The Chicago Jewish News: Obama and the Jews Donate | Contact Us | Materials | Subscribe | Israel-Palestine Timeline | Israel-Palestine News IAK Israel Palestine News IAK Israel Palestine News Menu Statistics Overview Children Deaths Injuries Rockets US Taxes UN Resolutions Prisoners Home Demolitions Economic Interests Settlements History Synopsis Origin of the Conflict US-Israel Relations Maps Arab-Israeli Wars Refugees Jewish State Peace Talks Terrorism Religion Ancient History Current Situation 2023 Israel Gaza War Synopsis Live News from the Region Latest News/Analysis From IAK News Sources Daily Life & Reports International Law Resistance Internationals Attacked Peace Process Palestinian Politics Religion Commentary Peace Groups The Region US Interests Overview Israel Lobby Detailed History US Policy Spying USS Liberty Neocons War on Iran? 2014 National Summit Obama Administration More Resources Media Analysis Overview Media Report Cards Recent Articles Censorship Media Bias Journalists Attacked Popular Culture Q & Clues Daily News Latest News & Updates 2023 Israel Gaza War Live News from the Region Israel Palestine News IAK Original Content Human Rights Israel Lobby Censorship Regional News Politics Religion Videos About Us Our Mission Who We Are Contact Us Donate Events Videos Alison Weir Accusations Take Action Order/Print Materials Book List In the News Donate Overview | Israel Lobby | Detailed History | US Policy | USS Liberty | Spying | Neocons | War on Iran? | Obama Administration | More Resources The Chicago Jewish News:Obama and the Jews Cover artwork from The Chicago Jewish News Pauline Dubkin Yearwood The Chicago Jewish News October 24, 2008 [It appears that the Chicago Jewish News has taken this story down from its website. However, you can see their article on the WayBack Machine Internet Archive here.] Abner Mikva, the former Chicago congressman, federal judge and White House counsel to President Bill Clinton, puts a 21st-century twist on the notion that Clinton was "the nation's first black president." "I think when this is all over, people are going to say that Barack Obama is the first Jewish president," he said. Mikva, a powerful figure in local and national Democratic politics for decades, was one of Sen. Obama's early admirers, beginning in 1990 when he tried to hire the brilliant student and first black president of the Harvard Law Review for a coveted clerkship. (Obama turned him down, saying he was going to move to Chicago and run for public office. "I thought that showed a lot of chutzpah on his part," Mikva says with a laugh.) Abner Mikva Since then, Mikva's support for and nurturance of the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee has never wavered. He is one of many influential Chicago Jews who have been among Obama's earliest and most ardent backers. One longtime Jewish observer of the political scene, who did not want to be identified, said admiringly that "Jews made him. Wherever you look, there is a Jewish presence." Yet outside of Chicago, there has been a significant amount of Jewish resistance to Obama's candidacy, although that may be lessening with Sen. Hillary Clinton, a favorite among Jews, out of the picture. The Jewish community has been a particular target of e-mails declaring Obama a secret Muslim who attended a madrassa in Indonesia, took his Senate oath of office by swearing on a Quran, and is aligned with Muslim terrorists. Those allegations have been thoroughly disproven by mainstream media and other sources. But even aside from the crackpot right, there is still distrust of the Illinois senator from some Jewish quarters, much of it centering on Israel and on some former and current advisors who are perceived to be unfriendly to the Jewish state. Joel Sprayregen Typical of the naysayers is Joel Sprayregen, a Chicago attorney who is a former chair of the Jewish Community Relations Council and a current member of the executive committee of JINSA, the Jewish Institute of National Security Affairs. "My skepticism about Obama derives from both his lack of experience and his alignment up to recently with the far left," Sprayregen said while acknowledging that the candidate "has moved more to the center once he secured the nomination." Sprayregen believes that "a number" of Obama's foreign policy advisors "have views which would jeopardize American national security. His association with left-wing views and advisors gives me apprehension as to how firm his support for Israel would be in a crisis," he said. Obama is "baffled" by the resistance to him from some Jews, a key advisor, former California Rep. Mel Levine, said recently, and has stepped up outreach efforts to the Jewish community, including making a well-publicized trip to Israel earlier this summer, his second visit to the Jewish state. Washington correspondent James Besser, writing in The New York Jewish Week, declares that the senator "is acting as if Jews hold the keys to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue." In a way, they do. "The Jewish vote is important because of the states (Jews) are in," Paul Green, a Roosevelt University professor and longtime political maven, said. While Jews make up only about three percent of the national voting public, they vote in greater proportion to their numbers than almost any other group and are gathered in key states, particularly Florida, a swing state with 27 electoral votes, he said. "That's the most interesting and important. The Jewish vote will matter the most there," Green said. "New York, Illinois, California - they'll go for Obama. But my guess is right now he has some work do with (Jews in) South Florida." Levine, the Obama advisor, says that more than anything, the nominee-to-be "wants people to realize what his record is and his closeness to the Jewish community in Chicago." That closeness can hardly be exaggerated. Obama's Chicago Jewish roots "Some of my earliest and most ardent supporters came from the Jewish community in Chicago," Obama told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in 2004, just after his keynote speech at the Democratic National Convention had galvanized the party and made his name a household word overnight. That was not hyperbole. Newton Minow Typical Obama first came to Chicago in 1985, after he graduated from Columbia University, and spent three years in the city as a community organizer. In 1988, he left for Harvard Law School, and in the same year met Newton Minow, a Jew and a longtime Democratic powerbroker who served as chairman of the Federal Communications Commission under President John F. Kennedy. He is currently senior counsel at the Loop law firm of Sidley Austin. Minow's daughter Martha ("She's not just Jewish, she's very very Jewish," her father said) was a professor at Harvard Law School at the time. "She called me in 1988 to say that the best student she ever had wanted to spend the summer in Chicago and she wanted me to meet him," Minow relates. "I said what's his name, and when she said 'Barack Obama,' I said, you gotta spell that." Minow asked a partner in his firm to look up Obama when he visited the law school. "He started to laugh," Minow said. "He said, we hired him already." Obama worked at Sidley Austin as an intern that summer; the firm is where he met attorney Michelle Robinson, and they married in 1992. Minow later offered him a second internship followed by a permanent job, but Obama turned it down because, he said, he was planning to go into public service or politics. Minow and his wife have remained friends with the couple and supporters of Obama's political career. "We introduced him to a lot of our friends and held fund-raisers for him," Minow said. "We find him to be truly outstanding. If you just look around, you can see he's got many many Jewish friends. He is very much at home with Jewish people, their values and interests." He believes that many in the Jewish community supported Clinton over Obama because "they didn't know Barack Obama. They were not informed about him. They had a loyalty over the years to the Clintons. It's not that they were negative about Barack; they were just committed elsewhere." Minow continues to actively support Obama's candidacy; a nephew serves as one of his speechwriters. In Chicago, meanwhile, the Obamas settled in Hyde Park and Obama became a popular lecturer at the University of Chicago law school. Abner Mikva, whom Obama already knew from Washington, also taught there, and the two renewed their acquaintance and became close. "We would have lunch and breakfast together and talk about a lot of things, different issues," Mikva said. Through Project Vote, a voter registration drive that Obama worked on in 1992, he met two key future supporters, both Jewish. One was David Axelrod, a former Chicago Tribune reporter and chief consultant to Chicago mayors Harold Washington and Richard M. Daley who has been Obama's chief strategist since 2002.