But is it Good for the Jews?

“If Barack Obama doesn’t become the next president of the United States,” comedian Sarah Silverman says in her YouTube video advertisement for The Great Schlep, “I’m gonna blame the Jews.” In September, when I went home for Rosh Hashanah and told my family that I supported Obama, I heard a very different ultimatum: If Barack Obama does become the next president of the United States, they’re going to blame the Jews. Orthodox Jews like my parents are an often overlooked demographic, even for organizations like The Great Schlep. Nevertheless, their objections to an Obama administration are forceful—if not valid—and should be taken into account by Jews planning to vote Democrat today.

In the ad for The Great Schlep—a movement started by the Jewish Council for Education and Research to encourage Jewish grandchildren to visit their grandparents in Florida and convince them to vote for Obama—Silverman asserts that the targeted demographic won’t vote for Obama for a number of reasons. These bubbes and zaides may think “his name sounds scary; it sounds Muslim,” among other superficial issues.

Obviously, Silverman intended her ad to be funny, but her plea is quite serious. Now more than ever, even Jews who support—and will vote for—Obama and the Democrats, have taken extra impetus to do so, not just because of Obama’s Muslim-sounding name. According to a 2008 annual survey by the American Jewish Committee, Obama has 57 percent of the American Jewish vote , the lowest Jewish support for a Democratic candidate since Carter’s feeble 45 percent in 1980 against Republican challenger Ronald Reagan. And by ignoring the fundamental issues that older Jews have with Obama, Silverman weakens her case.

Silverman is not alone in asserting that Obama’s policies towards Israel are strong. Harvard Law School professor Alan M. Dershowitz recently published an opinion piece in which defended his support of Obama because “the election of…a liberal supporter of Israel will enhance Israel’s position among wavering liberals.” Last week, Steve Grossman, former president of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, championed Obama’s commitment to Israel’s security at a discussion of the candidates’ foreign policies at the Harvard Hillel. And because of Obama’s devotion to Israel’s right to self-defense and his liberal attitudes on social issues, the JCER wholeheartedly supports Obama as the right candidate for the Jewish people.

It is precisely Jews like Dershowitz and Grossman who my parents will blame if Obama gets elected, because they fail to recognize signs that perhaps Obama is not quite the messiah for whom the all Jewish people have been waiting. Despite Obama’s official stances on most Israel policy issues, it is hard to ignore my family’s contention that it is sheer negligence for Jews to elect a candidate who may not have a consistently pro-Israel policy.

In June 2006 speech, Obama promised the AIPAC that Jerusalem would remain undivided. The next day he retracted this promise under fire from the President of the Palestinian National Authority. Obama’s former pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, once condemned Israel as a “dirty word.” A Los Angeles Times article from April asserts that Obama’s close connection with Rashid Khalidi, a critic of Israeli policy and professor of arab studies at Columbia University, “has led some Palestinian leaders to believe that he might deal differently with the Middle East than his opponents for the White House,” however pro-Israel Obama continues to be. The article suggests that the Palestinian leaders’ belief “is not drawn from Obama’s speeches or campaign literature, but from comments that some say Obama made in private and from his association with the Palestinian American community.”

Perhaps the most urgent issue, however, is Obama’s unwavering policy to negotiate without preconditions with Iran, a country headed by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has asserted that wiping Israel off the map is “a very wise statement.” Although Silverman calls Obama’s foreign policy “more stabilizing” for Israel, this opinion fails to convey the magnitude of what is at stake. National Review columnist Anne Bayefsky best articulates this viewpoint, writing that “since the time of Hitler, civilization has never been so close to the brink of total catastrophe” in reference to a possible nuclear attack by Iran on Israel, among other threats to geopolitical stability. For children of Holocaust survivors, McCain’s more aggressive Iran policy, including a refusal to negotiate with Iran, is infinitely superior to Obama’s economic sanctions and precondition-less negotiations. The bombs fell too late in World War II.

For my family, the choice is clear: our heritage or Obama. Even if the two are not mutually exclusive, as I and 57 percent of Jews believe, Jews must at least be conscious of what an Obama administration means both for our past and for our future. I hope that Silverman’s blame does not fall on us, but even if it does, we should take it in stride.


Avishai D. Don ’12, a Crimson editorial comper, lives in Matthews Hall.