{"id":142,"date":"2008-01-15T11:51:24","date_gmt":"2008-01-15T11:51:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/feilerfaster\/2008\/01\/obama-and-the-jews.html"},"modified":"2008-01-15T11:51:24","modified_gmt":"2008-01-15T11:51:24","slug":"obama-and-the-jews","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/feilerfaster\/2008\/01\/obama-and-the-jews.html","title":{"rendered":"Obama and the Jews"},"content":{"rendered":"

Finally we are hearing talk about a truce in the battle over race between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. I don’t buy it, exactly. The Clinton folks have too much too gain by subtly pointing out that race still divides America, Obama is black, he once did drugs, he spent a lot of time in the “neighborhood,” etc. While this kind of talk might increase Obama’s turnout in the black community, it will surely depress it in the Hispanic and white communities — and among older voters in general. But that’s not the only card Clinton (and the GOP, if given the chance) will play.
\nThere’s the Muslim card, too, of course. Now, Richard Cohen lays it all out on the table<\/a>. Are we now all our ministers’ keepers, too? <\/p>\n

Barack Obama is a member of Chicago’s Trinity United Church of Christ. Its minister, and Obama’s spiritual adviser, is the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. In 1982, the church launched Trumpet Newsmagazine; Wright’s daughters serve as publisher and executive editor. Every year, the magazine makes awards in various categories. Last year, it gave the Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. Trumpeter Award to a man it said “truly epitomized greatness.” That man is Louis Farrakhan.
\nMaybe for Wright and some others, Farrakhan “epitomized greatness.” For most Americans, though, Farrakhan epitomizes racism, particularly in the form of anti-Semitism. Over the years, he has compiled an awesome record of offensive statements, even denigrating the Holocaust by falsely attributing it to Jewish cooperation with Hitler — “They helped him get the Third Reich on the road.” His history is a rancid stew of lies.
\nIt’s important to state right off that nothing in Obama’s record suggests he harbors anti-Semitic views or agrees with Wright when it comes to Farrakhan. Instead, as Obama’s top campaign aide, David Axelrod, points out, Obama often has said that he and his minister sometimes disagree. Farrakhan, Axelrod told me, is one of those instances.
\nFine. But where I differ with Axelrod and, I assume, Obama is that praise for an anti-Semitic demagogue is not a minor difference or an intrachurch issue. The Obama camp takes the view that its candidate, now that he has been told about the award, is under no obligation to speak out on the Farrakhan matter. It was not Obama’s church that made the award but a magazine. This is a distinction without much of a difference. And given who the parishioner is, the obligation to speak out is all the greater. He could be the next American president. Where is his sense of outrage? <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

To read why all of this is quite odious, click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Finally we are hearing talk about a truce in the battle over race between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. I don’t buy it, exactly. The Clinton folks have too much too gain by subtly pointing out that race still divides America, Obama is black, he once did drugs, he spent a lot of time in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":352,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-142","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"yoast_head":"\nObama and the Jews - Feiler Faster<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/feilerfaster\/2008\/01\/obama-and-the-jews.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Obama and the Jews - Feiler Faster\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Finally we are hearing talk about a truce in the battle over race between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. I don’t buy it, exactly. The Clinton folks have too much too gain by subtly pointing out that race still divides America, Obama is black, he once did drugs, he spent a lot of time in…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/feilerfaster\/2008\/01\/obama-and-the-jews.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Feiler Faster\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-01-15T11:51:24+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"bfeiler\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Obama and the Jews - Feiler Faster","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/feilerfaster\/2008\/01\/obama-and-the-jews.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Obama and the Jews - Feiler Faster","og_description":"Finally we are hearing talk about a truce in the battle over race between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. I don’t buy it, exactly. The Clinton folks have too much too gain by subtly pointing out that race still divides America, Obama is black, he once did drugs, he spent a lot of time in…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/feilerfaster\/2008\/01\/obama-and-the-jews.html","og_site_name":"Feiler Faster","article_published_time":"2008-01-15T11:51:24+00:00","author":"bfeiler","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/feilerfaster\/2008\/01\/obama-and-the-jews.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/feilerfaster\/2008\/01\/obama-and-the-jews.html","name":"Obama and the Jews - Feiler Faster","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/feilerfaster\/#website"},"datePublished":"2008-01-15T11:51:24+00:00","dateModified":"2008-01-15T11:51:24+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/feilerfaster\/#\/schema\/person\/cd560df5c2f027ddc9a594e3313de1d8"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/feilerfaster\/2008\/01\/obama-and-the-jews.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/feilerfaster\/2008\/01\/obama-and-the-jews.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/feilerfaster\/2008\/01\/obama-and-the-jews.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/feilerfaster"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Obama and the Jews"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/feilerfaster\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/feilerfaster\/","name":"Feiler Faster","description":"The Blog of Bestselling Author and Commentator Bruce Feiler","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/feilerfaster\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/feilerfaster\/#\/schema\/person\/cd560df5c2f027ddc9a594e3313de1d8","name":"bfeiler","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/feilerfaster\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/feilerfaster\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/ce3\/ce3529dc7e8bc71c31414750eb2dfd45x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/feilerfaster\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/ce3\/ce3529dc7e8bc71c31414750eb2dfd45x96.jpg","caption":"bfeiler"},"description":"Bruce Feiler is one of America\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s most popular voices on faith, family, and finding meaning in everyday life. He is the best-selling author of nine books, including Walking the Bible, Abraham, and America's Prophet, and one of only a handful of writers to have four consecutive New York Times nonfiction bestsellers in the last decade. He is also the writer\/presenter of the PBS miniseries WALKING THE BIBLE. His latest book, The Council of Dads, tells the uplifting story of how friendship and community can help one survive life\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s greatest challenge. For more information, please visit brucefeiler.com or councilofdads.com.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/feilerfaster\/author\/bfeiler"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/feilerfaster\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/feilerfaster\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/feilerfaster\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/feilerfaster\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/352"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/feilerfaster\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=142"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/feilerfaster\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/feilerfaster\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/feilerfaster\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/feilerfaster\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}