mercredi 18 novembre 2009

L'Occident : la "shoah" a remplacé le Christ

Le problème que pose la SHOAH, comme obstacle de l'émancipation sociale.

Dans sa lutte intégrale contre l'émancipation de ses animaux domestiques et de leur prise de conscience, le groupe des dominants en Occident, peut compter sur le religion de la Shoah, religion qui est propagée au sein de l'opposition au régime par la gauche et l'extrême-gauche, permettant ainsi la division de l'opposition en une partie qui dénonce cette religion comme l'axe principal de culpabilisation de la population dominée, soit comme moyen suprême de démoralisation de la population, permettant sa domination implacable, et une partie qui s'occupe à traquer ceux qui s'affrontent à cet aspect essentiel de la stabilité du régime.

Il est là intéressant de constater que ceux qui s'affirment comme étant par nature comme les opposants radicaux au régime, soit la gauche et l'extrême-gauche sont devenus en réalité ses meilleurs serviteurs, ses gardiens les plus efficaces.

Ceux qui dénoncent la religion de la SHOAH, religion qui constitue en réalité la nouvelle religion officielle du régime OTAN, doivent à la fois faire face aux forces policières du régime OTAN, et aux opposants de gauche et d'extrême-gauche à ce régime.

Il y a là, un constat immédiat à établir, c'est qu'évidemment, l'intérêt était tel pour le régime OTAN vis à vis de ces opposants de la gauche, qu'il a eut deux déterminations concomitantes envers ces opposants. Celle de les maintenir en place, de les soutenir, de les consolider, et celle de les infiltrer, de les noyauter, jusqu'à en faire de parfaits organes de répression à son service.

Les affaires Dieudonné et Faurisson, qui sont en fait des affaires similaires à celles des répressions moyenâgeuses d'hérésies religieuses, permettent de faire sortir le loup du bois.

En fait, maintenant, pour connaître qui est vraiment qui, soit qui représente un réel danger pour le régime, il suffit d’observer sa position vis à vis de la SHOAH.

L'adhésion à la religion de la Shoah est le seul critère qui permet de classer sans aucun risque d'erreur un activiste dans la catégorie des faux-opposants au régime, que cette adhésion soit évidente ou implicite. En fait on peut partager le monde militant entre les croyants en la religion de la Shoah, et les hérétiques, ces derniers étant les seuls réels dissidents.

Tout soutien du régime est un adepte de la SHOAH. Ces soutiens sont soit affichés, et dans ce cas, ils participent activement à la traque des hérétiques, soit des soutiens tacites, par leur silence ils agréent la traque des hérétiques, ou encore, ils diffusent des informations incluant des références à la SHOAH, ou bien ils diffusent les informations élaborées par les traqueurs d'hérétiques.

Dernièrement, on a pu voir la qualité réelle du site Internet bellaciao.org (7000 visites par jour), de gauche, relayant un dossier de dénonciation sur Dieudonné et Faurisson élaboré et publié par l'organe de la police politique reflexes.samizdat.net (40 visites par jour), cet article étant aussi relayé par le site mineur de l'AFPS, l'Association France Palestine Solidarité, tenu par des communistes. Lors de la campagne pour les européennes, la liste « antisioniste » de Dieudonné, a aussi permis de classifier comme faux-opposant, le site à façade pro-musulmanne alterinfo.net (7000 visites par jour), ainsi que le « Collectif Cheikh Yassine », d'Abdelhakim Séfrioui, dont le blog, qui est un organe similaire à celui de Réflexes, fait moins de 10 visites par jour. On peut voir là comment fonctionne sur l'Internet ce type de manipulation. La production d'organes de pure police politique, mais faisant peu d'audience, sont relayés par des sites grand public, par des relais qui sont soit infiltrés par la police du régime (cas sans doute de bellaciao.org), soit entièrement fabriqués par cette même police (probablement le cas du site alterinfo.net).

Il est à prévoir que la police politique en vienne, si ce n'est déjà fait, à fabriquer de faux hérétiques de la Shoah, de façon à disposer d'une dissidence sous son contrôle, de façon à diviser le milieu des hérétiques et à annihiler l'influence des vrais hérétiques.

3 - On peut aussi constater le changement de règle, à travers un autre événement, celui de la fabrication systématique par des agents de la police politique déguisés en « autonomes », de la violence, lors des manifestations pacifiques d'opposants de gauche. Depuis début 2008, on a pu les voir à l'oeuvre à Strasbourg, lors de la manifestation de contre l'OTAN, cet été près de Nantes, pour saboter l'activité des opposants à l'aéroport international de Nantes, en octobre à Poitiers, pour saboter une manifestation d'opposition à une nouvelle prison. L'affaire des présumés attentats contre les lignes TGV est du même ordre.

Des derniers points sont à soulever avant de clore cet exposé.

La campagne de vaccination va provoquer certains troubles sociaux, car ce vaccin est un mélange de poisons extrêmement nocifs, provoquant des invalidités permanentes (mercure, aluminium, squalène entre autres). Il va y avoir des dizaines de milliers de personnes définitivement handicapées (atteintes neurologiques permanentes). Le régime a sans doute déjà prévu comment traiter ce problème, car il s'est déjà posé en 1976, lors d'une campagne de vaccination similaire au USA, déjà pour la grippe porcine, campagne qui a dû être stoppée après quelques milliers de victimes, et lors de la première guerre de Golfe, où sur les 500 000 soldats engagés, les deux tiers au moins traînent à vie des séquelles dues aux vaccins et aussi à l'uranium appauvri. Il est à remarquer que la proportion de poisons présents dans l'actuel vaccin est de plusieurs milliers de fois supérieure à celle des vaccins de la guerre du Golfe. Aux USA, le gouvernement a promis l'impunité judiciaire aux laboratoires pharmaceutiques pour toutes les poursuites engagées par les éventuelles victimes d'atteintes dues aux vaccins.

Cette campagne de vaccination permet de se rendre compte de la qualité mentale des individus appartenant au groupe des dominants. En effet, il est indéniable que cette opération est à la fois organisée pour un motif trivial de profit économique, celui de l'industrie pharmaceutique, qui doit sans aucun doute partager ce profit sous forme de commissions occultes avec les partis politiques et des personnes privées de la politique, et pour un motif d'ordre policier de maîtrise de la population, dans le but de l'idéal de son contrôle absolu, par des moyens non plus psychologiques (propagande, religion), mais bioélectronique (puçage). L'atteinte à l'immunité corporelle que constitue la vaccination obligatoire, est un pas intermédiaire vers le puçage généralisé de la population. Le puçage expérimental permet déjà de reconnaître et bientôt d'influer à distance sur les émotions, donc permettra bientôt de prendre le contrôle du psychisme des sujets dominés. La jonction entre les neurones du cerveau humain et les microcircuits des puces électroniques est réalisé en laboratoire, et on peut voir des vidéos sur le site du New Scientist, de robots fonctionnant avec des puces hybrides, neurones biologiques-circuits électronique. Une cartographie existe déjà des zones du cerveau engagées dans certaines émotions, et un laboratoire japonais expérimente la commande par la pensée d'un véhicule automobile, en utilisant la reconnaissance des ondes émises par le cerveau. Ce n'est plus qu'une question d'un temps très court pour que soit réalisé, si ce n'est déjà le cas, l'espionnage et la commande à distance de l'état d'esprit, par un implant sur un sujet humain.

Mais ce que ces équipes de dominants du régime OTAN ne veulent pas regarder de face, c'est qu'ils vont affaiblir radicalement leur propre cheptel. Il est probable que quasiment toute la population va être contrainte à se faire vacciner, c'est à dire que le cheptel va perdre de manière non-discriminée, des éléments de spécialistes d'élites en nombres, indispensables à la prédominance du régime OTAN face aux régimes concurrents.

En Russie (définie comme étant l'ennemi principal par le régime OTAN), on se trouve déjà face à un régime qui détruit intensivement son propre cheptel (baisse continuelle de l'espérance de vie, qui est passée sous les 58 ans, diminution d'environ 1 million par ans, du nombre de ses habitants).

On se trouve dans le même cas de figure avec Israël. L'usage passé répété et actuellement permanent d'armes toxiques (uranium sous la forme de particules nanométriques, et autres métaux lourds, phosphore), sur les populations libanaises et palestiniennes, au sein d'un espace commun qui représente l'étendue d'une province française comme la Normandie, tue à coup sûr, certes de manière différée, la population israélienne même.

La situation en Chine est similaire pour cause de pollution intense, de même qu'en Inde, qui constituent les deux pays les plus peuplés de la planète.

On ne peut éliminer l'hypothèse selon laquelle un motif s'ajouterait aux précédents motifs de vacciner de façon obligatoire l'ensemble de la population de l'OTAN, contre une épidémie imaginaire. Ce motif est la distraction de l'attention de la population permettant d'engager la guerre contre l'Iran, qui possède à lui-seul 10% des dernières réserves pétrolières mondiales. Dans cette hypothèse, le fait que le vaccin produise non-seulement des maladies graves, se déclarant très rapidement, mais aussi un affaiblissement vis à vis des virus de la grippe mutants, c'est à dire que beaucoup de personnes vont être atteintes de façon très virulente par la grippe justement à cause de cette vaccination, de plus des personnes qui sans le vaccin auraient résisté sans problème à la grippe, selon ce que prévoient beaucoup de scientifiques, constituerait un moyen supplémentaire de centrer l'attention de la population de l'OTAN, loin de ce qui serait comme l'entrée ouverte dans une troisième guerre mondiale.

Conclusion :

Nous sommes entrés dans une ère où toutes les sociétés humaines sont dominées par des bandes de criminels ineptes, inconscients, irresponsables, simplement retords, vicieux, obstinés, âpres et sans aucun scrupule. L'exemple de l'actuel président français et son équipe, qui est en soi un véritable catalogue des horreurs et un étalage d'immondices, en est l'un des plus éloquents (Yade, Bachelot, Kouchner, Dati, Hortefeux, Lagarde, Hirsh ...). Il faut faire avec la donnée que ceux qui dirigent l'humanité sont en quelque sorte des corps sans tête, des machines à tuer, et qu'ils tendent à transformer l'ensemble de l'humanité à leur image.


mardi 5 mai 2009

Les rats de l'AIPAC se focalise sur la menace iranienne


WASHINGTON CORRESPONDANTE

Elle vient tous les ans. Cette année, la conférence lui paraît un peu moins passionnée qu'en 2008 - en pleine campagne électorale -, mais plus de 6 000 personnes se sont quand même déplacées. Agée d'une quarantaine d'années, Elisa demande à conserver l'anonymat parce qu'elle ne voudrait pas "dire des choses négatives sur Barack Obama" alors qu'il n'a encore rien fait d'irrémédiable sur le conflit israélo-palestinien. Mais elle avoue qu'elle n'a "pas confiance". Qu'elle "s'inquiète" de la réaction qu'aurait l'administration américaine "en cas d'urgence" dans la région. "Obama ne s'occupe que d'Obama", reproche-t-elle.

Issue d'une famille qui a fui l'Espagne il y a quatre siècles, elle craint que "l'affection véritable" qui unit Israël et les Etats-Unis ne soit entamée sous l'effet d'une éventuelle crise avec l'Iran. Que la "chaleur" diminue, cette proximité exprimée sur les immenses posters accrochés aux plafonds du Convention Center, qui représentent des générations de rencontres israélo-américaines : Henry Kissinger et Golda Meïr, Ronald Reagan et Menahem Begin, Bill Clinton et Shimon Pérès, George Bush et Ehoud Olmert.

Les "relations comptent". C'est le thème de la conférence annuelle du groupe de pression pro-israélien Aipac (American Israel Public Affairs Committee), qui se tient pendant trois jours à Washington, jusqu'au mardi 5 mai au soir. Avec un nouveau président à la Maison Blanche, un nouveau gouvernement à Jérusalem et une menace iranienne considérée comme "imminente" par certains de ses membres, l'Aipac espère prémunir les relations israélo-américaines contre tout refroidissement. Et s'opposer à ce que le représentant démocrate de New York, Eliott Engel, a décrit comme une tentative de "délégitimer" l'Etat juif partout dans le monde. "Quand je me suis levé ce matin, je me suis demandé quel costume mettre. J'ai choisi celui qui a été fait en Israël", a-t-il raconté sous les applaudissements.

M. Engel s'est félicité de ce que l'assistance à l'étranger, qui est en train d'être examinée par le Congrès, comporte un volet de près de 3 milliards de dollars (environ 2,5 milliards d'euros) pour Israël, soit une somme inchangée, alors que "le gâteau a été réduit de moitié".

"L'ANNÉE DE LA DÉCISION"

Il s'est aussi flatté d'avoir incité le président du Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega, à renoncer à rompre les relations diplomatiques comme il souhaitait le faire à cause de la guerre à Gaza, en le menaçant d'annuler une visite parlementaire à Managua. Quant aux pressions contre l'Iran, "nous avons toutes sortes de résolutions à l'étude, sur des sanctions", a-t-il dit, ajoutant : "Je les ai toutes sponsorisées."

L'un des moments phares de la conférence de l'Aipac est le dîner de gala. L'organisation étale ses relations. Au micro, la lecture des noms des présents prend plus d'une demi-heure. Et ne sont cités que les hommes politiques et les personnalités qui comptent. Parmi les convives figuraient, lundi soir, quelque 300 membres du Congrès - soit plus de la moitié des parlementaires américains -, d'anciens membres du gouvernement Bush (le "faucon" John Bolton a été ovationné), et une soixantaine de diplomates, de l'ambassadeur du Japon à celui du Burkina Faso.

A trois semaines de sa rencontre avec le président de l'Autorité palestinienne Mahmoud Abbas, et le président égyptien Hosni Moubarak, le gouvernement Obama a, au contraire, choisi une présence réduite au vice-président Joe Biden. La secrétaire d'Etat, Hillary Clinton, n'était pas là. Il est vrai que le directeur de cabinet de la Maison Blanche, Rahm Emanuel, a été la vedette, dimanche, d'une soirée réservée aux membres de l'Aipac ayant versé plus de 25 000 dollars dans l'année.

Les congressistes ont entendu Shimon Pérès plaider pour la fermeté face à l'Iran. Le premier ministre, Benyamin Nétanyahou, leur a parlé en direct, par vidéoconférence, malgré l'heure matinale en Israël. "Pour la première fois de ma vie, a-t-il dit, il me semble que les Arabes et les Juifs voient un danger commun." Il a été applaudi sans exubérance.

Les débats ont tourné plus autour de l'Iran que du règlement de la question palestinienne. "2009 est l'année de la décision", a assuré Charles Perkins, l'analyste militaire de l'Aipac. Le groupe fait du lobbying en faveur du projet de loi présenté par 25 sénateurs, visant à donner à M. Obama davantage d'autorité pour sanctionner les compagnies étrangères exportant des carburants vers l'Iran.

Dans le forum consacré à la défense antimissile, le représentant Mark Kirk, de l'Illinois, a montré des cartes illustrant la portée des missiles iraniens. Lui aussi a exposé le bilan de son action en faveur d'Israël : son travail pour le système de satellites DSP (Defense Support Program), qui a permis à Israël de faire passer sa capacité d'alerte de une minute à onze minutes en 2004. Il a regretté que le Pentagone ait décidé de couper les crédits pour le système de défense antimissiles Arrow 3. "Mais l'Aipac travaille avec le Congrès pour rétablir les fonds", a-t-il assuré.

Eliott Engel, le démocrate de New York, a exprimé sa confiance. "Obama est intelligent. Il vient de Chicago. Il y a beaucoup de Juifs là-bas. Est-ce que cette administration va être une autre administration Carter ? Je ne le crois pas."

Corine Lesnes

http://www.lemonde.fr

SARKOZY APPELLE LES JUIFS A L'AIDE !


Rejeté par une grande majorité de Français, et quasiment dans toutes les catégories sociales, aux prises avec une crise durable, que d'aucuns qualifient de pré-révolutionnaire, plus que jamais Sarkozy a besoin d'une "protection rapprochée".

Il n'y en a qu'un véritablement qui peut répondre à son "appel au secours" : c'est Israël. Claude Guéant est en réalité le véritable Premier Ministre; son intervention à une Radio communautaire juive a été concoctée à l'Élysée en compagnie du Président.

Il se trouve qu'à Washington, la nouvelle Administration n'a plus besoin de lui; Obama est bien décidé à négocier (directement) avec l'Iran et la Syrie. Si bien qu'en Israël la nouvelle équipe au pouvoir (Netanyahu-Lieberman), sur la défensive, va rechercher des appuis ailleurs, à Moscou sans doute, mais surtout à Paris ! Ça tombe bien pour Sarkozy.

Au nom de la lutte contre "l'antisémitisme" (la bête immonde) il pense pouvoir s'assurer le soutien "inconditionnel" des inconditionnels d'Israël. C'était prévisible; il a donc demandé à Claude Guéant d'annoncer à la "communauté" qu'il allait essayer d'interdire les listes de Dieudonné aux prochaines européennes.

Par ce joli coup, il va également embarrasser la "gauche": comment pourrait-elle prendre la défense d'une liste "antisémite" ? Même Besancenot et Cohn-Bendit sont piégés : dénoncer cette atteinte aux libertés, n'est-ce pas prendre le risque de favoriser les listes Dieudonné ? Car, de toute évidence, le pouvoir ne pourra pas interdire à Dieudonné de les présenter.

Il faudrait pour cela qu'il démontre (mais comment ?) que antisionisme = antisémitisme ! Mission impossible ! Les "communistes", les "trotskistes" ont toujours été antisionistes.

Quant à Jean-Marie Le Pen, malgré son "durafour-crématoire" et son "détail", il a toujours pu faire acte de candidature. En conclusion, la manoeuvre, adoptée en haut lieu, confirme que Sarkozy, qui n'a pas oublié qu'en Mai 68, les Juifs criaient "A bas de Gaulle !", espère bien cette fois les voir descendre dans la rue... pour le protéger contre des millions de chômeurs en colère. C'est un "petit calcul" d'un petit bonhomme qui ne trompe plus personne.


http://wwwkerlegan.blogspot.com

mercredi 22 avril 2009

USA: Les espions de l'AIPAC


Sources: U.S. may drop AIPAC spy case


The U.S. Justice Department is considering dropping its case against two former pro-Israel lobbyists accused of illegally disclosing national defense secrets, government officials said Tuesday.

Steven J. Rosen and Keith Weissman were charged in 2005 with conspiring to obtain classified documents and sharing them with reporters and former diplomats. Like other cases centered on espionage and classified information, a critical issue in pretrial hearings has been how much of the government's case must be aired in open court.

Trial has been postponed at least nine times as the defense and prosecutors wrangled over the handling of classified information and other issues. The defendants won an appeals court victory on that front in February when a three-judge panel ruled that some classified evidence could be presented at trial.

Two government officials said Tuesday the Justice Department has been weighing whether to go forward with the much-delayed case. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to disclose details of internal discussions. Some involved in the case are urging officials to let it continue to trial, the officials said.

Rosen's attorney, Abbe Lowell, would not comment.

Lawyers for the defendants have argued that what their clients disclosed was not classified or national defense information but the kind of information that is commonly swapped by Washington insiders.

The charges against Rosen and Weissman fall under the 1917 Espionage Act, a rarely used World War I-era law that never before has been applied to lobbyists, or influence peddlers. Rosen and Weissman, who worked for the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee, known as AIPAC, are not charged with espionage. The maximum penalty is 10 years per count - Rosen is charged with two counts, Weissman with one.

While the case has advanced slowly in court, it gained renewed attention Monday after a report from Congressional Quarterly, a private journal that covers government affairs, that Democratic Rep. Jane Harman was overheard agreeing to seek lenient treatment for Rosen and Weissman. CQ attributed the information to anonymous current and former national security officials familiar with a transcript of the call recorded by the National Security Agency.

In a letter Tuesday to Attorney General Eric Holder, Harman adamantly denied she had contacted the Justice Department, White House or anyone else seeking favorable treatment for Rosen and Weissman, and she asked Holder to release any transcripts of her recorded conversations.

She also urged Holder to investigate possible wiretapping of members of Congress and selective leaks of investigative material for political purposes, calling the recordings an abuse of power.

Justice Department spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler said only that officials were reviewing Harman's letter.

Harman had campaigned to become the House Intelligence Committee chairwoman when Democrats won control of the House in 2006. The wiretap transcripts raised the question of whether she agreed in a conversation with an AIPAC supporter to intercede on behalf of the two lobbyists in exchange for help in persuading party leaders to give her the powerful post. She did not get the appointment.

An indictment charged that Rosen and Weissman conspired to obtain, and then disclosed, classified reports on issues relevant to American policy, including the al-Qaida terror network, U.S. policy in Iran and the bombing of the Khobar Towers dormitory in Saudi Arabia that killed 19 U.S. Air Force.

A former Defense Department official, Lawrence A. Franklin, pleaded guilty to providing Rosen and Weissman classified defense information and was sentenced to more than 12 years in prison.

Over prosecutors' objections, Rosen and Weissman previously won the right to subpoena former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other top Bush administration officials. The defense believes their testimony would support their claim that the United States regularly uses AIPAC to send back-channel communications to Israel.

Their trial now is scheduled for early June in a Virginia federal court but is likely to be delayed further because a judge has a scheduling conflict.

http://www.haaretz.com

jeudi 16 avril 2009

Le juif Gad Elmaleh en soldat occupant de Tsahal!


Pour ceux qui se trompent encore sur Gad Elmaleh, je les invite à lire sur son soutien clair et net à son armé d'assassins Tsahal. la Liste comporte, bien sur d'autres noms "célèbres" qui cachent bien leur vrais visages au public.

Mais la question est: est-ce-que que le droit marocain autorise à un citoyen marocain d'apporter son soutien moral et financier à ces criminels de guerre qui massacrent le peuple Palestinien?
C'est vraiment la Honteux !

Ceci est un appel à boycotter cet ingrat.

Merci à tous de diffuser par tout et par tous les moyens ce message avec le lien de sa source:

http://absikerenor.free.fr/actualites/album11.html

Ceci pour le démasquer et démasquer son escroquerie des sympathies des ignorants de sa vraie nature qui ont participé à faire sa fortune et d'une manière indirecte de financer l'armée des criminels du Tsahal.

Boycottez cet ingrat et demander à le déchoir de sa nationalité marocaine! C'est le moindre geste de solidarité envers tous les martyrs PALESTINIENS victimes de Gad Elmaleh et des autres soldats criminels de son armées de l'occupation juive !

Suzii Freeman

Jugez, vous-mêmes...! :



http://absikerenor.free.fr/actualites/album11.htm

http://www.radioislam.org

Australie: Fredrick Toben, coupable de pensée...


HOLOCAUST revisionist Fredrick Toben has been found guilty of criminal contempt after defying orders to stop publishing racist material on his Adelaide Institute website.

In a judgment in the Federal Court today, Justice Bruce Lander said Dr Toben's conduct had been wilful and he had steadfastly refused to comply with the law.

"The courts have held, but his conduct shows he does not accept that the freedom of speech citizens of this country enjoy does not include the freedom to publish material calculated to offend, insult or humiliate or intimidate people because of their race, colour or national or ethnic origin," Justice Lander said.

"It is conduct that amounts to criminal contempt."

Dr Toben had pleaded not guilty to 28 counts of contempt arising from allegations from former president of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, Jeremy Jones.

Mr Jones first lodged a complaint with the Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission in 1996 and later applied to the Federal Court to uphold its ruling, which it did in 2002.

But in hearings last year, counsel for Mr Jones, Robin Margo SC, told the court Dr Toben had defied its orders for six years.

Mr Margo said the Adelaide Institute website was still publishing, (in July 2008), "virulent anti-semitic material", including that there were no death gas chambers at the Auschwitz concentration camp and that the holocaust was "the world's filthiest blood libel".

He urged the court to fine Dr Toben, or impose a period of imprisonment if he could not pay.

After handing down his judgment, Justice Lander adjourned the case to take submissions on penalty.

The federal court ruling came after Dr Toben fled Britain in November last year when a German authorities' bid to have him extradited to face charges of Holocaust denial failed.

The 64-year-old had been arrested a month earlier at Heathrow Airport on a European warrant but a British court later ruled it invalid because it did not provide enough detail.

German authorities vowed to continue their attempts to have Dr Toben arrested in other countries.

Holocaust denial is a crime in Germany and offenders can face up to five years in jail.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.

Rabbi-in-chief: Barack Obama's Jewish connection

Rabbi Capers Funnye is in a tiny minority in the US: he's an African-American Jew. He's also Michelle Obama's cousin and has the ear of the US president. Zev Chafets meets the charismatic leader who wants mainstream Judaism to accept that Israelites don't have to be white.




AP
Capers C. Funnye Jr., cousin to Michelle Obama

Rabbi Capers Funnye celebrated Martin Luther King Day this year in New York City at the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue, a mainstream Reform congregation, in the company of about 700 fellow Jews – many of them black.
The organisers of the event had reached out to four of New York's Black Jewish synagogues in the hope of promoting Jewish diversity, and they weren't disappointed. African-American Jews, largely from Brooklyn, the Bronx and Queens, many of whom had never been in a predominantly white synagogue, made up about a quarter of the audience. Most of the visiting women wore traditional African garb; the men stood out because, though it was a secular occasion, most kept their heads covered. But even with your eyes closed you could tell who was who: the black Jews and the white Jews clapped to the music on different beats.

Funnye, the chief rabbi of the Beth Shalom B'nai Zaken Ethiopian Hebrew Congregation in Chicago, one of the largest black synagogues in America, was a featured speaker that night. The overflowing audience came out in a snowstorm to hear his thoughts about two men: the Rev Dr. Martin Luther King Jr and Barack Obama. King is Funnye's hero. Obama, whose inauguration was to take place the following day in Washington, is family – the man who married Funnye's cousin Michelle.

A compact, serious-looking man in his late 50s, Funnye (pronounced fu-nay) wore a dark business suit and a large grey knitted skullcap. He sat expressionless, collecting his thoughts, as Joshua Nelson and his Kosher Gospel Band steamed through their sanctified rendition of the Hebrew hymn Adon Olam. Nelson, a black Jew, was raised in two Jewish worlds – a white Reform temple in New Jersey and a Black Jewish synagogue in Brooklyn – and he borrows from both. The first time the Rev Al Sharpton heard a recording of Nelson's Adon Olam he said, "I can hear that's Mahalia Jackson, but what language is she singing in?"


Mary Funnye, Capers's wife, tapped her foot to the music and smiled with apparent equanimity, but her husband knew she was seething inside. "Mary has been a rabbi's wife for a long time," he told me a few weeks later. "She has an excellent synagogue poker face. But she really wanted to be in Washington that night" – for the early inauguration festivities – "not New York. And you can't really blame her."
The Funnyes were invited to Washington by the Obamas for a full calendar of inaugural events, including a dinner that evening held by the president-elect for his family and close advisers. Mary's brother, Frank White Jr, a businessman who served as a prominent member of Obama's national finance committee, was invited. So were three of Funnye's sisters. It was going to be the family reunion of the year, the social event of the season and a crowning moment in American history. Mary had a formal gown ready. But instead here she was, singing Adon Olam, as she did every Shabbat in Chicago.
Still, to be fair, this night was a historic moment for her husband too. For the first time in a rabbinical career stretching back to 1985, Funnye had been invited to speak at a white, mainstream synagogue in New York. Plenty of black Christian ministers, in a spirit of ecumenism and racial harmony, have addressed Jewish congregations in the city. But a black rabbi? Many American Jews regard the very concept as an oxymoron, or even, given the heterodoxies of much Black Jewish theology, some sort of heresy. Funnye has been trying for years to demonstrate that he and his fellow Black Jews belong in the Jewish mainstream. Mostly he has been ignored.

But it is hard to ignore a man with a cousin in the White House. Tonight was payback for all those years of stupid jokes ("Funnye, you don't look Jewish"), insulting questions and long, wondering stares. Funnye was finally being given the stage at a high-profile Jewish event. "My Broadway debut," he said, without evident irony, as he prepared to go on. "Been a long time getting here, but I'm ready."
Capers C Funnye Jr was born in South Carolina in 1952 and raised on the South Side of Chicago. His paternal relatives are Gullahs from the barrier islands off Charleston. The Gullah community has retained many of its original African customs and much of its ancestral language. On his first visit to Nigeria, in 2001, Funnye was delighted to discover that variations of his family name are common in Africa. On his maternal side, he is a Robinson. His mother, Verdelle, was the sister of Fraser Robinson Jr – Michelle Obama's grandfather. That makes Funnye and Michelle Obama first cousins, once removed.

And not that removed, really. "Our families were very close," Funnye says. "All through my childhood, our families were in and out of each other's houses, celebrating holidays together, that kind of thing." As kids, Funnye and Michelle Obama weren't peers (he was nearly 12 years older), but they connected in earnest years later, in 1992, at her wedding, and a friendship developed. The Obamas, like Funnye, were involved in community organising in Chicago, and they saw one another often, socially and professionally. It didn't surprise Funnye, he told me, that when he and Mary went to Washington to attend Obama's inaugural ceremony after Funnye's speech in New York, they were in the good seats, near Oprah Winfrey and Steven Spielberg. Family is family.

Funnye was not always Jewish. When he went off to college at Howard University in 1970, he was the conventionally Christian son of upwardly striving parents. But he was moved by the radicalised atmosphere of the day. Black nationalism, Afrocentrism and cultural separatism were in vogue, and Funnye came to see Christianity as an alien religion imposed on blacks by white slave masters. "I was never an atheist," he told me. "I just wanted to find the right way to worship him."

During a summer job in Chicago, some friends introduced Funnye to Rabbi Robert Devine, the spiritual leader of the House of Israel Congregation. Devine preached that Africans were the true descendants of the biblical Hebrews, and that Jesus, the Messiah, was a black man. The message appealed to Funnye. Devine baptised him in a public swimming pool, and Funnye entered the complicated world of black American Jewry.
Estimates of how many black Jews there are in the United States range widely. It all depends on who is doing the counting and what criteria are being used. There are Jews who happen to be black: kids adopted by white Jewish families, for example, or the offspring of mixed parents. (Orthodox Judaism recognises as Jewish the offspring of only Jewish mothers; Reform, the largest American denomination, accepts patrilineal as well as matrilineal descent.) There are also African-Americans who have been converted to various forms of Judaism, as well as Jews of Ethiopian origin who emigrated to Israel and subsequently moved to America. Probably no more than two per cent of the American Jewish community is made up of black Jews.
There have been African-Americans with blood ties to white Jews since at least the early 19th century. Among them was Julia Ann Isaacs, the daughter of a white Jewish man, David Isaacs, and a free black woman, Nancy Ann West. In 1832 Julia married Eston Hemings, the son of Sally Hemings and – more than likely – Thomas Jefferson. Another was Francis Cardozo, a freeborn black man of Jewish descent, who during Reconstruction served as secretary of state and treasurer of South Carolina. But in almost no such early cases did the offspring of black-Jewish unions identify themselves as Jewish.

Black Judaism as a self-conscious religious identity arrived in America in Lawrence, Kansas, in 1896. A charismatic Baptist named William Saunders Crowdy established a black congregation called the Church of God and Saints of Christ, where he preached that Africans were the true descendants of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel. Didn't the Bible tell that Moses married a black-skinned woman? he asked. And that King Solomon bestowed on the queen of Sheba, an Ethiopian, "all her desire"?
One implication of Crowdy's doctrine was that blacks were God's chosen people. This might have been a hanging offence in Kansas at the time had white people been aware of it, which they mostly weren't. The denomination practiced an eclectic, "roll your own" brand of religion that combined beliefs and practices of the Old and New Testaments. Crowdy's tabernacles practiced male infant circumcision, observed Saturday as the Sabbath, celebrated Passover and other Jewish holidays – but venerated Jesus Christ.

In the aftermath of the Civil War, Crowdy's faith offered freed slaves and their offspring something that mainstream Christianity did not: a grand historical identity and a distinctively black mode of religious expression. This proved to be a potent mix. Since the formation of the Church of God and Saints of Christ, there have been more than 200 congregations in the United States, Africa and the Caribbean. Today the group still has more than 50 affiliated congregations. In addition, a great many other "messianic" Jewish houses of worship have flourished, including Rabbi Robert Devine's congregation, where Funnye first came to regard himself as a Black Jew.
"When I joined Rabbi Devine's shul, I felt less like I was converting to Judaism than reverting," Funnye recalls. "Going back to something."
For a few years after leaving Howard, while working a series of jobs in Chicago, Funnye found Devine's conception of Judaism to be rewarding. But he eventually became uncomfortable with the hybrid nature of Devine's theology. As his interest in Judaism deepened, Funnye was increasingly drawn to the more conventional teachings of a black, Brooklyn-based rabbi named Levi Ben Levy, the spiritual leader of the Hebrew Israelite movement. "He taught me that real Judaism isn't mixed in with Christianity," Funnye says. He studied with Levy for five years, long distance from Chicago; the curriculum included Biblical Hebrew, liturgy, standard rabbinic texts and Jewish history from the perspective of African originalism. In 1985, Levy ordained Funnye as a rabbi, although no mainstream denomination accepted the title or Levy's right to confer it.

Very few white rabbis were even aware of the existence of the Hebrew Israelites. The movement was established in the early 20th century by Wentworth Matthew, a charismatic figure who arrived in Harlem at the end of the First World War, claiming to be from Africa. Matthew proclaimed himself a rabbi and founded a congregation in New York called the Commandment Keepers. He was influenced by the idea that blacks were the original Hebrews; but unlike William Saunders Crowdy, who lived in rural Kansas, Matthew modeled his congregation on the white Judaism he saw around him in New York. He called his a storefront a shul, introduced a Hebrew prayer book and weekly Sabbath Torah readings, discouraged excessive shows of emotion during worship, insisted on separate seating for women and men and instituted a version of kosher dietary laws. He also, and crucially, denied the divinity of Jesus and the truth of the New Testament.

As Matthew's group grew, it became far more "orthodox" in its Jewish ritual and code of conduct than the average Reform temple. Still, Matthew held some highly unorthodox beliefs. Chief among them was the doctrine that many white Jews are descended not from the ancient Israelites but from the Khazars, a tribe of Turkic nomads who, according to legend, converted to Judaism in the eighth or ninth century. Mainstream scholars say there is no historical evidence for such a claim, but it remains an article of faith for many Black Jews. (The claim is also a staple of anti-Israel rhetoric, a fact that Funnye, who like most Black Jews supports Israel, says makes him uneasy.)
Matthew didn't express animosity toward white Jews. On the contrary, he saw and appreciated them as temporary placeholders, people who kept the faith of Israel going while the Black Jews were lost in bondage. He sought to make common cause with and be included in the wider Jewish community: twice he applied for membership to the mainstream New York Board of Rabbis, but he was turned down. The Orthodox rabbis were flabbergasted that any gentile, black or white, would have the chutzpah to declare himself to be a Jew, let alone a rabbi. Some of the more liberal rabbis were intrigued by the Hebrew Israelites but were not willing to fully embrace them as fellow Jews.

For Matthew and his followers, the disappointment was acute. "Rabbi Matthew concluded that black Jews would never be fully accepted by white Jews, and certainly not if they insisted on maintaining a black identity and independent congregations," Sholomo Ben Levy, the rabbi of the Black Jewish Beth Elohim Hebrew Congregation in Queens, wrote in an article published by the Hebrew Israelites. "Since his death in 1973, there has been virtually no dialog [sic] between white and black Jews in America."
It has become the mission of Capers Funnye to start that dialogue. "I believe in building bridges," he told me as we sat in his office at the Beth Shalom synagogue in Chicago, a week and a half after his Martin Luther King Day speech in New York. "That's why speaking at the synagogue was so important to me."
"Has Mary forgiven you?" I asked.
Funnye nodded. "We drove down to DC and made one of the balls the next day," he said. "And she got to snap a picture of Denzel Washington, so everything is more or less cool."

At the King Day celebration in New York, the musician Joshua Nelson proved a hard act to follow; Funnye came across as stiff and cautious, expressing measured thoughts about Jewish solidarity, the brotherhood of man and the need for peace in the Holy Land. But here in his study, surrounded by books and family pictures, he seemed far more at ease. The Sabbath was only an hour away, and people kept busting into the room – kids who wanted to show off their grades; an assistant rabbi who wanted a word about the youth group; ladies of the Nashe Or ("Women of Light") Sisterhood who wanted to know what time exactly the communal meal should be served.
Funnye handled it all in good spirits. He is not only the chief rabbi of the congregation, which, in various permutations, has been around 90 years; he is also its CEO, spiritual leader, head social director, senior teacher and unofficial cantor. Beth Shalom, which he joined as an assistant rabbi in 1985, has about 200 members, making it the largest of the six American synagogues affiliated with the International Israelite Board of Rabbis (the organization that serves the Hebrew Israelites), and Funnye is the Israelites' only full-time rabbi. A majority of his congregation are converts to Judaism, although a large number are second- or third-generation Black Jews. (People often confuse Funnye's congregation with that of Ben Ammi Carter, a fellow black Chicagoan, who established a community of followers in Israel in 1969. Funnye, who says there is no similarity between their theologies, is at pains to differentiate the two.)

Early in his rabbinical career, Funnye says, he realised that his Jewish credentials were too limited and exotic for the kind of outreach efforts that he wanted to do. So he enrolled at the mainstream Spertus Institute of Jewish Studies in Chicago, where he received a bachelor's degree in Judaic Studies. And in 1985 he underwent a second conversion, this one certified by a Conservative rabbinical court. Before he took this step, he consulted with his earlier mentor, Rabbi Levy; Funnye feared insulting other Black Jews. "I didn't want anyone to interpret my conversion as meaning I thought they weren't Jewish enough," he told me. But he received Levy's blessing. "I explained that if I was going to do the kind of outreach I wanted, European Jews had to feel that I was their brother," Funnye said. "But I'm still a Black Israelite. A halakhic conversion" – one in accordance with traditional Jewish law "wasn't going to take away any of my blackness."
After his second conversion, Funnye taught Hebrew and Jewish subjects at Chicago-area congregations and worked for the Jewish Council on Urban Affairs, a group dedicated to fighting poverty, racism and anti-Semitism in the city. He sent his four children to Jewish day schools, quietly built his congregation and got to know the leaders of the white Jewish community. In 1997, he did what his mentors had all failed to do (and no Hebrew Israelite rabbi has since done): he became a member of the local Board of Rabbis. Rabbi Michael Balinsky, the executive vice president of the Chicago Board, says that Funnye makes a conscientious effort "to play an active role in the mainstream Jewish community without losing his Black Hebrew tradition. He's taken a leadership role for the Jewish community on civil rights issues and outreach to Hispanics and Muslims."

In January, Beth Shalom organized a community celebration with members of the Inner-City Muslim Action Network, a social-justice organization in Chicago headed by a Palestinian-American activist named Rami Nashashibi. Funnye has also worked to improve Chicago's historically strained relations between its black and Jewish communities. In conversations with white Jews, he has defended the Rev. Jesse Jackson, whom he admires, and he encourages dialogue with Louis Farrakhan, the head of the Nation of Islam, whom he counts as a friend.
"I don't agree with everything the man says or thinks," Funnye said of Farrakhan. "I'm a Jew, after all. But you need to talk. Right now I'm trying to put together a group of Chicago rabbis for a meeting with Minister Farrakhan."
"How's it going?" I asked.
"Two so far," Funnye said. "But I'm still working on it."
Before sundown that night, Funnye joined about 60 congregants in the social hall for Friday-night blessings and a fried-fish-and-spaghetti dinner. In 2004, Beth Shalom bought its current building, on South Kedzie Avenue, on Chicago's South Side, from a rapidly declining congregation of Lithuanian Jews. It has a tan brick exterior and a layout common to American synagogues circa 1955; it is a virtual twin of the temple in Michigan that I attended growing up.
The money for the building came mostly from tithes and contributions, and raising it was a stretch. "The members here are working people, teachers, city workers, mostly middle class," Funnye said. "We don't have any billionaire philanthropists, like the Bronfmans or the Crowns. The only rich black Jew I ever heard about was Sammy Davis Jr., and he's dead. Besides, he was Reform."

After the dinner, Funnye chanted the grace and then reassembled his flock in a large classroom for evening prayers and a Torah lesson. The week's portion happened to be the story of the Exodus, and Funnye used it to illustrate the virtue of interdependence. "Think about it," he said. "God told Moses to talk to Pharaoh, but Moses stuttered, right? I mean he stuh-stuh-stuh-stuttered. That's what they called it back then. Nowadays he'd get called a rapper." This got a laugh. A woman sitting nearby said, "Teach the Torah, rabbi."
Funnye continued: "Moses stuttered so bad until he had to bring in his brother Aaron, who was a Cohen, a priest, to talk for him. And you know no priest is going to stutter, right?"
This got another laugh, and Funnye closed in on his moral – the importance of people from different backgrounds sharing the benefits of their respective upbringings. "I mean, hey, you grew up in the suburbs, maybe you can help me with something," he said. "Or if you came up on 59th Street – some of y'all know what I'm talking about – so I know some things that you just don't know. We can help each other."
The congregation applauded and called out in agreement. This wasn't the button-down Funnye who spoke at Stephen Wise in New York; here he was a signifying South Side Chicago rabbi.
A few years ago, before Beth Shalom bought its new synagogue, its members would meet in a small building on a blighted street in Chicago. A Latino gang worked one corner of the block, and a black gang worked the other. "Soon as we got there, somebody marked up the building with graffiti," Funnye told me. "I went to both gangs and told them: 'This is a synagogue, with elders and children. I don't care what business you do during the week, but from Friday sundown until Saturday sundown you need to be respectful.' I let them know that I am a man of peace but I'm not a pacifist and I had men in the congregation, so if we had a problem we'd deal with it ourselves, not call in the police until later."
I was surprised to hear that Funnye's speech actually worked. "And the gangs fell into line, just like that?"

Funnye chuckled. "Well, I also had a word with some brothers I met doing prison counselling, and they may have intervened. I put out word when we moved here too. I don't get in people's business, but I won't allow anyone to disrespect our synagogue."
Because of Funnye's connection to the Obamas, his community work has occasionally been a source of political interest. Between 1997 and 2002, Funnye served as the executive director of Blue Gargoyle, a nonprofit social-services agency that offers, among other things, adult-literacy and alternative-education programs. Blue Gargoyle was in Barack Obama's district when he was an Illinois state senator, and during Funnye's tenure, Obama earmarked a total of $75,000 for the organization. The issue of the earmarks and the family connection was raised by some of Obama's opponents during the 2008 presidential campaign, but it didn't gain traction; evidently the disbursements were above board.

Funnye also worked with Michelle Obama in her capacity as executive director for community affairs for the University of Chicago Hospitals, where she focused on health issues affecting young people. Funnye told me that the only money Blue Gargoyle received from the university was a $5,000 grant for a tutoring program, and that the money did not come through Michelle Obama's office at the hospital.
At the start of the 2008 presidential primary season, Funnye contributed a few hundred dollars to the Obama campaign but didn't publicly endorse Obama, and he avoided mentioning the family connection. "I was afraid it might do him harm in the Orthodox community," he told me. "I believe they were the ones putting out stories about Barack being a secret Muslim and so on. They could have made me out to be a friend of Farrakhan's or a cult leader or who knows what."
Obama apparently wasn't worried by the association. During the Democratic primaries, as he came under repeated attack for being insufficiently pro-Israel, Obama reached out to Funnye, by way of Mary's brother Frank White, the Obama fund-raiser. White told me that Obama encouraged him to "tell Capers to get the word out that I've got a rabbi in my family." Funnye acknowledges getting the message. Before long, The Forward, the Jewish weekly, ran an article on Obama's rabbi, and the news spread like low-fat cream cheese from Boca Raton to Brooklyn.
Funnye's association with Obama probably didn't reassure fervent Zionists – the rabbi is considerably to the left of Obama on Middle East policy – but it didn't seem to hurt either. The connection to Obama certainly didn't hurt Funnye. "I got no blowback from the Orthodox at all," he said. "In fact, I started getting phone calls from a couple Hasidic rabbis in Israel who want to get together."

There is no black Jewish neighbourhood in Chicago. When they congregate on the Sabbath, the Hebrew Israelites come from all areas of the city, and they tend to spend the entire day in shul. The lyrics to the songs they sing are the same as the ones heard in any traditional synagogue, but the music is different. Hebrew prayers are sung in unison in something resembling call and response. A gospel-like band accompanies the choir's weekly performance of Lift Every Voice and Sing. During the Torah procession the congregation sings, "We're marching to Zion, beautiful, beautiful Zion."
On one of the days I was there, in early February, I was the only white Jew in the shul, and an old guy in front of me kept turning around and showing me the right page. There's a nudnik [a bore] like him in every shul I've ever been to.

I forgave him, though, during the Torah service, when a young man faltered over the blessings and looked mortified. "Not your fault, young man," the nudnik said. "The fire of the Torah burns so hot to where sometimes it just confuses your mind."
At the end of services, I met a young woman named Tamar, who said her children are the only black Jews enrolled at the Akiba-Schechter Jewish Day School. "Things have been a little tricky for them at school since Obama won," she told me.
"Why?" I asked. "Aren't most of the parents at the Day School Democrats?"
"Yes. They voted for Obama, and their kids are glad he won. But they don't love Obama the way my children do. They aren't thrilled in the same way."
"So?"
"My kids are wondering, If their classmates and teachers figure out how personal this is for them, will they be considered more black and less Jewish?"
When I told Funnye the story he chuckled but said he wasn't surprised. Being a black Jew in America can be a trying experience, even when white Jews are well intentioned. One morning I went with Funnye to a suburban Conservative congregation, where he was to deliver another Martin Luther King speech. We sat at the head table. I ate bagels and lox while Funnye chatted with a convert to Judaism. At the end of the meal the host rabbi stood and began chanting the blessing after food.
When he saw that Funnye wasn't singing along, the rabbi pointed to the appropriate words. He didn't realise that Funnye wasn't praying because he was still eating. Another nudnik.

On Inauguration Day, Capers and Mary Funnye drove down from New York and made it to Washington in time for a quick shower. Then they boarded a bus for Obama-family relatives that drove them from venue to venue throughout the day. Over lunch at the Old Executive Office building, Funnye recounted, he bonded with Obama's Kenyan grandmother and aunt and exchanged business cards with the president's Kenyan half-brother. "I get to Africa from time to time," Funnye said.
That was an understatement. Funnye heads the Pan-African Jewish Alliance, a group established to help Africans join and feel more included in the mainstream Jewish community. For its founders – Gary Tobin, the head of the Institute for Jewish and Community Research in San Francisco, and his wife, Diane – the motivation is in part demographic. Discovering or creating millions of Jewish Africans (as well as opening the community in the United States to African converts and to African-Americans with Jewish roots) would, the Tobins say, greatly strengthen what they see as a stagnant population.
Funnye's motive is more spiritual. As a Hebrew Israelite rabbi he maintains that many Africans were originally Jewish. Some, like the Lemba of South Africa, claim direct descent from the Jews of the Bible. There is considerable resistance to this notion, but many leading scholars take it seriously. "I have no problem believing that the Lemba of South Africa are descended from Jews," says Jonathan Schorsch, an assistant professor of Jewish studies at Columbia University. "Jews are ethnically and biologically mixed. It just makes sense that this mixing took place in Africa as well as other places."
Funnye's closest connection is to the Ibos, a tribe in Nigeria, some of whose members describe themselves as Jews. Beth Shalom has a sister synagogue there, and Funnye travels back and forth. For all practical purposes, he is the chief rabbi of Nigeria, and he has plans to reunite the Ibos eventually with the worldwide Jewish people through formal conversion.

Before he gets to Africa, though, Funnye has other commitments. A French organisation recently flew him to Paris for a Martin Luther King event. He now finds himself flooded with invitations to speak at big Jewish congregations in California, Florida and Long Island. Rabbi Joseph Potasnik, the executive vice president of the New York Board of Rabbis, is planning a meeting for Funnye with his colleagues. I asked Potasnik if the organisation would be willing to reconsider membership for the Hebrew Israelite rabbis. "We'd entertain an application," he said. "I'd love to see the test case."
Rabbi Eric Yoffie, the head of the Reform Movement, is, like Potasnik, ready to consider new possibilities. "The fact that men and women sit separately in the Israelite congregations might be a problem for us on gender-equality grounds," he told me. "But race would certainly be no problem for us."
A few years ago, Funnye considered applying for membership to the Union of Reform Jews. He shelved the idea when his congregants objected on the grounds that the white congregation was not observant enough. "Some of their rabbis perform intermarriages," Funnye explains, "so some of our people were uncomfortable. But sometimes I think it would be good to be part of a larger movement. Maybe we'll revisit the subject."
Funnye hasn't built all his bridges yet, let alone crossed them, but the progress he has seen – both as a black Jew and as a black American – has mellowed him. "You know, as a young man I was angry about the way we were laughed at and ignored," he said. "I sometimes went down to the kosher meat market here in Chicago, put my face right up in the face of one of the Orthodox rabbis and yelled, 'I ain't never seen no white Jews before!' I was so hurt I became obtuse and bitter. But I don't feel that way anymore." He paused. "There's no need to shout. People are ready for a dialogue, to talk and to listen."

Rabbi-in-chief: Barack Obama\'s Jewish connection - Americas, World - The Independent