President Barack Obama will speak at the Sabbath Eve services Friday morning at Adas Israel, Washington’s largest Conservative synagogue.
Move over Muslims, now it’s the Jews’ turn. President Obama’s “reaching out to Muslims” speech in Cairo in 2009 raised Arab expectations for a New Muslim Order. Three years later, the Arab Spring rebellions in the Middle East showed the White House which Muslims were listening.
This time around, Obama is reaching out to the liberal Jewish community whom he sees as the most powerful Jews in the United States.
Adas Israel is in the political and religious center. Its best description might be “pareve,” the Hebrew word for foods that are not dairy and not meat. Another description would be “politically correct.”
Obama doesn’t get along well with Orthodox Jews because most of them are right-wing. They also are “too Jewish.” They are not politically correct. He loves J Street and has given the left-wing group an open door to the White House, but their penchant for “engaging” with Hamas is too far out in space even for Obama.
Obama also does not get along well with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, to make a gross understatement. The truth is he would not get along well with Yitzchak Herzog or Tzipi Livni if they were leading the Israel government because even they know that the Palestinian Authority is an enemy and not a “peace partner.” They can’t say it now because they are in the Opposition, but they have mumbled it enough times.
The ones who count in American politics are the rich and influential Jews. Some of them are Orthodox. Some of them are way out in left field. Many of them are wary of Obama because of his publicly harsh treatment of Netanyahu and his reckless driving towards a deal with Iran over its nuclear facilities.
He needs American Jewish support, and preaching to the Conservative synagogue in Washington is his key. Virtually every Israel ambassador attends Adas Israel. Current Ambassador Ron Dermer does not because he does not drive on the Shabbat.
Norman Eisen, Obama’s former ambassador to the Czech Republic, told The Washington Post:
The president is probably the last person in the White House who hasn’t been to Adas.. So I guess he wants to see what it’s all about.
President Obama’s speech comes during Jewish American Heritage Month. Obama will bowl over the audience tonight with quips. He probably will remind them that he holds a Passover Seder every year. Strictly kosher.
We can expect him to pull a phrase from the Torah and then deliver his own interpretation, based on his ignorance of Talmud.
That is just what the liberal American Jews want to hear.
“Love they neighbor as thyself” becomes “make peace with your enemies,” and “We were slaves in Egypt” becomes “free the poor Palestinians from the Occupation” so they can have the freedom to choose between a terrorist state and anarchy, or perhaps both.
Obama will find some way to argue that the Torah supports the “two-state solution.”
Obama’s support from the Jewish community has dropped sharply. A Gallup poll last month revealed that only 54 percent of American Jews – they usually refer to themselves Jewish Americans just so the non-Jews don’t suspect them of disloyalty.
President Obama is scary because he is one of those good American Gentiles who adopt certain Jewish principles for their own personal, social and political objectives. The difference between Reform Judaism and Obama’s view of Judaism is that he is not Jewish, although the Reform community rapidly is erasing that distinction through intermarriage.
Martin Indyk, former Ambassador to Israel, former “peace process” pusher and a model of the liberal American Jew, told the Washington newspaper:
The president himself feels a little Jewish, in the sense that he identifies with Jewish values,
The Washington Post added:
But on a more fundamental level, according to several of the president’s confidants, Obama is pained by the perception that he has not done enough for Israel. The president has had close Jewish friends for decades and inaugurated the tradition of holding an annual Passover Seder at the White House. Indyk said.
Bad news. The liberal American Jews, and their non-Jewish friends, want to “help” Israel by modeling the Jewish state after America.