Welcome to the Forward’s coverage of former U.S. president Barack Obama and his relationship to the Jewish community.
Barack Obama
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Fast Forward Benjamin Netanyahu Set To Deepen Feud With Barack Obama Over Iran Deal
(JTA) — For President Obama, the framework agreement reached Thursday with Iran is a “historic understanding” that does more to roll back Tehran’s nuclear program than any possible alternative and avoids the risk of a destructive war in the Middle East. To Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, it’s the complete opposite: a pact that “threatens the…
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Opinion After Iran Deal, Time for Bibi To ‘Reassess’ Quixotic Fight
The public debate over the emerging nuclear deal has been waged in recent weeks mostly ex parte: the critics have had the stage mostly to themselves. Out of concern for the ongoing talks and uncertainty about their end result, President Obama and administration officials have maintained a relatively low profile and have left the criticism…
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News Rabbi Shlomo Riskin’s ‘Obama Is Haman’ Rant Reflects Growing Israeli Anger Over Iran
(JTA) — For years, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has compared Iran to the biblical Persia, the ancient kingdom where the Jewish people were nearly annihilated through the evil designs of the arch-villain Haman. But when an American-born rabbi, widely seen as a religious moderate who built one of the most innovative Orthodox synagogues in…
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Fast Forward British Jew Quits Race After Suggesting Israel ‘Do Eichmann’ on President Obama
A Jewish candidate for the British Parliament has withdrawn after suggesting that Israel should “do an Eichmann” on Barack Obama. Jeremy Zeid of the United Kingdom Independence Party, or UKIP, quit his campaign on Thursday in response to the blowback to a Facebook post in which he suggested that Israel should “[k]idnap the bugger” and…
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Fast Forward 79 Democrats Urge President Obama To Keep Pushing for Two-State Solution
Seventy-nine Democratic members of Congress told President Barack Obama that he should “persevere” in his efforts for a two-state solution in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In a letter sent to Obama on Tuesday, the lawmakers wrote that they were concerned with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s pre-election comments “dismissing the possibility of a two-state solution” and appreciated…
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Fast Forward Rabbi Shlomo Riskin Backs Off ‘Obama Is Haman’ Rant
Rabbi Shlomo Riskin reversed his earlier comparison of President Obama to the biblical villain Haman, saying that Iran — not the president — is comparable to the ancient enemy of the Jews. In an interview Wednesday, Riskin, the American-born chief rabbi of the West Bank settlement of Efrat and the founder of New York City’s…
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Opinion Between Obama and Netanyahu, It’s Personal
So the tension between President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu isn’t personal. That’s what the president said during his March 24 press briefing. Those of us who favor close U.S.-Israeli relations can breathe a sign of relief. Or start seriously worrying, depending on your viewpoint. On one hand, if it’s not personal then we needn’t…
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Fast Forward Jewish Democrats Ask President Obama To Lighten Up Rhetoric in Feud With Benjamin Netanyahu
Some Jewish House Democrats called on President Barack Obama to tamp down the rhetoric against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel. The Congress members issued the demand last week at a meeting with deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes, Politico reported Sunday. The meeting was the latest in a series of regular briefings that Rhodes…
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Opinion The secret cost of Israel’s wars ravaged my family. It’s only getting worse
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Yiddish מחשבֿות פֿון אַן אַהיים־געקומענעם (אַ מלחמה־טאָגבוך)Reflections of a soldier after returning home (a wartime diary)
דער מחבר איז אַ סטודענט אינעם ירושלימער העברעיִשן אוניווערסיטעט, אינעם צווייטן יאָר ייִדיש־לימוד
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Fast Forward Why the Antisemitism Awareness Act now has a religious liberty clause to protect ‘Jews killed Jesus’ statements
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News At Harvard, reports on antisemitism and anti-Palestinian bias reflect campus conflict over Israel
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