of support. That said, the act of support I would like to see is different. I would have liked to see the US support Israel as it expelled all Arabs from the West Bank, Gaza, the Golan and all the rest of Israel. I would like to see the sort of support that would allow Israel to compensate the families who are leaving as well as compensation to Jordan who would be the State to take on this rag tag population of strangers in a strange land. There is absolutely no reasonable solution to the Arab-Jewish problem.

While the solution I envision seems unfair and unbalanced, one might consider that having that population of Arab strangers in a country of fellow Palestinians, ruled by an established and moderate head of state is far better then having them fester under Jewish rule or, even worse, under the leaders they currently selected for themselves, all of them terrorists, all of them corrupt, all of them using the population’s misery as a political tool.

I understand this is a difficult solution but I see no other. A great ally would support this solution as it would, once and for all, establish a Jewish state and a Palestinian state. Each defendable, each economically viable and each sovereign.

Jun 24, 2008 - 12:13 pm 22. Diane:

“To belong to a society as an essential part without ever feeling or being accepted as a perfect fit within it, and to consequently experience history as a struggle between conflicting identities: That is the life-story of the Jewish people in the Diaspora.”

You are comparing apples and oranges. Obama is a bi-racial (rootless) individual; the Jewish people are an outcast (rootless) nation. Big difference.
And you call teaching constitutional law at U Chicago a form of “latter-day Talmudic study”? What are you smoking, dude?

Jun 24, 2008 - 12:17 pm 23. Roy M:

Isn’t it time for PJM to do a piece written by somebody who has “noticed that an increasing number of my Democrat Jewish friends and acquaintances are turning away from Obama”. Fill it with quotes like “A chiropodist from Maryland I called last week said ‘just don’t trust him’. Later I talked to an Engineer from Los Angeles who said ‘I supported Clinton, but now I have to vote McCain. I am still a Democrat, but I have to do what is right for Israel and right for America.’ ”

The most powerful quote should be left until last, something very personal by someone who feels DEEPLY that a vote for Obama is incompatibale with being Jewish in the 21st Century America. I don’t know quite how to do this part. I can’t write for toffee, but it should be easy for PJM writers.

Maybe finish with how rumors that OBAMA IS A MUSLIM, (while apparently unfounded) may also be part of the problem. If that claim is a bit to old you can use the phrase “muslim heritage” in some way. In fact it should probably go in the headline “Jewish Democrats Troubled by Obama’s Muslim Heritage”.

Bet hey. You know the drill.

Jun 24, 2008 - 1:02 pm 24. Paul:

It’s funny, Obama’s willing to talk to Iran without pre-conditions and Israel is preparing to bomb them. And American jews believe in Obama more than Israel. If they bomb they must be wrong or lying. Iranians died, Zionists lied!!!

Jun 24, 2008 - 1:13 pm 25. el gordo:

“…Obama has tied himself inextricably to that heritage of dispossession, disaster, and hope of restoration…”

The world´s favorite dispossessed people in need of “restoration” are not the jews. And Obama doesn´t care much about history.

Jun 24, 2008 - 2:33 pm 26. idov:

A few observations on comments made here from the Israeli perspective. The first on Bush.

There have only been four world leaders in the past 200 years who have been true friends of Israel, at least for a time.

The first was Napoleon. When he came here to fight the Turks he issued a proclamation urging the Jews to re-establish their state. He was looking for Jewish recruits for his depleted army, got them, but the one Jew he needed Haim Farhi was the general leading the defence of Acre, and Farhi inflicted on him the only defeat he would suffer until Waterloo. But his proclamation sowed the seeds for the eventual appearance of the Zionist movement.

The second was Balfour. When British ships fired their naval guns, they gave off smoke, and that was fatal. Weizmann came up with a biological process to produce unlimited acetone which made them smokeless. For helping win that war Balfour issued his Declaration which led to the State of Israel.

The third was Stalin. He shamed the world into recognizing the new State of Israel by being first off the mark and supplied arms when no one else would that enabled them to survive the onslaught of five Arab armies.

The fourth was Bush. The Arabs live in a dream world, they lie to themselves, and they lie to others. They don’t negotiate, they demand that you fulfill their wildest dreams, which include half of Jerusalem and a “return” to what they call the “1967 borders,” really the 1948 ceasefire lines. Clinton just went along with them, which made them crazy, and eventually they launched a wave of terror. Bush told them, the so-called “refugees” aren’t coming back to Israel, and there will be an adjustment in borders. He was just stating the obvious, but you don’t realize how much guts it takes to speak the truth to Arabs. Bush himself lost his bearings last fall and starting talking like Clinton and sending in Rice to make a fool of herself every month, but you have to give credit where credit is due. He was a true friend of Israel for seven years.

That’s one thing. Here’s the other. Someone (P.Ami) opposed “religion” (good) to “leftists” (bad). This doesn’t hold in Israel. The vast majority want nothing to do with religion. They vote for many parties and no more than 10 per cent would be classed as “leftists,” meaning in favor of surrender and appeasement. The driving force in Israeli society is not religion, but physical survival. Most of the guys who put their lives on the line to defend the country could not describe the inside of a synagogue. Don’t insult them by calling them “leftists.”

Jun 24, 2008 - 2:48 pm 27. Ethel:

What pretentious crap! Imagine: quoting Joyce to justify an opinion on American electoral politics. Someone went to college and wants us to know it. Meanwhile, in the real world, fewer Jews voted for Kerry than was predicted. Jews, like others, like to talk liberalism at the water cooler, but act otherwise when the chips are down. It will be more extreme with Obama. The man sat in the pew of an anti-Semite for twenty years without getting up. We won’t forget. Why should we?

Jun 24, 2008 - 3:21 pm 28. Boris:

Okay, to recap the comments here, Jews won’t vote for Obama because the ones who will are crazy or not really Jews at all.

Jun 24, 2008 - 3:46 pm 29. Diane:

“Good for Jews” – like “change we can believe in” – is an inherently ambiguous turn of phrase. What it means depends heavily on what one considers to be “good.” There are those (e.g. progressives at JStreet, the New York Times and the Forward) who think what Israel needs is a good hard slap from America, just like they’ve been getting for years from Europe. (For these folks, as the editor of Ha’aretz put it, the thought of Israel getting “raped” inspires “wet dreams.” By this definition, of course Obama is good for the Jews!

I define “good” a little differently.

Jun 24, 2008 - 6:23 pm 30. Smokey:

Josef Stalin used the Jews in WWII because he needed all the help he could get. He didn’t as much side with the creation of Israel, as he took sides against the Arabs, who were totally pro-Nazi during the war [at least until Rommel failed to take Cairo; then they only got quiet]. When the war was finally won, Stalin emulated his recent Nazi foes, and bragged that he “shook the Jews out of the trees.” After the war, Jews suffered much the same fate under Communism as they did under Hitler. But Stalin made sure the West didn’t hear much about the Communist pogroms following the war.

Communism and the Left has always had a real hatred of Jews simmering just beneath the surface. And I’m not jewish; I just read a lot of history. The Jewish folks who think they’re going to be marching arm-in-arm into the socialist paradise are the same type of fools who believed they were stepping into the shower to be disinfected. And don’t go quoting Godwin’s law. The truth is the truth. Word up.

Jun 24, 2008 - 6:57 pm 31. Ed:

If Obama’s perspective and experience is fundamentally Jewish, he counts as a self-hating Jew: in his zeal to identify with a predominant culture (black and liberal), he rejects his real identity.

Thomas Sowell referred to Obama as a “black convert.” Like other converts, he had been anxious to embrace his new heritage.

Jun 24, 2008 - 7:35 pm 32. seeker:

Wait a minute?

Do you think it’s only Jews lining up for Obama?

Haven’t you heard of evangelicals lining up for him too? Obama’s focus is now the conservative evangelicals and he is making false claims of his own dogma.

Haven’t you heard him speaking like a Reverend?

Sorry, but this election is marred by many farce claims of Obama. And people, young and old, white and black, are all deceived.

Wake up America! You all know the meaning of McCain’s “I really didn’t love America until I was deprived of him!”, even like me with poor English understanding.

That means: You are all whining of what you have now… your Freedom… and hated Bush as if he really put you into slavery….

One day when you are all slaves and live like in third world country….

You would wish to revert to this time, when you have all you freedom and liberty to make your own fortunes in life… on your own… not with the help of anyone, even the Government.

And you allow the socialists and their Leader to spread their false Gospel…. in the end no one should be blamed but you! Because YOU ALLOW the socialists (ACORN, CODEPINK, MOVEON, Socialists in Universities, AFL-CIO, ACLU, and even the socialist NGOs of UN) to preach and recruit… unchallenged…

Why? Because you are ashamed of Bush? You will never succeed until you accept the fact that you elected Bush. Instead of hiding, see what he is fighting for… and see that he is much better than all the leaders in this world!

Why? Bush never enslaved you, stupid! Even the cost of War, he tried to use other means instead of Americans fully shouldered the burden. DON’T YOU THINK THAT’S FOOLISH OF HIM? No, if your are fiscal planner, you would spread the cost say up to 10 years… that’s called DEFERRED ACCOUNTING ADJUSTMENT, being used by the World Bank and all other third countries in the World.

Common, Republicans! Embrace who you are and start fighting back against all the socialists hiding behind the Democratic Party of Obama.

You heard Bill Clinton: Hillary’s lost is simply because she’s no longer the top pick of the FAR LEFT!

And that is true: Obama has been a protege of Democratic Socialists of America since DAY 1. Why is there nobody studying the political life of Obama back in Chicago? You know can die while pursuing the same! Chicago is the heartland of Communism in America,… since May Day 1919.

Jun 24, 2008 - 7:37 pm 33. david levavi:

… To belong to a society as an essential part without ever feeling or being accepted as a perfect fit within it, and to consequently experience history as a struggle between conflicting identities: That is the life-story of the Jewish people in the Diaspora, after haskalah…

Say what? “After haskalah?” Were Jews not strangers in a strange land earlier than the Enlightenment? Mordecai and Esther and their contemporaries in Persia? Maimonedes and his in Egypt and the Levant? Not strangers in a strange land? How often in the long history of the Jews were we not strangers in a strange land? So wherefore “after Haskala?”

Daniel Koffler’s core assumption is dead wrong. Identification with Jews was never an indicator of empathy with or sympathy for Jews. Indeed, the opposite is true. Special hostility toward Jews is absent among Buddhists and Hindus whose faith and culture owes nothing to Jews while anti-Semitism is entirely natural to Christians and Muslims whose supersessionist beliefs and rituals are overwhelmingly derivative and imitative of Judaism.

Daniel’s support of Obama raises a deeper question. Barack Obama doesn’t feel mainstream because Barack Obama isn’t mainstream. His past is checkered and some of it won’t stand up to scrutiny. He’s changed his name to something more Muslim and his religion to something more Christian.

But why does Daniel Koffler identify with Obama? Why does this young American Jew feel he’s less than a perfect fit? Not fully American? What are these “conflicting identities” he feels he has in common with Obama? Is his Jewish identity in conflict with his American identity?

And why does Daniel assume that all American Jews feel equally odd and estranged? I ask because I have three daughters about Daniel’s age receiving the same rarified education and they suffer no such angst.

My daughters are loyal Jews and loyal Americans and they’ve never felt anything but comfortably Jewish and comfortably American. They don’t feel morally superior to their fellow Jews and they don’t feel morally superior to their fellow Americans. And unlike young Daniel, they are all three far too modest ever to presume to speak for their coreligionists at large.

That a large majority of American Jews will vote Obama is yet another sad reminder that the intelligence of Jews is much overrated.

Jun 24, 2008 - 8:09 pm 34. fred:

I just do not know where to begin to comment on this piece. I will not dispute the fact that most American Jews are going to vote for Obama. Does that mean he is good for Israel and for practicing Jews who care about the survival of the Jewish state? I’m not Jewish, but it is a topic I take a keen interest in. I read the AIPAC statements, but I don’t believe Obama. Not one word. All of his initial foreign policy advisers are Jew-haters: Malley, Brezhinski, Power, etc. The puppet master behind his party and his candidacy, George Soros, is a virulent self-hating Jew who wants the Jewish state destroyed.

On top of it all, these Western and even Israeli Jews are incredibly ignorant of the sources of Jew-hatred in the Qur’an, ahadith, and Sira. Thank God for educated Jews like Andrew Bostom. Please get his most recent book: “The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism.” It’s scholarly and incredibly well-researched.

Obama’s bias in not towards Jews and Israel. He gives the benefit of the doubt to the Islamic Jew haters and their terrorist states. He will say anything to a constituency whose vote he needs. The man is completely unprincipled. The true Marxist that he is permits him, just as Muslims practice taqiyya, to lie in order to get what he wants and to advance the socialist program.

I’m writing these words as just an ordinary Catholic goyhim who is a friend of Jews and of their state.

Jun 24, 2008 - 8:10 pm 35. Eva Ritchey:

David Koffler is a delusional romantic who sees
Obama through a veil or haze.
He is saying that most Jews are raised by grandparents after their father and really their mothers abandon them.
He is saying that most Jews are raised in several cultures and countries by the time they are 10. He is saying that most Jews are of mixed heritage raised by Muslims till 10 and an agnostic mother then find their true faith.
Why not want a president with a strong economic and military understanding like King David ?

Jun 24, 2008 - 10:31 pm 36. Pajamas Media » Obama: Bad for the Jews?:

[...] of Israel and its American supporters. His actions and associates suggest otherwise. [Part 2 of a PJM debate] June 25, 2008 – by Ed [...]

Jun 25, 2008 - 12:42 am 37. sean birnie:

After more than a thousand years of vile racist persecution Jews have become used to being victims, victimhood is one of the defining characteristics of their cultural psychology. The status of victim confers a sense of moral superiority which many Jews (especially those not actually in physical danger, like American Jews)miss. Olmert got it in one when he expressed his boredom with winning, the implication of which is a desire for defeat. Since the spectacular propaganda victory of the Arabs, Jews are now seen as persecutors and their genocidal enemies as victims. The jewish psyche is simply not equipped to deal with this. A mere sixty years after the holocaust they have had enough, Israel has become an embarrassment to them.

What American jews are actually saying is “if we let you kill the Jews in Israel will you love us again?”. Of course it doesn’t work like that as any battered wife who has finally freed herself from an abusive relationship knows.

American Jews needn’t worry, no matter who is the POTUS, Israel is unlikely to survive the next few decades and then they can revert to being the cuddly self-deprecating Woody Alan types that everybody loves and, even if you do something as morally repugnant as having sex with your teenage step-daughter, forgives.

So, yes, it makes sense for American Jews to vote for the Big 0, his presidency is likely to hasten the destruction of those pesky Israeli Jews who just don’t seem to understand that self-defence and survival is so unJewish.

Jun 25, 2008 - 1:21 am 38. saus:

Unfortunately we don’t have much time for whimsical philisophy here in the holy land.. We’re too busy fending off Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, Syria, the Global Jihad, Al Qaeda in Sinai, and a nuclear weapons program in Iran developed by people who openly, & weekly state the intention to destroy our country.

If you want to help us out Da

Jun 25, 2008 - 10:02 am 39. saus:

(sorry cut out)
if you want to help us out Dan, at least stop making excuses for the dangerous foreign policy Obama will usher in because we’re already screwed enough as it is.

Jun 25, 2008 - 10:03 am 40. always right:

Re: seeker

Sometimes it takes an outsider to see how ridiculous we have become. Again, a rare outsider who is not brain-washed with world opinion polls, or blindly follows the elites’ edicts.

Some of us here ‘GET IT’. It is not that we don’t fight against their ideas, to fight against the socialists/communist leftovers, we are appealing to the better judgement of each individual. We are simply not ‘activists’.

Jun 25, 2008 - 10:51 am 41. Kimnerly Smith:

I was having this discussion with someone just the other day. We were wondering why Jews vote for democrats when they are the party who would sit back and let them be destroyed. my friend said it is because most Republicans believe in god and Jews don’t. I say maybe we should give them what they and all of the other moderates are asking for, When the dust settles the conservatives would be in control for the next 50 years, why 50 years ? It will take that long to straighten out the mess 4 years of total Democrat control for people to get rid of that label once and for all!

Jun 25, 2008 - 11:19 am 42. jweaver:

What now Koffler is spreading his Gospel of Obama here as well. Obama is only right for secular leftist Jews that hate themselves, America and Israel. The man seems to lack any moral compass as he openly triangulates his messages to whichever crowd he is before. Think Kang and Kodos during the 1996 election on Simpsons, Obama’s rhetoric changes to the awes of the crowd before our very eyes.

Jun 25, 2008 - 12:22 pm 43. Big Ben:

There is no monolithic “Jewish” vote.

I would propose three sub-groups of voters who are identified as Jewish (without limiting the existance of smaller sub-groups and individual nuances).

1. American Jews; these are Jews whose basic self identity is primarily as Jews. In this group one would include most Orthodox Jews, traditional minded Conservative Jews, Secular Jews with a strong Zionist bent,primarily identifying with the Israeli right, Israeli and Former Soviet Union immigrants;

2.Jewish Americans; Americans of Jewish descent, increasingly of intermarried parents, who self identify as Jews only as a matter of acknowlodging their ancestral roots, but whose connection to traditional Jewish values are tenuous;

3. FDR democrats, people who self-identify as Jews, but have been married to the Democrat Party as a matter of family tradition.

I posit that among the Jews belonging to the first group, Obama will not get more than 10% of the vote, while in the second and third groups, McCain will be hard pressed to garner more than 15% of the vote.

Jun 25, 2008 - 3:24 pm 44. P. Ami:

sean birnie,
I agree that Israel’s survival is in doubt. This has always been the case. Israel has also provided the world with quite a few surprises. I just can’t discount the possibility of G-d’s mercy.
I have the sort of mind predisposed to aethism and frankly its this world- wide phenomenon of anti-semitism which direct my thought toward the possibility that, more then an impersonal god that has created this world, there is G-d who has a hand in history. He puts this hate in people’s heart. Perhaps he does this to reveal himself to the stubborn amount his people. Perhaps he puts this hatred in the hearts of Gentiles and Jew alike to punish the stubborness of His people. I suppose this opens up an argument from Christians who think our stubborness is the one towards their savior. I gravitate more towards the argument that a secular Israel is the sin which illicits hatred. Not that anti-Semites think this when they hate but rather the hate is put in their heart and their minds work out a reason to match.

Obama would be an agent for G-d’s punishment, as is Olmerd and the slew of leftists in Israel’s government. One last bit of conjecture. It has been socialists which G-d has used against us for a hundred years now. Be they National or International Socialism, Arab socialists or Jewish ones, these have been the vessels by which G-d’s wrath has manifest. We are now in an era in which another G-d fearing people would be the vessels of G-d’s punishment. One wonders if this would reflect somehow on the severity of justice.

Jun 25, 2008 - 7:24 pm 45. Senlin:

The notion seems to be that Jews are liberal democrats and therefore will close in behind Obama. What is there about being a liberal in personal philosophy that makes anyone like Democrats? Identity politics, open borders, ethnic quotas, socialist economics, the welfare state, secularism, kowtowing to anti-Semite African American “spokemen’ . . . . ?

Is it the cliched guilt, “self-loathing,” angst and/or ersatz intellectualism that Jewish producers insist on making a cornerstone of their movies?

From what I have seen in the polls, there is a predominant anti-Israel sentiment among American Jews. Is that it? If so, why? The very existence of Israel is in play like never before — even 48, 56, 67, and 73 don’t come close. Will American Jews feel better when we wake up and it is gone? Wishful thinking aside, ask yourself who is willing to place this nation at risk to defend this oil-poor state of pariahs from annihilation — Obama or McCain? The Naval Academy or Princeton? Rice or the curiosity-challenged Albright? These aren’t rhetorical or scolding questions : can someone answer them (without Bush Lied-People Died and similar ad hominem sloganeering)?

Jun 26, 2008 - 7:19 pm 46. Ted Lawrence:

People criticizing Obama forget that he has supported Israel openly several times when it wasn’t something that added to his political strength. Those that have a problem accepting that an African American with an Arab name can sort out right from wrong in the Middle East simply are suffering from paranoia after too long a history of persecution and those that are worried about the Reverend Wright, don’t understand the basics of the African American community. Obama’s relationship with him is no different than Hillary Clinton’s friendship with Jessie Helms. In the end Obama is the strongest supporter of Israel since Scoop Jackson and he deserves to be acknowledged as such.

Jun 27, 2008 - 3:46 am 47. viewfromafar:

My first reaction to this is, has this Jewish author even read some of the books of the prophets(the twelve minor prophets come quickly to mind)?
I realize that I, as a Christian, believing in a Jewish messiah, called Jesus Christ- by the way,a french rabbi on the 2007 Christmas eve program c dans l’air, mentioned that Jews need to reclaim Jesus Christ as the Jewish man that He was (IS),that I have no real knowledge of what it is like to be Jewish, however Obama does NOT bring to mind ANY of the concepts that this author speaks of,as the outside observer that I am.(OK I have lived in France too long)
My great-great grandfather left Ireland during the great famine, so does this make me Irish, in the sense that I can have any say to problems of people in a country that I have never lived in, nor can I even begin to understand totally all of the sides of that story? The parallels are fairly obvious, especially as this author quotes Joyce…
Anyway, as a Christian this Jewish man’s comments bring to mind a verse in the gospel of John: a quote of the Jewish Jesus to the pharisees “God could turn thses stones to Jews.” It’s the faith in God that makes Jews special, and unless they chose their heritage and bend their will to what God(Jesus’ father, the Jewish God, Yaweh, THE GOD, Abraham’s God whatever) wants the Jewish people to do, the Jewish people lose their uniqueness in that very special relation that is their heritage as God’s chosen people. They are very simply only Jews, in the sense of the verse sited above, which is to say a race of people with no more nor less importance than any other people on earth…whereas Jews are chosen to be God’s special people, what an honor! Needless to say, Mr Yalie, find the thurim and the urim (spelling probably off) and ask God so that the true will of God may be carried out.

Jun 27, 2008 - 1:21 pm 48. Ditto:

Ted Lawrence said:

“Those that have a problem accepting that an African American with an Arab name can sort out right from wrong in the Middle East simply are suffering from paranoia…”

But we don’t have an African American with an Arab name that fits the bill. We have a man who is 50% white and at least 33% Arab (I’ve seen figures as high as 40%) who outwardly looks like an African American and whose friends and mentors are shady, at best.

Look – I’m all for an African American president. I’m all for a woman president. I’m down with an African American woman for POTUS. I’ll vote for somebody who is purple or green or yellow. I don’t CARE what color they are. All I care about is that the person we elect is qualified for the job and has experience to back up claims to that effect.

Is that so much to ask for?

Jun 27, 2008 - 5:25 pm 49. Ana:

Obama is like the seasons, something fits and he wears it. This approach is too risky for the life of human beings. I remember reading a novel written in the early 1900’s concerning the persecution of Jews in Europe in the late 1800’s. The author referred to this backlash as uncivilized and something that could not ever happen again in modern society. Then we had the holocaust.

I believe in Israel. I am catholic and respect that the Jewish race is God’s chosen people. For these reasons I will vote for McCain. God Bless those who are blinded by their own hate!

Oct 28, 2008 - 7:59 pm

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