This is the Forward’s coverage of former U.S. president Barack Obama and his relationship to the Jewish community.
Barack Obama
The Latest
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Fast Forward White House Briefs Close To 700 Rabbis on President Obama’s Syria Plans
Close to 700 rabbis and other Jewish communal officials were briefed by a top White House aide on President Obama’s Syria plans. The call Tuesday with Ben Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser, was organized by the Reform movement’s Religious Action Center and the Conservative movement’s Rabbinical Assembly and attracted 691 callers from all religious…
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Opinion Suffer the Children
It was right and proper that President Obama address the American public from a simple podium with no special effects or distractions, methodically laying out his reasons for a military strike against Syria and addressing the doubts of so many about the wisdom and efficacy of such a risky move. But part of me wished…
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Opinion Chemical Weapons Are Different. Here’s Why.
One of the strangest aspects of the Syria debate is how much energy and passion is going into it, on both sides — for and against American air strikes — and how little light is being shed on the central issue, namely chemical weapons. Secretary of State John Kerry, in his supposedly game-changing speech August…
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Fast Forward AIPAC Details ‘Major’ Lobbying Push on Syria
The influential pro-Israel American Israel Public Affairs Committee will deploy hundreds of activists next week to win support in Congress for military action in Syria, amid an intense White House effort to convince wavering U.S. lawmakers to vote for limited strikes. “We plan a major lobbying effort with about 250 activists in Washington to meet…
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Fast Forward AIPAC Plans ‘All-Out’ Push for Syria Vote
AIPAC is putting its bodies where its mouth is on Syria. The pro-Israel group, having backed President Obama’s push to authorize military strikes against the regime of Bashar al-Assad, plans to dispatch more than 250 leaders and activists to lobby Congress starting early next week. The hawkish group decided to double down on its support…
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News Undecided Lawmakers Key to Fate of Syria Vote
The fate of a congressional resolution to authorize President Barack Obama’s planned military strikes on Syria hinges on scores of undecided U.S. lawmakers, with party loyalty appearing increasingly irrelevant. Even after congressional hearings featuring Obama’s secretaries of state and defense, a half dozen closed-door briefings and phone calls from Obama himself, it was too close…
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Fast Forward Jewish Democrat Alan Grayson Says Syria Measure Doomed in House of Representative
Rep. Alan Grayson, a liberal Jewish Democrat, is planning to vote against President Obama’s proposal to authorize intervention in Syria — and predicts the measure will fail by a wide margin in the House of Representatives. The Florida congressman told Politico that constituents in his Orlando-area district are dead set against getting involved in Syria’s…
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Opinion The Presidential Blessing
Taking a moment off from the intense debate over Syria, President Barack Obama published a blessing for the High Holidays. Obama noted that 50 years ago, Rabbi Joachim Prinz stood with Dr. King on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, and told the marchers the when god created man, he created him as everybody’s neighbor….
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