Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Life

6 Famous Jewish Women Explain Why Michelle Obama Rocked Her DNC Speech

Social media users sang Michelle Obama’s praises for her Monday night speech at the Democratic National Convention, in which she strongly endorsed Hillary Clinton’s run for president.

In the speech, Obama spoke of the importance of caring about the future of the next generation and said Clinton was “the kind of president that I want for my girls and all our children.”

In a widely quoted part of the address, Obama dealt with both the United States’ history of racism and progress.

“…I wake up every morning in a house that was built by slaves. And I watch my daughters, two beautiful, intelligent, black young women playing with their dogs on the White House lawn,” the First Lady said. “And because of Hillary Clinton, my daughters and all our sons and daughters now take for granted that a woman can be president of the United States.”

Obama also alluded to Republican nominee Donald Trump, slamming his slogan “Make America great again.”

“So, look, so don’t let anyone ever tell you that this country isn’t great, that somehow we need to make it great again,” Obama said.

Here’s what Jewish social media users had to say about the speech:

Journalist Julia Ioffe took a stab at Melania Trump, whose speech at the Republican national convention last week was revealed as partly plagiarized from an earlier speech by Michelle Obama. In April, Ioffe’s profile of Melania Trump lead to her husband’s supporters bombarding her with anti-Semitic death threats.

New York Magazine writer Rebecca Traister shared an article in which she wrote that Michelle Obama “eviscerated” Donald Trump.

Journalist Rachel Sklar suggested Ivanka Trump take notes from Obama.

Pulitzer-Prize winning author Anne Appelbaum called Obama’s address “the speech of the year.”

Singer-songwriter Regina Spektor gushed about Obama’s speech on Twitter.

Jerusalem-based writer Noga Tarnopolsky seemingly hinted at Melania Trump’s speech, although Obama did enlist the help of Jewish speechwriter Sarah Hurwitz to compose her remarks.

Contact Josefin Dolsten at dolsten@forward.com or on Twitter, @JosefinDolsten

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 editorial@forward.com, 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.

Exit mobile version