Part I. Backstory –
The Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC), backed by Romney-underwriter Sheldon Adelson, is making a hard and slanderous push to scare Jews away from Obama in Ohio, Florida and my home state of Pennsylvania.
In fact, the right-wing RJC has just begun an unprecedented $6.5 million "air-and-ground strategy" to slander Obama as anti-Israel and dangerous to Jews. The campaign includes truly sickening "buyers remorse television ads" and snarky billboards (pictured below):
These billboards, in South Florida, point to a slanderous, dishonest and deeply-funded ad campaign playing in FL, OH and PA.
Part II. My Story
I live in perhaps the most Jewish neighborhood in all of Pennsylvania. It's a neighborhood where, right now, front yards are full of Sukkot – temporary huts built during the festival of Sukkot that mirror those built by the Israelites during their biblical desert treks.
It's also a neighborhood, equally mixed with orthodox and progressive Jews, where signs like the one below can be found:
I'm very active in this walkable area and deeply ensconced (both personally and professionally) in the Jewish community. And as such, I am witness to the influence "Obama's bad for the Jews" scare tactics can have.
I hear Jews talking about their fears at the deli: I'm telling you, Obama doesn't like us. Did you see what he did to Netanyahu?
I hear them on the basketball court: You still gonna vote for that Israel-hating President of yours?
I hear them in the library: He's starting to scare me.
And so, faced with RJC-style ad onslaughts and all these rumblings, I've decided to turn my front yard into its own ad campaign.
I've decided to make a statement that deeply-rooted Jews – some who, like me, have built huts in their front yards – are not going to be party to this fear-mongering.
And so meet my response: the Obama Sukkah, replete with old-school 2008 signs and all:
Now, it's not backed by Adelson's millions. It won't be projected from the sides of highways nor beamed into people's homes. However, it is now online (for a reason), and so perhaps – by some miracle of the viral mystics – this little hut's reach will be profound.
See, it's traditional to invite guests into the Sukkah for meals and conversation and camaraderie. And so, to counter Adelson and his right-wing cronies, I invite everyone into this Sukkah of mine.
I invite them in to see that claims of Obama being anti-Israel are pure fictions. In fact, he has been wildly consistent in maintaining and even expanding U.S. support for Israel (something I have critiqued in the wake of Israel's illegal settlement expansions). I invite them in to see that it is actually Romney, who has pledged never to criticize Israel, who is the dangerous one. For every president critiques an ally, including Israel, when its interests are being compromised. This includes President Reagan, whose administration voted to condemn Israel in the U.N. Security Council after bombing an Iraq nuclear reactor and suspended security cooperation with Israel after it annexed the Golan Heights.
I invite them in to see that it is Israel's Prime Minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, who has been belligerent and disrespectful to Obama and to our country – a country which continues to be Israel's most important backer. I invite them in to see Netanyahu's smug and dishonest address before Congress or his brazen tongue lashings.
I invite them in to see that Obama has created, not lost, jobs for America and four our community. I would counter the RJC's dishonest job-killer tags with charts and numbers, with rationality and sincerity.
And I invite them in to reveal that Sheldon Adelson, who is the one behind all the Obama-is-dangerous-to-the-Jews ads, is motivated by his "disgust for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict" and his consideration that a Palestinian state is “a steppingstone for the destruction of Israel and the Jewish people."
Yes, Obama received approximately 78 percent of the Jewish vote in 2008. And while Gallup estimates 70 percent of Jews still support the President, the numbers are slightly down, and that's before the bombardment of Adelson's ads in key Jewish communities.
And so as Adelson tries to scare them in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida, I invite them in to my Obama Sukkah for respite from the multi-million dollar demons circulating around us.
Come on in.