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Jews Debate Jews Debating Obama

Plus the other half of ‘Dysentery’ weighs in

by
Marc Tracy
June 15, 2010

Commentary, the right-wing journal published founded by the American Jewish Committee [Ed.: The AJC no longer publishes it], has a massive symposium in which 31 “prominent American Jews” briefly discuss whether American Jews are likely to shift from the 4-to-1 support they gave President Obama in the 2008 election. Notable respondents include Elliott Abrams (whom Lee Smith profiled in Tablet Magazine), Alan Dershowitz, Abraham Foxman, Aaron David Miller (whom Lee Smith also profiled), Norman Podhoretz, Nextbook Press author Ruth Wisse, and Rabbi Eric Yoffie.

I’ll defer to J.J. Goldberg for a summary of the findings:

Don’t count on those American Jewish blockheads to stand up for Israel: 11.
Well, they’d better / Hey, they just might: 7.
I’m hoping Obama will see the light and we won’t have to choose sides: 7.
Obama isn’t Israel’s enemy / This symposium is a right-wing set-up: 4.
Miscellaneous (Both sides are nuts / We haven’t properly taught Israel to our young’uns): 2.

Meanwhile, from the other half of Dysentery, Dissent posts an essay co-written by founding editor Irving Howe in the aftermath of the Six Day War. “Israelis should take a constructive and humane attitude toward the problem of the Arab refugees,” the 1967 essay argues, “who, even if exploited by the Arab governments, are suffering human beings and deserve more sympathy and active help than they have gotten from a nation itself comprised of refugees.”

Marc Tracy is a staff writer at The New Republic, and was previously a staff writer at Tablet. He tweets @marcatracy.