A welcome story

Jewish Americans have traditionally been among the Democratic Party's most reliable supporters. While the Republicans have been doing better for the last 20 years or so, if Jews ran the United States there would be one party government. In the last four presidential races George H.W. Bush received 11% of the Jewish Vote in 1992 . Bob Dole got 16% in 1996. George W. Bush, 19% in 2000, and then 24% in 2004. One of the worries in 2008 for the Democrats when they chose a candidate with Hussein as his second name was that this trend line of a growing Republican share might continue.
Which is why this feature in today's Jerusalem Post will be welcomed by the Obama campaign. It describes how, when Rabbi Capers Funnye Jr. first met Barack Obama, he judged him to be a little shy. "To be fair," the Jerusalem Times relates, "Obama wasn't yet an international celebrity or even running for president. He was just Funnye's cousin Michelle's husband, being dragged to family events filled with her relatives, including Funnye, her grandfather's nephew. Funnye describes Obama at those encounters as curious about his Judaism, since he knew many white Jews but wasn't familiar with the African-American Jewish community."

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