Obama's "Jewish Problem"

Liberal Rabbi Michael Lerner has something to throw into last week's discussion here about Obama and the Middle East. More on the topic as the presidential race proceeds; but Lerner emailed his views to a number of people, including us, over the weekend and I thought it might be of interest during Super Tuesday week. (I don't see it on Lerner's Tikkun magazine website in order to link to it, but googling I found it here: http://warincontext.org/2008/02/02/campaign-08-obamas-appeal-and-his-jewish-problem/.)

In his email entitled "Obama's Jewish Problem," Lerner calls Obama a "spiritual progressive" whose policy inclinations are "very different from those which have been insisted upon by the Israel Lobby, supported by most of the establishment Jewish institutions, and through the power of their organized pressure, have become the dominant policy supported by both parties in rare unanimity."

As long as Obama is in the race, Lerner sees a tension between the "demands of the older generation of Jews who control the Jewish institutions and define what it is to be pro-Jewish" and a base of supporters that "consists of many young Jews who support him precisely because he is willing to publicly stand for the values that they hold."

Lerner says Obama "has made it clear" that he would like "to push for a peace that provides security for Israel and justice for the Palestinian people." Whether a President Obama can buck the prevailing trend and do so, however, "depends on whether we can build a powerful enough movement of ordinary citizens," according to Lerner.

--By Scott MacLeod/Dubai