This is the Forward’s coverage of former U.S. president Barack Obama and his relationship to the Jewish community.
Barack Obama
The Latest
-
The Schmooze Was Obama’s ‘Jew Tax’ Gaffe a Freudian Slip?
What was that, Mr. President? You meant to say “janitor,” but out came “Jew.” Those words starting with the letter “J” can really trip you up. In a speech President Obama gave this past Saturday evening at the Congressional Black Caucus annual awards dinner in Washington, it seemed as though he was saying that there…
-
Opinion From Right and Left, Forecasts of Israeli Doom
You know what they say: One is an anomaly, two is a coincidence, three is a trend. What about four? That’s how many leading commentators have weighed in over the past week with astonishingly gloomy prognoses about Israel’s future. They come from both left and right. The consensus is that the Jewish state is on…
-
News After U.N. Drama, Little Hope for Peace Breakthrough
An intense week of high-profile speeches and backroom diplomacy, which reached its climax with an official Palestinian bid for statehood, has reshaped the Middle East peace process, eroding the American position as lead player — which may, in fact, be President Obama’s strategy. Days after Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas took to the United Nations stage…
-
The Schmooze Obama Makes New York Magazine Cover as ‘First Jewish President’
Barack Obama may be America’s “first Jewish president,” this week’s New York magazine cover provocatively suggests. The publication sets the phrase in quotation marks, placing it over a cover photo of Obama’s kippah-wearing head. The accompanying article — entitled “The Tsuris,” and written by staff political analyst John Heilemann — looks at at Obama’s relationship…
-
Opinion Jewish Groups on Obama: JCPA Liked the Speech, ZOA Isn’t That Into Him
Jewish organizations generally don’t react quickly to events unless they involve terror attacks in Israel or blatantly anti-Semitic statements by foreign dictators, but one organization managed to whip out a response to President Obama’s jobs speech—a favorable one, as it happens—less than an hour after the president finished speaking. The quick response was from the…
-
Opinion Makovsky on Egypt and Restarting the Peace Process
The website of Foreign Affairs magazine has a very useful interview with David Makovsky, fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, former Jerusalem Post editor, former Haaretz diplomatic correspondent and one of the smartest Middle East watchers in Washington, on the various uncertainties Israel faces right now. He notes that Israel and Egypt…
-
Food Hazon Goes to the White House: Food Justice and the Farm Bill
Last week 12 excited Hazon representatives and 160 other Jewish participants gathered in Washington D.C. as part of the Jewish Social Justice Roundtable (JSJRT), a collection of 21 nonprofits supporting social justice as an essential component of Jewish life. The two-day affair began on Thursday, July 28th with congressional meetings and culminated the following day…
-
Opinion New Poll: Israel Is Not the Deciding Factor
It is polling season in the Jewish world and after Gallup’s poll and the controversial Dick Morris and the just as controversial McLaughlin and Caddell surveys it is now J Street’s turn to weigh in. The group released yesterday its own national survey of American Jews which reinforces the main findings of the Gallup poll…
Explore
Most Popular
- 1
Culture ‘My mayor Muslim, my bagel Jewish’ — the Knicks chant capturing New York’s soul
- 2
Opinion The Iran war ended terribly for the US, and even worse for Israel
- 3
Opinion Cultural boycotts of Israel just reached peak absurdity
- 4
Film & TV In ‘Disclosure Day,’ Steven Spielberg finds himself at odds with Jewish thought about aliens
In Case You Missed It
-
Fast Forward Toronto police say young people are being recruited online to shoot at synagogues
-
Fast Forward Feds investigating antisemitism allegations at American Psychological Association
-
Fast Forward In Britain, a Jewish Culture Month aims to move the conversation beyond Oct. 7
-
News This Jewish activist was arrested and deported for her book ‘Lesbian Love.’ 100 years later, will NYC apologize?