Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
News

Obama Campaign Appoints Adviser To Coordinate Jewish Outreach

Washington — The Obama campaign is beefing up its Jewish outreach operation, adding a senior staff member to oversee ties with the Jewish community.

Daniel Shapiro, who served as an outside advisor to the campaign on Middle East issues, formally joined the campaign as a full-time paid staffer this week and will be in charge of Jewish outreach efforts. He will carry the title of senior policy adviser and Jewish outreach coordinator.

Eric Lynn, who for the last year served as the campaign’s liaison to the Jewish community, will continue his work under Shapiro.

“The Obama campaign is reaching out aggressively to the Jewish community through the creation of Jewish Community Leadership Councils in cities around the country, and Dan joins National Jewish Vote Director Eric Lynn to augment and expand this outreach effort,” an August 19 statement issued by the campaign read.

Shapiro is a well-known figure in the Jewish political scene. He has been working with the Jewish community on behalf of the Obama campaign for the past year and was involved in all major events in which Senator Barack Obama spoke to the Jewish community. Shapiro also participated in Obama’s trip to the Middle East and Israel.

While he served on the National Security Council during the Clinton administration, most of his political career was spent working on Capitol Hill. He was deputy chief of staff for Senator Bill Nelson and worked on the staffs of Senator Dianne Feinstein and of Rep. Lee Hamilton, who chaired the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

The Obama campaign now has a staff of three dealing with the Jewish community. John McCain, on the other hand, does not have a designated staff member in charge of reaching out to the Jewish community.

For the past year, Shapiro maintained contact with Jewish groups in Washington and met with representatives of most Jewish organizations.

Jess Hordes, Washington director of the Anti-Defamation League, said he has worked with Shapiro for many years in different capacities and found him “very thoughtful” regarding the Jewish community and very connected to Jewish life. “I am sure he will be a useful and effective part of the Obama campaign,” Hordes said.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.