{"id":191,"date":"2008-05-12T12:51:48","date_gmt":"2008-05-12T12:51:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/feilerfaster\/2008\/05\/obama-and-the-exodus.html"},"modified":"2008-05-12T12:51:48","modified_gmt":"2008-05-12T12:51:48","slug":"obama-and-the-exodus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/feilerfaster\/2008\/05\/obama-and-the-exodus.html","title":{"rendered":"Obama and The Exodus"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yet more news today in the Obama and Exodus front. In an interview that Jeffrey Goldberg has now posted on his new blog<\/a>, Obama talks about his appreciation of the Leon Uris novel Exodus<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Obama and I spoke over the weekend about Hamas, about Jimmy Carter, and about the future of Jewish settlements on the West Bank. He seemed eager to talk about his ties to the Jewish community, and about the influence Jews have had on his life. Among other things, he told me that he learned the art of moral anguish from Jews. We spoke as well about my Atlantic cover story on Israel\u2019s future. He mentioned his interest in the opinions of the writer David Grossman, who is featured in the article. \u201cI remember reading The Yellow Wind when it came out, and reading about Grossman now is powerful, painful stuff.\u201d And, speaking in a kind of code Jews readily understand, Obama also made sure to mention that he was fond of the writer Leon Uris, the author of Exodus<\/em>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Goldberg then asks him about the concern in some Jewish quarters about his presidency, and thsi is Obama’s answer.<\/p>\n

I find that really interesting. I think the idea of Israel and the reality of Israel is one that I find important to me personally. Because it speaks to my history of being uprooted, it speaks to the African-American story of exodus, it describes the history of overcoming great odds and a courage and a commitment to carving out a democracy and prosperity in the midst of hardscrabble land. One of the things I loved about Israel when I went there is that the land itself is a metaphor for rebirth, for what\u2019s been accomplished. What I also love about Israel is the fact that people argue about these issues, and that they\u2019re asking themselves moral questions.
\nSometimes I\u2019m attacked in the press for maybe being too deliberative. My staff teases me sometimes about anguishing over moral questions. I think I learned that partly from Jewish thought, that your actions have consequences and that they matter and that we have moral imperatives. The point is, if you look at my writings and my history, my commitment to Israel and the Jewish people is more than skin-deep and it\u2019s more than political expediency. When it comes to the gut issue, I have such ardent defenders among my Jewish friends in Chicago. I don\u2019t think people have noticed how fiercely they defend me, and how central they are to my success, because they\u2019ve interacted with me long enough to know that I’ve got it in my gut. During the Wright episode, they didn\u2019t flinch for a minute, because they know me and trust me, and they\u2019ve seen me operate in difficult political situations.
\nThe other irony in this whole process is that in my early political life in Chicago, one of the raps against me in the black community is that I was too close to the Jews. When I ran against Bobby Rush [for Congress], the perception was that I was Hyde Park, I\u2019m University of Chicago, I\u2019ve got all these Jewish friends. When I started organizing, the two fellow organizers in Chicago were Jews, and I was attacked for associating with them. So I\u2019ve been in the foxhole with my Jewish friends, so when I find on the national level my commitment being questioned, it\u2019s curious.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As regular readers of FeilerFaster<\/em> know, I’ve just completed a book about the influence of Moses in America that looks at the Exodus as the great American story, linking the Pilgrims, founding fathers, Abolitionists, civil rights leaders, and almost every American president from George Washington to George W. Bush. Obama has made his hewing to the Exodus story one of the meta-themes of his run for the presidency.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yet more news today in the Obama and Exodus front. In an interview that Jeffrey Goldberg has now posted on his new blog, Obama talks about his appreciation of the Leon Uris novel Exodus. Obama and I spoke over the weekend about Hamas, about Jimmy Carter, and about the future of Jewish settlements on the…<\/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-191","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"yoast_head":"\nObama and The Exodus - 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\/05\/obama-and-the-exodus.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 Exodus - Feiler Faster\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Yet more news today in the Obama and Exodus front. 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