{"id":430,"date":"2008-01-16T17:15:51","date_gmt":"2008-01-16T17:15:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/2008\/01\/jews-denounce-muslim-rumors-ai.php"},"modified":"2008-01-16T17:15:51","modified_gmt":"2008-01-16T17:15:51","slug":"jews-denounce-muslim-rumors-ai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/01\/jews-denounce-muslim-rumors-ai","title":{"rendered":"Jews Denounce Muslim Rumors Aimed at Obama"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Matthew Streib<br \/>\nReligion News Service<\/strong><br \/>\nWASHINGTON (RNS) Several Jewish leaders have come to the defense of presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama against rumors that he secretly espouses radical Muslim beliefs.<br \/>\nIn a joint letter, leaders of nine Jewish groups including the Simon Wiesenthal Center and the American Jewish Congress characterized the e-mail rumor campaign as hateful and intended to &#8220;manipulate (Jews) into supporting or opposing candidates.&#8221;<br \/>\nSince 2006, rumors have circulated that Obama, D-Ill., was educated in a radical Muslim school in Indonesia, took his congressional oath of office on the Quran, or is involved in Wahhabism, a conservative sect of Islam popular in Saudi Arabia. In December, the Hillary Clinton campaign called for resignations from any Clinton volunteers who may have forwarded such e-mails.<br \/>\nObama says he was not religious as a child, and was baptized at the Trinity United Church in Chicago in 1988, eight years before he was elected to the Illinois State Senate.<br \/>\nAt Tuesday&#8217;s Democratic presidential candidate&#8217;s debate in Las Vegas, Obama reiterated his religious stance. &#8220;I am a Christian. I have been sworn in with a Bible,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I pledge allegiance and lead the Pledge of Allegiance sometimes in the United States Senate, when I&#8217;m presiding.&#8221;<br \/>\nThe Jewish leaders released their letter Tuesday, just as Obama was trying to distance himself from the Rev. Louis Farrakhan, longtime leader of the Nation of Islam. A magazine published by Obama&#8217;s church granted Farrakhan an award last year because he &#8220;truly epitomized greatness.&#8221;<br \/>\nObama won the award this year.<br \/>\nObama said he did not agree with giving the award to Farrakhan, whom many consider anti-Semitic.<br \/>\n<em>Copyright 2008 Religion News Service. All rights reserved. No part of this transmission may be distributed or reproduced without written permission.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Matthew Streib Religion News Service WASHINGTON (RNS) Several Jewish leaders have come to the defense of presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama against rumors that he secretly espouses radical Muslim beliefs. In a joint letter, leaders of nine Jewish groups including the Simon Wiesenthal Center and the American Jewish Congress characterized the e-mail rumor campaign&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-430","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Jews Denounce Muslim Rumors Aimed at Obama<\/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\/news\/2008\/01\/jews-denounce-muslim-rumors-ai\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Jews Denounce Muslim Rumors Aimed at Obama\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By Matthew Streib Religion News Service WASHINGTON (RNS) Several Jewish leaders have come to the defense of presidential candidate Sen. 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In a joint letter, leaders of nine Jewish groups including the Simon Wiesenthal Center and the American Jewish Congress characterized the e-mail rumor campaign&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/01\/jews-denounce-muslim-rumors-ai","og_site_name":"Beliefnet News","article_published_time":"2008-01-16T17:15:51+00:00","author":"nsymmonds","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/01\/jews-denounce-muslim-rumors-ai","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/01\/jews-denounce-muslim-rumors-ai","name":"Jews Denounce Muslim Rumors Aimed at Obama","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website"},"datePublished":"2008-01-16T17:15:51+00:00","dateModified":"2008-01-16T17:15:51+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/f960b23e9c3a51222269c557a209b4f2"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/01\/jews-denounce-muslim-rumors-ai#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/01\/jews-denounce-muslim-rumors-ai"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/01\/jews-denounce-muslim-rumors-ai#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Jews Denounce Muslim Rumors Aimed at Obama"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/","name":"Beliefnet News","description":"Top Religious News From Around the World","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/?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\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/f960b23e9c3a51222269c557a209b4f2","name":"nsymmonds","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/13d\/13ddfa3407d6847bc2fbd32a13b67708x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/13d\/13ddfa3407d6847bc2fbd32a13b67708x96.jpg","caption":"nsymmonds"},"description":"Nicole Symmonds is Beliefnet\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Prayer editor and also covers Christianity. A New Yorker by birth but a Floridian by tenure, Nicole graduated from Florida A&M University with a B.S. in Public Relations and a minor in Sociology. She moved to NY to pursue a career in journalism which started at In Style magazine. There she learned the ropes of magazine reporting, researching, and writing\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand became exponentially more stylish. But what seemed like a deep interest in fashion and entertainment would soon be revealed as merely the vehicle that moved her closer to discovering her purpose, writing and covering matters of the Christian faith. While in her purpose-driven vehicle she can be found traveling between Brooklyn, Manhattan and Queens for life, work and worship, respectively. 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