An Open Letter to Jewish Voters Who are Threatening to Withhold Support From Barack Obama in November

I’ve heard a lot of talk about Jews who plan to vote for John McCain in November because they: a) believe he will be a stronger supporter of Israel; b) are concerned that Obama will be overly sympathetic to Islamic and Arab states in the Middle East, which is essentially the flip side of the preceding; c) hear that Israelis don’t like or trust Obama; d) aren’t certain Obama has the experience to do the job; e) think Obama has “Muslim blood” and was educated at a madrassa; f) are certain, in any event, that Obama has been influenced by the anti-Semitic rhetoric of Jeremiah Wright and Louis Farrakhan.

I don’t want to unpack all of these wildly off the mark beliefs and take them on one by one. Although, if you insist that I have to, call me up and I’ll do just that. You have to promise to be civil, though, and not rant, and bring evidence to support your claims.

My approach, for the moment, in the space I have available, will be to draw your attention to the forms of rhetoric and the tools of persuasion that the Republicans (and other shadowy forces of division) are using to shape your opinions. Additionally, I want to remind you of some history and some reasons to be in solidarity with Obama and his political movement.

First of all, don’t you recognize when Republicans and conservative commentators and unidentified bloviators use Fox News and blog postings and e-mails from unnamed “friends of friends” to position the claim that Obama might not have been born in the U.S. (and that his birth certificate has been faked), or that his original faith may have been Islam (and has left a lasting disfiguring impression on him), or that he took his oath of office on the Koran, not the Bible (and prioritizes his faith to Islam above his role as an elected official), that this is exactly the type of scurrilous and hateful rhetoric that was once circulated about Jews. The methods have changed—we have twenty-four hour cable news and the web and e-mail, while Jews were targeted in pamphlets and handbills and by word of mouth. But the objective and the methods are the same—to imply, by suggestion and misrepresentation and innuendo and outright fabrication, that Obama isn’t entirely trustworthy, that he is impure, and that he is part of some conspiracy to dominate the world. Why allow yourself to be persuaded by a campaign of lies that resembles in so many ways the type of hateful crusade that was carried out (in fact, continues to be carried out) against Jews? Shouldn’t we, as targets of this sort of innuendo and hatred, have a higher obligation to demand evidence, to examine that evidence, to push back? When you swallow these claims without requiring evidence and without demanding accountability, you are doing so not because the claims are persuasive, but because you are hoping for a reason to discredit Obama. It is convenient for you to believe this campaign of lies. Out of convenience—because you don’t want to confront your own racism, perhaps—you are countenancing (and forwarding!) smears and distortions and inflammatory falsehoods.

Second, why can’t you see that you should be shaking with rage when someone makes the claim that Obama, whatever faith he practices, or despite the things he claims, and the evidence of his life and the choices he makes, is Muslim because it is in his blood. As a Jew who bends toward the Reform end of the spectrum, I believe we are Jews because of the choice we make to be Jewish. There is a long history of assessing membership in the Jewish community through matrilineal descent. If you require me to have a Jewish mother to be Jewish, then I’m not a Jew. I think I am, because I have been converted, and have committed to raise my children in a Jewish home, and we maintain a kosher kitchen, and I embrace the moral requirements of Judaism—in Rabbi Simeon ben Gamaliel's words, "justice, truth, and peace" (and, I would add, benevolence and charity). Let’s set aside our intramural debate about what makes a Jew a Jew. Instead, let’s acknowledge something indisputable. At the center of this attack on Obama is the idea that he is marked—tainted—by his father’s faith. And, these attackers imply, there is something wrong with that faith. Obama cannot be imagined to be, as a result, trusted to be loyal to the United States; he isn’t truly one of us. This combines a number of ideas that have always been just behind the scenes (and, often, clearly visible) in the attacks and campaigns targeting Jews throughout history. Jews were killed or driven out in pogroms dating back centuries because it was believed that Jews weren’t legitimately members of the communities within which they lived. And the Nazis targeted Jews, even those who were distant from the practice of their rituals and faith, and were by every measurable indication assimilated into the national and cultural life of their homeland, because it was imagined that their Jewish heritage contaminated even these Jews. Edith Stein, who was born a Jew but converted to Catholicism and became a nun, was killed by the Nazis despite her conversion and her fervent practice of her Catholic faith because she was born a Jew. It was, in other words, in her blood.

Given this history, how can you not challenge and repudiate emails that claim that Obama’s heritage makes him an unacceptable candidate. At the core of Jewish life is the idea that Jews are a chosen people not because we are beloved by God, but because our worldview, our belief system, is worthy of emulation. The central feature of that worldview is a commitment to doing good works, to healing the world. This translates, very easily, into a fundamental truth that shapes my (and many Jews’) moral vision: We should be measured by the actions we take, by our commitment to be fair and generous and charitable. It isn’t our blood—an unbroken line of inheritance that connects us with Abraham—that makes us special, but our choices and conduct. I challenge you to employ the same standard: If you want to evaluate Obama’s candidacy, consider his conduct and his actions.

Now some of you might say: that’s what we’re doing. And Obama’s conduct falls short of what we would demand from a presidential candidate. He sat for twenty years, you say, as others have, in a church where hate was preached. Let me agree with you: I wish Obama hadn’t. But religion is, too often, contaminated by hateful ideas. Millions of Americans attend evangelical churches that teach the idea that some people are saved and others are damned, and the damned will suffer, and deserve to suffer. And millions of Americans attend churches where homosexuals and unwed mothers and women who chose abortion are denounced and condemned. And the Republican party has committed itself, has built its electoral strategy on winning over these voters and the party’s candidates seek out endorsements from ministers who lead these flocks, as a way of securing their votes. In short, let’s look forward to a day when religion is removed from our politics, but until that day, let’s not pretend that Obama’s minister preached anything worse than that preached by religious leaders, like John Hagee, affiliated with McCain. On the question that it is hard to accept that Obama sat there for twenty years, I think it is easy to argue, and can be confirmed with evidence, that many Americans sit through sermons they disagree with, and swallow claims they are uncomfortable with, and turn their heads and ignore doctrine they can’t accept. They don’t do this because they are weak, but because their church is charitable at the same time it is narrow-minded. So many churches, like Trinity United Church, do good work—they help and feed the poor, and provide aid to those who are suffering from AIDs, they assist addicts and alcoholics and help them toward recovery, and they shelter battered women. People judge their church and their church leaders on their conduct, not their doctrine, and they see work being done in the community that is not being done by the state or any other official actor. And they know their co-worshippers, and know that many of them are good people, and their membership in the church is understood as a way of connecting with these friends and peers. Obama is probably not much different than these people. But this is such a tiny part of his overall life, and shouldn’t we take into account the totality of his life and contribution?

And on that measure, how can there be a contest between Barack Obama and John McCain? When I converted to Judaism, the most appealing idea in Jewish life was this: we can heal the world by performing acts of charity and justice. We are active agents in making the world a better place. It isn’t through prayer, or by divine intervention, or through the delivery of a savior that our world will be healed, it is through our efforts and by our example. This, too, is inescapably part of Obama’s message. Want to read something that will reawaken your commitment to social justice? Read Obama’s speech on urban poverty, given last year in Washington, D.C. Maybe you have come to distrust government solutions to poverty and unemployment, and you dispute Obama’s declaration that government must play a role in any serious effort to eradicate poverty. That’s fine—although I believe you are wrong to think the market or faith-based organizations alone can do it. Still, let’s fight that out, joined in a common belief that poverty and suffering and hopelessness are unacceptable to us as Jews and as Americans. Let’s agree that our candidates should be compassionate and engaged in the work of erasing poverty and reducing suffering. And hasn’t Obama been engaged in exactly that work for his entire adult life, first as a community organizer, then as a politician? Visit McCain’s website—he doesn’t discuss poverty directly anywhere on his site. His solution for America’s ills is a “Pro Growth, Pro-Jobs Tax Agenda.” That, it seems to me, at best, is arms-length compassion. As Jews, shouldn’t we demand more from a candidate?

Finally, in my preceding comments I urged you, on the basis of our history, to be more demanding, to reject baseless, unsupported claims designed to amplify hatred and distrust and to incite, not inform. In the history of the Jews we find evidence that bias and prejudice is destructive. It is this experience—of enslavement and discrimination and marginalization—that has been part of the history of solidarity between Jews and African-Americans. Jews and African Americans struggled side by side, and died together, to fight for civil rights. Solidarity with Obama makes sense in part because of this shared history of suffering, but also because any struggle of this type, to champion social justice, to elevate the downtrodden, to heal, is our struggle. It is what makes us Jews. These concerns are the core elements of our moral vision as Jews. While I might urge you to support Obama because his candidacy represents an achievement in the struggle for civil rights, I would argue more forcefully that you should stand with him because his political and moral message is in tune with our collective hopes for the world. This is true especially in comparison to McCain’s views, which are loathsome to most Jews. McCain continues the long Republican commitment to narrow conservative principles and the perpetuation of the advantages of wealth and privilege. And, at least as far as his campaign has provided us a glimpse into his governing style and decision-making, McCain, too, shares the Bush administration’s disinterest in inquiry and disdain for science and evidence-based claims and dismissiveness toward engagement and dialogue. We are, in our study of Torah and our Talmudic tradition, a scholarly community. The Jewish rabbinical tradition rests on the idea that truth comes from reasoned inquiry, careful (although admittedly creative) use of evidence, and dialogue and disputation. In all of these areas—in his embrace of tolerance and accommodation, in his commitment to social justice, in his openness to debate and dialogue—Obama, not McCain, is the closest thing Jews could find to a kindred spirit.