Jewish Leaders Denounce Anti-Obama E-Mails
The online smear campaign against Barack Obama has now attracted attention from some prominent Jewish leaders. The heads of the American Jewish Committee, the Anti-Defamation League, the Simon Wiesenthal Center and other prominent Jewish organizations have circulated an open letter absolutely condemning the smears, before they might influence too many Jewish voters
"These tactics attempt to drive a wedge between our community and a presidential candidate based on despicable and false attacks and innuendo based on religion," the letter says. "We reject these efforts to manipulate members of our community into supporting or opposing candidates."
The full text of the letter is available after the jump.
January 15, 2008An Open Letter to the Jewish Community:
As leaders of the Jewish community, none of whose organizations will endorse or oppose any candidate for President, we feel compelled to speak out against certain rhetoric and tactics in the current campaign that we find particularly abhorrent. Of particular concern, over the past several weeks, many in our community have received hateful emails that use falsehood and innuendo to mischaracterize Senator Barack Obama’s religious beliefs and who he is as a person.
These tactics attempt to drive a wedge between our community and a presidential candidate based on despicable and false attacks and innuendo based on religion. We reject these efforts to manipulate members of our community into supporting or opposing candidates.
Attempts of this sort to mislead and inflame voters should not be part of our political discourse and should be rebuffed by all who believe in our democracy. Jewish voters, like all voters, should support whichever candidate they believe would make the best president. We urge everyone to make that decision based on the factual records of these candidates, and nothing less.
Sincerely,
Rabbi Marvin Hier, Founder and Dean, Simon Wiesenthal Center
Rabbi Abraham Cooper, Associate Dean, Simon Wiesenthal Center
William Daroff, Vice President, United Jewish Communities
Nathan J. Diament, Director, Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America
Abraham Foxman, National Director, Anti-Defamation League
Richard S. Gordon, President, American Jewish Congress
David Harris, Executive Director, American Jewish Committee
Rabbi David Saperstein, Director, Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism
Phyllis Snyder, President, National Council of Jewish Women
Hadar Susskind, Washington Director, Jewish Council for Public Affairs
Comments (23)
Anonymous wrote on January 16, 2008 10:16 AM:Good on them
DBJ wrote on January 16, 2008 10:25 AM:Oy, this is going to make Richard Cohen's head explode.
tt wrote on January 16, 2008 10:31 AM:This is really the entire Jewish community, wall to wall. (Maybe the left wing a little underrepresented, but in this case that doesn't matter.)
Gee wrote on January 16, 2008 10:41 AM:Oy, this is going to make Richard Cohen's head explode.
Yeah. Pass the popcorn!
BJ wrote on January 16, 2008 10:44 AM:Excellent response on the part of all of these folks, but the message of the emails and the entire campaign to smear the Senator isn't intended for American Jews so much as it is for Evangelical Christians who are the base of unconditional support in the U.S. of an autonomous Israel.
grover_rover wrote on January 16, 2008 11:00 AM:They don't actually mentioned what they are referring to though. I didn't realize the Cohen article was being spread via email. I guess that must be what they are referring to though, since the Muslim smear emails don't really have anything to do with Jews, well unless they are implying that Obama is one of those Muslims that believes Israel is an illegitimate country. Anyway, I guess being vague works too...
Anonymous wrote on January 16, 2008 11:02 AM:I hope anyone who gets these vile email messages will reply with this open letter.
Dave C wrote on January 16, 2008 11:17 AM:Can we get the WaPo to print this as an Op-Ed please?
JohnG wrote on January 16, 2008 11:24 AM:Cohen's article was intended to take on a separate life on the internet, and then become the "source" of further innuendo. I simply cannot understand why Cohen thought this would not backfire.
CT Voter wrote on January 16, 2008 11:25 AM:Good for them.
And this:
Can we get the WaPo to print this as an Op-Ed please?
is a great suggestion....
Gregor wrote on January 16, 2008 11:29 AM:Richard Cohen is merely another in a series of seriously deficient writers at WaPo. And let me throw in the NYT as well. And lots of others.
We have a serious problem in this country with people in positions of expertise who are nothing more than inflated windbags. Something's not right when 70% of your journalistic staff could easily be replaced overnight by writers of much higher caliber, largely drawn from the blogosphere. Or heck, from the nation's writing rooms.
Kristol, Krugman, Friedman, Cohen--the list of the Famous And Untalented is a mile freaking long. And it mirrors the mediocre crew running our nation's institutions, from the White House to many university Presidents, to corporations.
No wonder we're going down the tubes. This country needs a thorough cleansing of this calcified, installed, graymarket class of bores.
Bongo wrote on January 16, 2008 11:31 AM:Isn't Ann Baruch Coulter Jewish?
Chris Brown wrote on January 16, 2008 11:35 AM:I hope all those profit driven media and the blogosphere pundits who have likewise condemned such trash as these groups have done, will note that they have done so without repeating the virulent, bigoted garbage the condemn, unlike many media and blogosphere pundits.
I am continually amazed at those who give the words of haters and bigots further play when condemning such. You know, breathlessly reporting Coulter's, O'Reilly's, or Limbaugh's latest outrage, thereby driving more traffic to their web sites and increasing their "book" sales.
gustav wrote on January 16, 2008 11:44 AM:"...based on the factual records of these candidates, and nothing less."
Sounds like an implicit support of the Clintons to me.
Viking wrote on January 16, 2008 11:53 AM:Bongo, Ann Coulter is most definitely not Jewish. Where you got the "Baruch" from is anyone's guess.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ann_Coulter
PastorAgnostic wrote on January 16, 2008 11:55 AM:"Can we get the WaPo to print this as an Op-Ed please?"
Our WaPo? With its race towards the Times? The Washington Times, that is?
It will never happen.
Spot on: a good and decent man should have to endure this kind of rubbish. I am glad members of the Jewish leadership have taken this stand.
Greg DeLassus wrote on January 16, 2008 12:25 PM:Kristol, Krugman, Friedman, Cohen--the list of the Famous And Untalented is a mile freaking long.
I agree with the substance of this, but how did Krugman get a mention in that list? Krugman is one of the few writers at the NYT who is an unmitigated credit to his paper. He stands miles above Brooks, Dowd, Rich and Kristol.
Anonymous wrote on January 16, 2008 12:52 PM:It's too late anyways. The damage is done. FUD works. That condemnation letter brings even more attention to Obama's colorful Pastor. This doesn't play well with the Park Avenue/Brentwood crowd. And guess what? Hillary needs them NOW, not in November (she'll have them in November as a matter of course). Hence the timing.
colonpowwow wrote on January 16, 2008 1:30 PM:Anonymous @12:52:
Are you trying to encourage us to vote for Hillary because she's so prodigious in her political scope that she can toggle every switch on the power board, even to the point of getting Jewish leaders to time their release to her needs?
Have you thought of seeking professional help?
Chris O wrote on January 16, 2008 2:33 PM:It is really nice to see the ADL speak out against defamation for a change. I am really glad they made this statement, although unfortunately these Obama smears seem targeted to the ignorant masses of middle America, who get their information from insular email lists.
I usually see the ADL as the pro-defamation league, regularly smearing those that don't follow the AIPAC line.
Dan S wrote on January 16, 2008 3:12 PM:How despicable that this forthright stance by the Jewish leaders against smears and innuendo should be greeted by smears and innuendo here in the comments section. A list of writers who all happen to be Jewish-- including Paul Krugman!!!-- is used to exemplify the "famous and untalented" that run our nation's institutions; the ADL is accused of "smearing those that don't follow the AIPAC line," without citing a single example, and in total ignorance of the ADL's century-long track record of fighting for civil rights and against the KKK and other hate groups.
Bravo to the Jewish leaders for this timely declaration.
Daniel A. Greenbaum wrote on January 19, 2008 1:57 PM:Actually the letter from the Jewish Leaders and Richard Cohen's column have nothing to do with each other. The smears the Leaders are talking about are fictions or lies.
Cohen's column however was accurate. I have read the Trumpet article, from Obama's Church praising Farrahkan. If anything the smears against Obama are very like those leveled at Cohen.
As I remember from Watergate and Iran-Contra many on the Right only wanted to know how dare journalists publish things they don't like. This mindset does not seem confined to Right.
