JustASC

Politico does a post-mortem on the Jewish vote for Obama, and joins those who now say Obama’s “Jewish problem” “was hardly as bad as the coverage it received.”

And yet the article suggests his Jewish problem was almost exactly as bad as the coverage it received — if you agree that no one thought seriously that Obama would earn less than 60 percent of the vote (Carter country) and no more than 85. The question all along was how he’d perform among the Jewish swing vote.

And sure enough:

Obama did improve about 15 points with Jews during the general election, as his person and positions became better known, the Democratic primary divide mended, the economy took central stage and McCain came to be seen as less moderate, a trend that Democratic pollster Mark Mellman, an authority on researching the Jewish vote, believes was worsened when McCain tapped social conservative Sarah Palin as his running mate.

And that 15 percent is exactly the differnce between the dreaded 60-40 (dreaded by the National Jewish Democratic Council) and the eventual 3-1 vote that has sent the Republican Jewish Coalition back to the old drawing board. 

So how did Obama hold onto the wavering 15 percent?

Obama’s rise in Jewish support tracked loosely with his gains among Democrats and independents overall. Between summer and autumn, Democratic support for Obama moved from the mid 70s to the mid 80s. Over that same period, Independents as a group moved from leaning to McCain to splitting their support between the two candidates.

Part of Obama’s initial under performance with Jewish voters also came from Hillary Clinton supporters, many of whomwere slow to retun to the party after her loss. Before the Democratic Convention, just 70 percent of Clinton voters backed Obama. By September, that had gone up to to 81 percent.

As he did with other blocs that leaned toward Clinton, Obama came up with a specific strategy to court wayward Jews.

In spring, Obama spoke at synagogue in Boca Raton, Fla., in large part to alleviate any perceived concerns and face down rumors about his stance on Israel. Obama also spoke to prominent Jewish reporters, like Jeffrey Goldberg of the Atlantic, hoping to permeate the Jewish zeitgeist. He had staff charged with Jewish outreach, and specifically focused on refuting a viral email campaign that falsely painted Obama as a Muslim and/or anti-Israel.

Don’t miss Johanna Ginsberg’s excellent profile of Marc Aronson, author of a new book on Israel for teens.  Unsettled: The Problem of Loving Israel (Atheneum) is sort of the anti-Exodus; Aronson wrestles with the myths about Israel’s founding, and ends up aghast at the second-class status of Israel’s Arab citizens. As he tells Johanna:

“I don’t think Zionism is racism. I think ethnic nationalism — which was this turn-of-the-20th-century idea — I don’t ultimately believe it.”

One reviewer has already tagged Aronson a “self-hater,” one of the least helpful, and usually least accurate, labels, in Jewish life. I’m reading the book now, and find Aronson striving hard to balance the two competing narratives in the Middle East. I do think he overdoes the comparisons between Israel and the United States, as if America represents the pinnacle of democratic nation-building, and as if Israel is somehow unique in its conception as a nation-state based on shared ethnic/religio/nationalist identy. But I’ll reserve judgment until I read the whole thing.

JTA’s Telegraph blog carries my comments on the Forward‘s annual list of the 50 most influential Jews.

The Wendy’s folks are back at our campus, filming more commercials. (Below is one they shot in August, in our cafeteria.)

At this moment the two main actors are sitting on the hood of a parked car; extras are frozen on the paths just outside my (one-way) windows. Every few seconds the director yells “action” (I presume) and the extras pretend to be walking toward the building.

It’s a weird Ground Hog Day effect: Whenever I look up from my keyboard, I see the same people, frozen and walking, frozen and walking. Then again, it’s only slightly more repetitious than my typical day at the office.

My daughter became a bat mitzva last week, and while I resisted the temptation to kvell here, I received the following note from a friend and could no longer hold back:

K____’s bat mitzvah was wonderful as is she and I hope you’ve glowed all week. She did a wonderful job and it was nice to know that on the 70th anniversary of Kristalnacht, there were 65 Jewish 12-year-olds dancing their hearts out to celebrate her bat mitzvah (and she chanted Torah beautifully I might add and that would also have not been in the cards 70 years ago).

Guess who’s also getting a Jewish chief of staff:

WASHINGTON (JTA)-The chief of staff for Vice President Al Gore will assume the same role for Joe Biden.

Ron Klain accepted the post for the vice president-elect on Wednesday, Politico.com reported.

He becomes the second Jewish Clinton administration veteran to serve in a top executive position for President-elect Barack Obama. U.S. Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.) will serve as White House chief of staff.

Rahm Emanuel apologizes for his dad’s dopey remarks about Arabs:

“From the fullness of my heart, I personally apologize on behalf of my family and me. These are not the values upon which I was raised or those of my family.”

The usual dreary suspects are sending around a bogus report that Obama “dispatched his senior foreign-policy adviser, Robert Malley, to meet with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.”

Not a word of that is true, as the JTA reports here. Malley has no role with Obama’s transition, does not and never did play a “senior advisory” role, and the Obama team categorically denies that he sent the man to the region.

I have one frequent emailer who forwards these things to a mass email list, and when I point out that a report has been denied and he should issue a retraction, tells me, “You can’t hold me to a higher standard than the MSM” (mainstream media, for the uninitiated). The mind reels.

From Ha’aretz:

IDF soldier jailed for yawning during Rabin memorial service

The Israel Defense Forces has sentenced a soldier to 21 days in jail for yawning during a recent memorial service for assassinated prime minister Yitzhak Rabin.

The soldier yawned while the commander of the Ramat David Israel Air Force base was delivering a speech on last week’s memorial day for Rabin. The senior officer paused for a few minutes after the yawn, which was allegedly long and loud.

The soldier was consequently by the army tried on account of his “disrespectful act” and was sentenced to 21 days in military prison. The IDF Spokesperson’s Unit said that he is able to request a pardon, which will be considered according to military regulations. 

Headline of the week:

Monks brawl before religious ceremony

From a CNN story about Greek Orthodox and Armenian monks clashing at  the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem’s Old City.