WASHINGTON (JTA) — Leaders of 29 Jewish organizations met with representatives of Barack Obama’s transition team.
For more than two hours Thursday afternoon in Washington they discussed domestic and international issues.
The agenda included the economy and legislation to assist vulnerable populations, church-state issues, judicial appointments, energy independence, Iran, the Middle East peace process, international anti-Semitism and U.S. participation in the Durban II conference, according to William Daroff, the director of the Washington office of United Jewish Communities.
"President-elect Obama’s transition team shrewdly invited just about every national Jewish organization to participate in a wide-ranging roundtable discussion that touched on just about every issue of concern to the Jewish community," Daroff said. "Left-leaning groups, right-leaning groups and all of us in between were included in the meeting in a truly unprecedented effort to ensure representation by the vast spectrum of American Jewish opinion."
In addition to mainstream stalwarts like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the meeting included representatives of dovish pro-Israel groups – Israel Policy Forum, Americans for Peace Now, Brit Tzedek v’Shalom and J Street – as well as from the hawkish Zionist Organization of America.
Bush administration meetings with Jewish groups tended toward a narrower focus on the mainstream.
