Well, despite the ongoing attempts to sell the idea that Jews are moving to the right ( first, all of us were supposed to vote for McCain; then,we were supposed to be voting for McCain in slightly higher numbers than we would vote Republican in the past, because of Israel, you know; then, it was that young Jews were going to vote more for the right, let’s wait and see how many more attempts at change through lying the right will throw around) it turns out, as predicted, that Jews voted for Obama at equal to, or slightly higher numbers than usual – as mentioned in the Forward, “Early exit polls of Jewish voters indicated that between 77% and 78% Jews voted for Obama for president, equal to or slightly higher than the proportion of the Jewish vote won by the Democratic nominee Senator John Kerry in 2004.”
But, wait, they all cry, there’s still plenty of time for Obama to show how much he really hates us and what a bad idea this is, well yeah, except then he starts building his team with whom? Rep. Rahm Emanuel of Illinois (who began his career with the consumer rights organization Illinois Public Action… bodes well IMO)to be his White House chief of staff. IN case anyone missed this, Emanuel is Jewish and has an Israeli father. And his nice Jewish mom? The daughter of a local union organizer, and among other things, herself a civil rights activist. And by the way, he’s married to a nice Jewish girl too. She converted. I’m so glad to see Judaism (and Orthodoxy, even) finally being represented in the public eye by people who are out to do the right and the good. WOOT!
But I digress, what I really want to say is that it’s kinda cool to hear people talking about President elect Obama as, among other things, a hope for reconnecting the Jewish and African-American communities, giving us hope for coalition building there as part of the greater stage of coalition building that Obama has successfully begun amongst all sorts of groups throughout the USA.
Or maybe I just like to see the lameness of people like Matt Brooks, the executive director of the Republican Jewish Coalition, claiming victory because since in some exit polls “Obama made major gains among Hispanic, Asian, Catholic and other ethnic and religious voters compared to how John Kerry performed four years ago — gains that exceeded those he made among Jewish voters,” he’s going to try to claim that that’s proof that Jews are REALLY moving to the right this time. “What the numbers continue to show is that Barack Obama continues to under-perform among Jewish voters relative to the general electorate,” he said.
YAAAAWN.
Don’t worry, I’ll probably get tired of talking about this subject soon.