Richard Cohen offers an opinion column in today's Washington Post, Obama's Farrakhan Test. He attempts to raise doubts as to the qualifications of a Barack Obama presidency by highlighting a second-hand (if not more removed) connection between the presidential hopeful and Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan. He hints (if not outright suggests) that Obama is sympathetic to those who practice anti-semitism.
This "guilt by association" reasoning appeals to some of the lowest denominators of voter psychology and irrational fear. Such a cold and thinly drawn out piece as this column hardly deserves the dignity of a response, but in the spirit of 'disagreeing without being disagreeable' that Senator Obama endorses, I will offer up a reply to Cohen.
The premise of Cohen's article lies in Obama's affiliation with Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ and its minister, Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. Cohen ignores, however, Obama's history of actions and respect for the Jewish faith and community - much of which precedes his church membership.
It is no secret that Obama's civic roots are in community organization and activism. What is less known, is that his foray into this arena was facilitated by a Jewish organizer, Gerald Kellman. From Barack Obama's Unlikely Political Education we learn the following:
While Obama was in search of an authentic African American experience, Kellman was simply in search of an authentic African American. His organization worked in black neighborhoods decimated by the shuttering of economic behemoths like U.S. Steel, agitating the unemployed to demand jobs and safer streets. But, for all the anger and poverty in these places, Kellman and his comrades couldn't break through. Because he and his fellow organizers, Mike Kruglik and Gregory Galluzzo, were white (and two of the three were Jewish), the black pastors viewed them with suspicion and, in some cases, outright disdain. Kellman, who had paid what he considered a small fortune for the Times ad, desperately needed a young black man to give the group credibility.
In this role, Obama learned to overcome the suspicions of differing religious group, as he relentlessly offered himself as an honest broker of groups that didn't trust and understand each other, but whose best interests were to unite for common goals. It is in this capacity, with the clear intention of interfaith respect and cooperation - Obama working with Jewish organizers, Wright presiding over an African-centric church - that the two came into association.
Harold Brackman, historian and author of Farrakhan's Reign of Historical Error: The Secret Relationship Between Blacks & Jews wrote for The Jewish Journal Obama and the Jews (March, 2007):
One of the many paradoxes of contemporary American politics involves the Democratic Party's two most loyal constituency groups: African Americans and Jews. They have managed to stay under the same political tent even as their historic relationship has continued the long descent from the heights reached when the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel marched side-by-side in Selma, Ala.
In the decade or so since Louis Farrakhan's 1995 Million Man March, the best -- or worst -- that can be said about the relationship is that it has pretty much moved from mutual alienation to mutual indifference as black newspapers rarely mention Jews except to take potshots at Israel, and Jewish papers can be relied on only to ritually invoke King on his birthday.
Bill Clinton, the ultimate political empath, became a favorite of both groups without really bridging the growing rift between them. A crowning irony of the next presidential sweepstakes is that the contender who may have the best chance of restoring Black-Jewish enthusiasm for the same candidate has the middle name "Hussein," after his paternal grandfather.
Credit to Brackman for his willingness to look deeper than circumstancial ties to find truth.
[Obama's] less-known Jewish connections are beginning to surface in the media: Gerald Kellman ("Marty Kaufman" in Obama's semi-autobiographical "Dreams From my Father"), a practitioner of Saul Alinsky-style community organizing, was Obama's first mentor in Chicago. Jay Tcath, director of Chicago's Jewish Community Relations Council; Robert Schrayer, a leading Chicago Jewish philanthropist; and Judge Abner J. Mikva are among Obama's fans. David Axelrod, his media maven, lost relatives in the Holocaust...
In 2004, he disappointed Ali Abunimah of the Electronic Intifada by giving a speech to Chicago's Council on Foreign Relations endorsing the U.S. alliance with Israel. Speaking before Jewish audiences during his Senate campaign, he reassured them that his Swahili first name, Barack ("Blessed"), is a close relation of Baruch in Hebrew.
To view Barack Obama in the narrow role of Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ membership is to ignore the broader, more influential, more central-to-his-vision and ideological cornerstones of his past. He was a part of the DCP, Gamaliel Foundation, UPAJ, IAF and other organizations that thrive on bringing together groups of different backgrounds - blacks and Jews, included.
Yes, Mr. Cohen, to suggest that Barack Obama owes redundant condemnation of bigotry is to ignore reality.