Why Jews voted for Obama

Submitted by sara b (United States), Jun 12, 2009 at 15:53

Ugri,

As an American Jew who is petrified of Obama I can give you the only explanation I can come up with. And they are all painful and discouraging to me. There are several factors involved. One is that Jews outside of Israel, especially the comfortable and assimilated ones in America, have lessened their connection to Israel and also to Judaism. With so few Jews left in the world, they are losing their identity more each year. And why not? Being Jewish causes grief and discord and puts them at odds with their American neighbors. They also tend to be big on social justice and civil rights (look what standing up for black rights has gotten them- see Farakhann, Wright and those antisemitic black preachers).

So, American Jews wanted Obama for social justice reasons. He would be 'fair' and restore justice to the downtrodden. Yes, I am ashamed to say this, many have socialist ideals and the utopian thinking of the left.

Second, they have been convinced (and duped like everyone else) that Obama will succeed in bringing peace in the ME. After all, who does NOT want peace in the ME? Bush was a cowboy and offended everyone. Obama with his honeyed tongue and Muslim roots will coax the hatred away and all will be good. So to be kind to them, I will say that they had good intentions.

The basic problem with all leftist utopian thinkers is that they see the world how they would like it to be, not as it is. Hope is a very powerful tool and those of us who are realists, plenty of Jews among them, would rather base our opinions on reality and not wishful thinking.

As an aside, I saw a fascinating interview yesterday on Fox news. Two black urban organizers were brought on to discuss Rev Wright's latest lashing out at Jews (he accused 'them Jews' of keeping Obama from him and some other filthy comments). You could have knocked me down with a feather when BOTH black commentators criticized Obama and defended Israel. I have not seen that before. I can only explain it by thinking that many blacks are uncomfortable with the over reaching of Obama to the Muslims world. Obama as a black represents them, and they tend to be socially conservative and Christian. They do not like being associated with Muslims. Perhaps this is the unintended backlash... It was amazing to watch.

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