Barack Obama’s campaign has been working pretty hard to convince Jewish voters that he’s a solid pro-Israel voice in the AIPAC mold. Now the anti-AIPAC dove Rabbi Michael Lerner has an article arguing that he and Obama are kindred spirits.
What puts Obama into difficulty is that his actual beliefs make this attempt to appeal to Jews difficult when it comes to Israel.
Obama is a spiritual progressive. He believes that human beings are equally valuable whether they are white or black, American or Asian or African or European. Apply that to the Middle East and you get policy inclinations very different from those which have been insisted upon by the Israel Lobby, supported by most of the establishment Jewish institutions, and through the power of their organized pressure, have become the dominant policy supported by both parties in rare unanimity.
So while spiritual progressives like us at Tikkun and the Network of Spiritual Progressives…
It looks like Jewish Democrats have two choices: A senator who has talked with Michael Lerner, but Michael Lerner says never listens to him, or a senator who Michael Lerner doesn’t talk with, but who Michael Lerner says is just like him.
