Its national import notwithstanding, it’s also a race homey enough that two of its principals lapse after a few minutes into referring to each other by their first names.

“Adam and I are so different in how we should go about tackling challenges,” said Democrat Lois Frankel, referring to likely GOP nominee Adam Hasner.

“I have better solutions than Lois,” Hasner said in a separate interview.

Both have deep roots in local politics. Frankel is a former West Palm Beach mayor and before that served in the Florida House of Representatives, where she rose to the position of minority leader. Hasner’s own tenure in the State Legislature began as Frankel’s was ending, and he eventually rose to majority leader.

But there are reasons for their familiarity: Hasner’s mother, Judy, ran Frankel’s first campaign, for the State Legislature, back in 1986.

For their part, the candidates play down the fact that Frankel, 63, has known Hasner, 42, since he was a Republican teenager needling his Democratic mom over her politics.

“I would just say it’s a small world,” Frankel told The Palm Beach Post when it made the connection in February. “It’s not going to be personal.”

Judy Hasner has said she is backing her son in the race.

Neither, however, is yet their party’s nominees — both must win Aug. 14 primaries, although Hasner’s opponent, a local county commissioner, is not seen as a serious contender. Frankel also is favored to win, Democratic insiders say, although they say her opponent, Kristin Jacobs, a popular Broward County commissioner, could pull off the upset.

“There are 10 different levels of intrigue in this campaign,” said Robert Watson, a professor of American studies at Lynn University in Boca Raton, where the final presidential debate is set to take place in October. “It’s like a made-for-TV movie.”

Indeed, it has already been a dramatic race with a shifting cast of characters. The district is represented now by first-term Republican Rep. Allen West, a bomb-throwing Tea Party favorite and a top target of national Democrats. But decennial redistricting shifted the 22nd in a more Democratic direction, and West shook things up by opting to run instead in a more Republican-friendly district nearby.

A Democratic hopeful, Patrick Murphy, followed West to the new district, briefly leaving Frankel as the last high-profile Democrat standing before Jacobs jumped in. Hasner had been running for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate until a stronger contender entered the race and Hasner switched his efforts to trying to succeed the departing West.

Democrats see the district as one they must reclaim if they are to demonstrate that the Tea Party conservative insurgency is a spent force. Without making a formal endorsement in the primary, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has seemingly pinned its hopes on Frankel, naming her one of its “majority makers.”

“The party feels it’s a necessary race to win back the House,” said David Harris, the president of the National Jewish Democratic Council.

Republicans view the district as a test of whether they can pitch another conservative — Hasner also has Tea Party ties — as palatable to independents and disgruntled Democrats.

“She’ll get hardcore Democratic supporters,” said Sid Dinerstein, chairman of the Palm Beach County Republican Party. “Adam will get the independents and the Republicans and the Democratic Jews who are no longer Obama supporters.”

Harris scoffed at that notion, saying that “Hasner is the best they can do, but the best they can do will lose.”

The stakes are high for Democrats.

West captured the seat from Democrat incumbent Ron Klein during the Republican surge of 2010, but Florida’s Republican-led Legislature redrew the 22nd to make it more Democratic — apparently in a bid to reinforce neighboring districts with likely Republican voters, Watson said. In 2008, Barack Obama won 52 percent of the old district’s vote; a national Democratic official says he would have received 57 percent in the reconfigured district based on how the precincts voted.

The new map also was seen in some quarters as a rebuke of West, who has made national headlines with often inflammatory statements. He called Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), the chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, “vile,” likened Democrats to Nazi propagandists and suggested that a quarter of the members of the Democratic congressional caucus are communists.

Hasner, by contrast, is the affable local boy made good, rising to state House majority leader in his 30s. The new 22nd encompasses 70 percent of his old State Legislature district.

Matthew Brooks, the executive director of the Republican Jewish Coalition, noted another plus for Hasner, who through the years has assiduously networked with the national party leadership through the RJC.

“It’s likely the Congress is going to stay Republican, and to have a Republican congressman there is going to have an impact” for the district, Brooks said. “He’s someone who can get things done, who has a relationship with the leadership.”

Hasner is not compromising on his commitment to conservative fiscal, security and social policies, but he is eager to portray himself as able to win crossover votes. In an interview he noted the endorsement of Clay Shaw, the GOP moderate who represented the district for years.

Hasner said he would stress fiscal policy in his campaigning, pointing out his embrace of the budget proposed by U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Ill.), the chairman of the House budget committee, which includes privatizing parts of entitlement programs like Medicare, the government-run medical care program for seniors.

“This isn’t about ideology, this is about math,” Hasner said. “Doing nothing is the path to insolvency.”

Frankel also zeroes in on the Ryan budget.

“The big issue especially for this district is protection of Social Security and Medicare,” she said. “He endorses the Ryan budget, which attempts to voucherize Medicare.”

With an emphasis on the economy and entitlements in a disproportionately elderly district, it remains to be seen what role other issues will play in the race.

Both candidates have visited Israel multiple times and emphasize it as a top foreign policy issue.

Hasner suggested that Frankel’s association with Obama might harm her.

“I believe the foreign policy of the last three years has made America weaker and less respected,” Hasner said.

Frankel touted her endorsement by pro-choice groups such as Planned Parenthood. Hasner, by contrast, has said that he would have voted in Congress to defund Planned Parenthood, and he believes “life begins at conception” — language rarely used by Jewish candidates, although he says he would not oppose abortion in certain cases of rape and incest and to preserve the life of the mother.

Dinerstein suggested that Frankel’s personality could become an issue, saying she earned a reputation for name calling and confrontation when she was West Palm Beach mayor.

“Why do you think she’s facing a real primary challenge?” he said.

Her challenger, Jacobs, asked to distinguish herself from Frankel, said she would “bring a voice of unison” to Washington, pointing to her own work with Republicans and others in improving commuter choices in the district.

Frankel dismissed talk of personalities.

“I don’t think it’s going to be about personalities in terms of policies,” she said. “Adam Hasner is even more to the right than Allen West — people will be voting their pocketbook, their values.”

Watson said that Frankel had a reputation as being “tough, at times controversial,” but this also helped lend her credibility — she got things done. Her fundraising of $1.8 million is the best of any Democratic challenger in the country.

Jacobs, whose husband is Jewish, has raised $200,000 in the five weeks since she announced her candidacy.

Both Hasner and Frankel have courted fundraisers nationally and locally. Hasner said he had $700,000 in cash on hand.

Both parties have listed the district as among their 25 must-wins. The Hill, a newspaper tracking congressional races, calls it a “toss-up,” while The Rothenberg Political Report lists it as leaning Democratic.

Brooks said that Hasner was attracting support of Jewish donors not simply because a victory would help preserve the Republican majority, but also in the hopes of getting some Jewish company for Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.), the majority leader and the only Jewish Republican on Capitol Hill.

“We’re raising a lot of money for him in our PAC,” he said, referring to the RJC’s separate political action committee. “Leaders are opening their checkbooks for him.”

Sen. Richard Lugar, right, accompanies actor George Clooney with Sen. John Kerry for Clooney's testimonial on Sudan issues, in Washington, D.C., March 14, 2012. Lugar's defeat in a primary election has pro-Israel activists worried about bipartisanship in Congress. (Medill DC via Creative Commons)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Richard Lugar was never considered to be one of Israel’s leading advocates on Capitol Hill.

The veteran Republican senator from Indiana, who suffered a primary defeat last week after 35 years in office, is famously his own man.

Lugar, the top Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee, consistently backed defense assistance for Israel and in the 1980s championed freedom for Soviet Jews. But he was also known for pushing a more active U.S. approach to brokering Middle East peace than that favored by much of the pro-Israel lobby, and he preferred to move ahead cautiously on Iran sanctions.

Yet pro-Israel groups ponied up when Lugar came calling as it became clear that a Tea Party candidate was threatening to unseat him, lending logistical and financial support.

Israel advocates and GOP insiders explained that Lugar represented a breed of lawmaker who pro-Israel groups see as valuable to their cause and disappearing: One who reaches across the aisle.

“Lugar wasn’t actively pro-Israel, but he wasn’t anti either,” said Mike Kraft, a staffer on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in the 1970s and 1980s who now is a consultant on counterterrorism and writes for a number of pro-Israel websites and think tanks. “But generally losing a good, balanced, thoughtful guy on foreign policy is a real tragedy. It weakens the American political system.”

Lugar received $20,000 from NORPAC, a leading pro-Israel political action committee based in New Jersey — the most of any candidate this cycle.

“We sent extra money to Lugar because he called and asked,” said Ben Chouake, NORPAC’s president.

Chouake acknowledged that Lugar, 80, was “never the most” pro-Israel member of Congress, “but sometimes you have to back someone because of who a person is.” He was referring to the Indianan’s 36-year career in the Senate and his reputation for getting Democrats and Republicans to work together.

A pro-Israel political giver told JTA that Lugar also raised money from supporters of Israel at events in Indiana and New York City.

Ultimately it was for naught: Richard Mourdock, Indiana’s state treasurer, easily defeated Lugar in the May 8 GOP primary by a margin of 61-39 percent. Mourdock now faces Rep. Joe Donnelly (D-Ind.) in the general election.

Mourdock campaigned on a platform that opposed compromise.

“I have a mind-set that says bipartisanship ought to consist of Democrats coming to the Republican point of view,” he told the Fox News Channel.

Matthew Brooks, the Republican Jewish Coalition’s executive director, said that Lugar’s defeat had more to do with his particular vulnerabilities — he famously has not lived in his home state since the 1970s — than with any larger trend toward uncompromising partisanship in the party.

“No matter how long you’ve been in office, politics starts at home — and maybe it would be a good idea to have a home in the state,” Brooks said.

A pro-Israel donor said that his fellow givers were now focused on preserving the career of Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), who also is facing a Tea Party insurgent in next month’s primary.

While some Israel Republicans are rooting for the establishment GOP incumbents, it is not because their Tea Party opponents are hostile to Israel.

Indeed, the Tea Party wave of 2010 has turned out to be pronouncedly pro-Israel, with the exception of Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who says he would end assistance to Israel as well as all foreign aid. Pro-Israel insiders single out Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), a Tea Partier who ousted Robert Bennett, as a star of that class. Mourdock himself backed Israel Bonds as Indiana treasurer and has initiated outreach to the pro-Israel community.

The problem, the insiders say, is not one of enthusiasm for Israel but in how members of the party’s right wing have proposed changing the mechanisms for allocating foreign aid.

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee has always emphasized the importance of backing the entire foreign assistance package. The logic is multifold: Aid overall builds good will for the United States and its allies; the perception that aid to the developing world is inextricable from aid to Israel promotes good will for Israel in those countries; singling out Israel for assistance while neglecting other countries promotes unseemly stereotypes about Jewish influence; and cutting aid inevitably will likely lead to cuts in assistance for Israel, however much the current Congress supports the country.

“They want to cut everything but Israel, but in the end, if everything else is cut, assistance to Israel will have to be cut,” said the pro-Israel donor.

Marshall Breger, President Ronald Reagan’s liaison to the Jewish community, predicted that as Tea Party conservatives gain in strength, the pro-Israel community may have to work out a formula — first proposed in a 2010 interview with JTA by Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.), now the majority leader — whereby Israel assistance is treated separately from foreign assistance.

“When the thinking is going to be, ‘do you want to make a special exception for Israel or do you want to drop foreign aid for Israel?’ AIPAC will likely say ‘special exception,’ ” said Breger, who is now a law professor at the Catholic University in Washington.

More intangibly — but equally as critical — is how polarization has corroded bipartisanship in Congress, said Jason Isaacson, the legislative director for the American Jewish Committee. Even with overwhelming support for Israel, the failure of the parties to forge compromises on foreign policy undercuts America’s international profile — and that’s not good for Israel, he said.

“Because of the commitment of a great many people over a long period of time, support for Israel is a deeply entrenched nonpartisan sentiment,” Isaacson said. “What I do see under stress is the ability of either Congress or the executive branch to work together to pursue a consensus foreign policy.”

A senior GOP congressional staffer who supported Lugar conceded that Mourdock, albeit within his limited public experience as a state treasurer, has been more unequivocal in his support for Israel than Lugar had been.

“The statements that Mourdock has made that are troubling are less on policy and more on bipartisanship and working across party lines,” said the staffer. “We haven’t demonized each other enough? That sort of ideology isn’t just a problem for centrists, it’s a problem for anybody who wants to get something done.”

Morris Amitay, a former AIPAC executive director who now heads Washington PAC, a pro-Israel political action committee, said the failure to compromise, which he blamed on both parties, was undermining the U.S. profile internationally.

“Sometimes I long for the days of the Cold War,” said Amitay, who first worked as a congressional staffer in 1969. “Now extremes at both ends have more influence than they should. We’ve got problems in Latin America, Africa, especially northern Africa, Russia won’t cooperate — and Congress can’t function.”

U.S. Rep. Barney Frank, left, and Weekly Standard Editor William Kristol engage in The Great Debate: Election 2012 at the American Jewish Committee's Global Forum at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Washington, May 4, 2012. (Ron Sachs/CNP)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Simmering beneath the presidential season’s familiar refrains of support for Israel is a passionate partisan argument over how best to confront Iran and deal with the new Middle East.

The Jewish election debate season was launched informally on May 4 at the annual American Jewish Committee global forum when longtime U.S. Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) and Weekly Standard editor William Kristol made the case for their preferred presidential candidates.

Kristol vs. Frank was lively, friendly and covered familiar territory about the Jewish tendency to vote Democrat and the commitment of both parties to Israel.

An encounter the next day between two top former Iran officials in the Obama and George W. Bush administrations, speaking at a Washington Institute for Near East Policy retreat, highlighted deep fault lines over Iran and the Middle East, not just between the campaigns but also between liberals and conservatives and the Obama administration and the Netanyahu government.

At issue were whether sanctions and diplomacy would keep Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, what circumstances would merit a military strike and whether  the Arab Spring promised stability or chaos for the region.

The AJC debate between Frank, who this year is ending his 32-year run in the House of Representatives, and Kristol, the scion of a leading neoconservative family, was replete with the familiar, almost affectionate banter that characterizes much debate between Jewish Republicans and Democrats.

Kristol joked about how unlikely it was he would sway the audience, which he presumed to be predominantly made up of supporters of President Obama.

“It’s always a pathetic scene,” Kristol said of his appearances before Jewish audiences, noting that he has acted as a surrogate for GOP presidential candidates since 1996.

Frank needled Kristol for affiliating with a party that he said has moved sharply to the right on social issues.

“Whether or not the fact that you are gay disables you from being a foreign policy adviser,” Frank, himself gay, said, citing the case of Richard Grenell, an openly gay foreign policy spokesman for Mitt Romney’s campaign who recently quit under pressure from social conservatives.

Both surrogates scooped out heimishe references sure to resonate with the audience: Kristol in imagining Joseph Lieberman as secretary of state, and Frank in noting his pride in his relation by marriage to the late Three Stooges member Shemp Howard.

That revelation came after Frank likened the GOP to the Three Stooges.

“I mean that with no disrespect to the Three Stooges,” he said, evoking laughter not just from the audience but from Kristol, too.

Frank and Kristol addressed substantive issues, particularly differences over how best to keep entitlement programs solvent, through cuts and privatization programs (Kristol) or cuts and increasing taxes (Frank).

On Israel and the Middle East, however, they seemed more in agreement. Like Kristol, Frank faulted Obama for a “badly worded” speech a year ago calling for negotiations on the basis of the 1967 lines with security guarantees for Israel, but said the president had recovered.

Kristol agreed and said that on Iran, Obama and Romney “don’t sound that different from each other.” He claimed some credit for pressuring Obama toward being pro-Israel through his advocacy group, the Emergency Committee for Israel, which has run ads fiercely attacking the president’s record on Israel.

Kristol insisted that Romney would be the better choice to back Israel and face down Iran, but added that were Obama re-elected, “Some of us on the outside will continue to pressure [the administration] to do the right thing.”

The themes raised in the Frank-Kristol debate can be expected to resurface in debates in states where Republicans and Democrats agree that Jewish votes may make the difference in November, notably Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Nevada.

The tone at the Washington Institute retreat, held at a leafy golf resort deep in Virginia’s Washington suburbs, also was friendly but less prone to banter.

Neither of the panelists — Colin Kahl, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense in the Obama administration who handled the Iran nuclear file from 2009 to 2011, and Jamie Fly, who dealt with the same issue in various capacities for the George W. Bush administration — was billed as speaking for the campaigns or for the parties, although Fly stepped in at the last minute for Dan Senor, an adviser to the Romney campaign.

Launching straight into substance, Kahl and Fly offered arguments that drew short of definitive conclusions but showed sharp divergence on whether an attack on Iran could prevent the acquisition of a nuclear bomb.

Kahl outlined four arguments against a nuclear Iran: It could use the bomb, or allow a proxy to use it; a bomb would embolden Iran’s already aggressive regional posture; the profound suspicion between Israel and Iran, even if neither nation intended a strike, could result in misunderstandings that could escalate into war; and a nuclear Iran could set off an arms race.

He said each had merit to varying degrees and cumulatively made the case for threatening military action. But Kahl also said that Israel was off base in pressing for military action sooner rather than later.

His reasons: Sanctions and diplomacy had yet to be exhausted; there is no evidence that Iran was definitively committed to making a bomb; it is not clear that an attack would sufficiently degrade Iran’s capability to make a bomb; and there is no united international coalition committed to military action.

“One of the reasons I’ve been so critical about the Israelis taking action is that at this moment they cannot satisfy any of those criteria,” Kahl said.

Fly said that overall he agreed with Kahl’s assessment, but differed about what it portended. Instead of seeing the lack of hard evidence of a nuclear weapons program as reason to hold back, Fly used it to argue pressing forward with plans for a military strike.

Gaps in military intelligence mean that “we don’t know what other facilities they may have,” he said, and that “sets us up for failure.”

Fly laid out a scenario in which intelligence failure combined with prolonging the military option could result in a nuclear Iran that would have to be contained — an outcome that Romney and Obama have both rejected.

“I fear this path is leading us toward essentially accidental containment,” he said.

Fly said the Obama administration had not been consistent in making clear to Iran that a military strike was an option.

“I don’t think the Iranians think this administration is serious about taking eventual military action,” he said. “Clearly the Israelis are concerned.”

If commentary by Amos Yadlin, a former Israeli military intelligence chief who was attending, was indicative, the Israelis were indeed concerned.

“I am very much afraid that all those who explain that it is too early to attack — and this is what we have been doing for the last six years — will very soon say it is too late,” said Yadlin, whose term ended 18 months ago and who was a frequent interlocutor with Kahl when both were working for their respective governments.

Similar differences at the Washington Institute conference also played out over the meaning of the Arab Spring.

“While the change in the Middle East is working against Iran, it is our belief that it can and will work for the United States,” Denis McDonough, the U.S. deputy national security adviser, said in a keynote address. “A more democratic region will ultimately be more stable for us and our friends.”

The Obama administration has engaged with the Muslim Brotherhood, among other actors in Egypt following the outster of longtime President Hosni Mubarak more than a year ago. McDonough said such parties were unlikely to impose dictatorships.

“Any government today is going to press towards greater transparency,” he said. “As a result of more powers to individuals, more powers to Egyptians, even if someone wants to be dictatorial, it’s going to be difficult.”

Such sanguinity about the results of Arab upheaval was otherwise in short supply throughout the conference, which tends to a draw a more hawksih-leaning pro-Israel crowd.

In concluding remarks, Washington Institute director Robert Satloff noted that “The record of empowerment of Islamic political parties is not positive.”

President Barack Obama participates in an interview with Robin Roberts of ABC's "Good Morning America," in the Cabinet Room of the White House, May 9, 2012. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — As soon as President Obama wrapped up the television interview in which he endorsed same-sex marriage, he called an evangelical minister who advises him to offer a heads up. Jack Lew, the White House chief of staff, made a similar call to the Orthodox Union.

The calls, made Wednesday before excerpts from the interview hit the Internet, demonstrated the White House’s determination to preempt any backlash that the endorsement might engender from religious groups. Obama administration officials have been careful to emphasize that the president also backs protections for religious groups that oppose same-sex marriage.

“He called to inform us about what the president was going to announce and put it in context,” Nathan Diament, the OU’s executive director of public policy, said of the call from Lew, himself an Orthodox Jew.

The move appeared to have yielded some dividends.

The OU said in a statement that it was “disappointed” by the president’s new stance and reiterated Orthodox Jewish opposition to “any effort to change the definition of marriage to include same-sex unions.” But the group also said that it “appreciated” Obama’s praise of New York State’s same-sex marriage law, which offers some protections for religious institutions that oppose same-sex marriage.

The Jewish community’s reactions to Obama’s remarks were auspicious for the White House: There was great enthusiasm from most quarters, along with restrained criticism from Orthodox Jewish opponents of same-sex marriage. Obama notably did not pair his endorsement of same-sex marriage with any nods toward a legislative effort, since he says the issue should be left to the states.

Polls have found that upwards of three-quarters of American Jews support same-sex marriage. Outside the Orthodox world, Jewish groups generally back it as well.

Words like “historic” peppered statements by Jewish groups welcoming Obama’s remarks.

“It is a significant and historic step forward in the pursuit of equal opportunity, individual liberty and freedom from discrimination,” the Anti-Defamation League said in a statement, “and underscores the fact that no American should be denied access to the benefits of civil marriage because of his or her sexual orientation.”

In the interview, which aired in full on Thursday, Obama — who had previously said he backed civil unions but did not support same-sex marriage — described what he has called his evolution on the issue.

“I have to tell you that over the course of several years as I have talked to friends and family and neighbors, when I think about members of my own staff who are in incredibly committed monogamous relationships, same-sex relationships, who are raising kids together,” he said, “when I think about those soldiers or airmen or Marines or sailors who are out there fighting on my behalf and yet feel constrained, even now that ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ is gone, because they are not able to commit themselves in a marriage, at a certain point I’ve just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same-sex couples should be able to get married.”

The Reform movement’s Religious Action Center described the president’s remarks as “a key moment in the advance of civil rights in America.”

“These rights are due no less to same-sex couples than heterosexual ones, as the president’s comments today acknowledge,” the RAC said.

Among other groups praising the president’s endorsement were the National Council of Jewish Women, Hadassah, the National Jewish Democratic Council and the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism.

Another Orthodox umbrella group, Agudath Israel of America, refrained from directly criticizing Obama in its statement, noting that the president was expressing his “personal feeling.”

Rabbi Avi Shafran, Agudah’s director of public affairs, told JTA in an email that the president’s endorsement was “unfortunate” to the degree that it advanced the cause of same-sex marriage. But Shafran also noted that “The president was clear about the fact that he was sharing the fruits of his own personal contemplation of the issue, not advancing any new federal initiative. He is leaving the definition of marriage to each state’s electorate.”

That was the balance sought by the White House, according to an administration insider. In addition to Lew’s call to Diament after the interview was recorded and before ABC released excerpts, Obama called Joel Hunter, an evangelical megachurch pastor who has been one of the president’s spiritual advisers.

Hunter told The Washington Post that while he disagreed with the president’s new position, it did not damage their relationship. But Hunter told the paper that he was concerned about the effect that the push for same-sex marriage would have on religious liberty.

“If there is a law that you cannot discriminate between same-sex couples and heterosexual couples, then eventually there will be pressure on the Church to obey the law,” Hunter said. “And there will be lawsuits that come testing this thing, and we just know that we will certainly be pressured to conform to the law.”

While the White House tried to reassure religious conservatives by stressing the measured nature of the president’s remarks, this did not seem to dampen the enthusiasm of Jewish supporters of same-sex marriage.

“It will be a milestone in American history for gay rights,” Rabbi David Saperstein, who directs the Religious Action Center, told JTA. “He was laying down a marker about his personal commitment and not trying to deal with the policy issue. His statement provides momentum.”

Deborah Lauter, the ADL’s civil rights director, said the president’s statement follows a series of legislative advances on gay rights issues.

She listed the repeal of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” military policy that kept gay troops closeted, the extension of hate crimes laws to include gay victims, and the administration’s refusal to defend the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act in court. She noted the recent momentum in Congress to pass legislation that would protect gay employees from being fired on the basis of their sexual orientation.

“It is more of a symbolic statement, but the administration has been doing concrete steps,” she said.

Jewish groups that oppose same-sex marriage may have adopted a measured tone in response to the president’s remarks, but there were still signs that the issue can be divisive within the Jewish community.

Agudah blasted the National Jewish Democratic Council for describing Obama’s statement as advancing “tikkun olam,” or the Jewish imperative to make the world a better place.

“To imply that a religious value like ‘tikkun olam’ — and by association, Judaism — is somehow implicated in a position like the one the president articulated is outrageous, offensive and wrong,” Agudah said. “We hereby state, clearly and without qualification, that the Torah forbids homosexual acts, and sanctions only the union of a man and a woman in matrimony.”

The NJDC’s chair, Marc Stanley, had referenced Obama’s “unmatched record of progress in favor of equal rights for gay and lesbian Americans.”

“President Obama has admirably continued to demonstrate the values of tikkun olam in his work to make America a better place for all Americans,” Stanley said. “I am truly proud of President Obama and know that so many others in the Jewish community share my feelings.”

The Republican Jewish Coalition, which does not take a position on same-sex marriage, highlighted on its Twitter feed the statements of the OU and Agudah. Pressed by a Democratic activist on Twitter, however, the RJC said it did not necessarily support the groups’ views. “But we do acknowledge that Orthodox Jews and traditional Jewish views exist,” the RJC tweeted.

Both Israeli election years also were American presidential election years, as 2012 is.

In 1988, the Dukakis-Bush race had no discernible effect on a race that saw Yitzhak Shamir edge Shimon Peres for Israel’s premiership.

Four years later, however, Shamir’s contentious relationship with President George H. W. Bush is believed to have helped cost the Israeli prime minister the election.

So far, 2012 is looking more like ’88 than ’92, according to Aaron David Miller, a former longtime State Department Middle East negotiator who worked for the Bush administration.

“An Israeli prime minister is judged first and foremost by whether he can avoid catastrophic political decisions, then on the capacity to give Israelis a sense of security, then on the capacity to manage the U.S.-Israeli relationship,” said Miller, now a public policy fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu suggested this week that he would call elections as early as August, although his term isn’t up until the fall of 2013. His formal announcement was held up by the death of his father, Benzion.

Netanyahu, despite having a relationship with President Obama that at times has been difficult, scores well on all three criteria, Miller said. Nothing catastrophic occurred under his watch, he is credited for rallying international support for Iran’s isolation and the issue that has dogged his relationship with Obama — peace talks with the Palestinians — is all but moribund.

“I don’t see Israelis out in the streets protesting the prime minister’s policies on the peace process,” Miller said.

The conditions of a nascent peace process were seen as being in place in 1992. Arab countries that for decades had gone out of their way to snub Israel were ready to meet with Israel’s leaders in Madrid, however stilted the encounters. Israelis saw Shamir as balking at advancing talks in any meaningful way.

“Shamir was perceived to have misplayed his hand even though you could argue that Jim Baker and Bush were more hostile than Obama,” Miller said, referring to the U.S. secretary of state and president at the time.

Another factor distinguishing this year from 1992 is that Shamir faced a formidable opponent, Yitzhak Rabin, who had a history of strong relationships with American leaders, said Peter Medding, a professor of political science at the Avraham Harman Institute of Contemporary Jewry at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

“Rabin was starting from a much better position,” Medding said.

Netanyahu, by contrast, faces not one but an array of possible opposition leaders, including newly elected Kadima Party leader Shaul Mofaz, Shelly Yachimovich of the Labor and TV personality Yair Lapid. None has the heft of the late Rabin, who by ’92 already had served as prime minister and military chief of staff. And he also was a war hero.

In the absence of a viable peace process and with Obama unpopular among Israeli voters, Medding said, tensions with Obama “may make more voters vote for Netanyahu.”

In Israel as in the United States, voters are likelier to focus on domestic issues than on Iran, the peace process and foreign policy, he said. Netanyahu may face a resurgence of the social protest movement that erupted last summer, and he must address conflicts over military conscription of haredi Orthodox men within his own governing coalition.

The one possible disruptor — as it happens, for both American and Israeli elections — would be a heightening of tensions with Iran. Netanyahu has hinted that Israel may strike Iran’s suspected nuclear weapons program this year, whereas Obama wants Israel to allow diplomacy and sanctions play out.

“If, say, the Israeli Air Force is on the tarmac and they’re careening for takeoff and Obama is seen as pulling them back, maybe” the Obama-Netanyahu relationship would come into play in the election, Medding said. “But I don’t see that happening.”

Miller agreed. Speaking of the chances of a military attack on Iran, he said, “Unless the Iranians give someone a pretext for doing it, it’s not going to happen.”

President Obama, shown hosting a Passover Seder at the White House on April 6, 2012, has gained Jewish support in the last half year, according to a new poll. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — President Obama enjoys the support of three-fifths of American Jews, according to the latest American Jewish Committee survey, a significant improvement over where he stood half a year ago in the organization’s polling.

The poll, released Monday, shows Obama with 61 percent of the Jewish vote, as opposed to 28 percent for Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor who is the likely Republican nominee.

That’s an improvement for the president over an AJC survey in September, when Obama scored 50 percent and Romney 32 percent.

But it’s still substantially lower than the 78 percent Obama scored among Jews in exit polls in 2008 and an improvement for Romney over the 22 percent garnered by the previous GOP nominee, John McCain.

The AJC’s new findings are similar to those of the Public Religion Research Institute in March. That poll showed Obama scoring 62 percent of the Jewish vote, as opposed to 30 percent for a GOP candidate.

In the AJC poll, respondents identified the economy and health care as by far the two most important election issues. Among respondents who attend synagogue at least once a week, only 52 percent said they would vote for Obama, likely reflective of the more conservative leanings of Orthodox voters.

The 11 percent of respondents who were undecided in the AJC poll said they leaned toward Romney and Obama in roughly equal numbers.

Romney, for his part, struggles with high negative ratings from Jews, with 57 percent saying they have an unfavorable view of him. He is, however, far more popular with Jews than his previous top two GOP primary opponents; Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum are each viewed unfavorably by approximately three-quarters of Jews.

AJC Executive Director David Harris says the results show that both Obama and Romney have their work cut out for them with Jewish voters.

For Obama, he said, “the concerning news is that you dropped about 17 points from where you were in 2008 and if it’s going to be a close election, especially in key swing states.”

“You’re going to have to do more to recoup,” Harris said. “You will have to spend more time emphasizing the national security, pro-Israel aspects of your record.”

It’s a lesson the Obama campaign already seems to have taken to heart. Obama has spoken three times in the past six months to Jewish audiences and emphasized Israel’s security, whatever the forum — whether it was the Union for Reform Judaism in December, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in March or the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in April.

Obama also has made his national security record a robust element of his campaign. Last week, his campaign released a web ad featuring the still popular President Bill Clinton dramatically narrating the account of Obama’s decision to kill Osama bin Laden.

The approach appears to be paying off among Jewish voters. The AJC poll showed Obama scoring 58 percent approval in how he managed the U.S.-Israel relationship and 69 percent in how he handled national security. Last September, just 40 percent of respondents to an AJC poll approved of his handling of the U.S. relationship with Israel.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also saw a spike in approval for his handling of the U.S.-Israel relationship, to 70 percent from 54 percent in September.

Then and now, the economy seems to be the most important factor influencing voters. Just 37 percent of Jewish respondents approved of Obama’s handling of the economy in September. That climbed 20 points to 57 percent in this poll.

Harris says that Romney needs to understand the focus of Jewish voters on the economy in making his case to the community.

“If you are Governor Romney and you are making the economy the centerpiece of your campaign, understand that Jews care about the economy as much as others do,” he said, noting that much of the GOP pitch to Jews has been focused on Israel and national security.

Asked about the prospect of Iran obtaining nuclear weapons, 89 percent of respondents said they were concerned, with 64 percent supporting a U.S. strike should diplomacy and sanctions fail.

Majorities of respondents said they preferred Democrats over Republicans on every issue on which they were queried. Democrats beat Republicans most decisively on social issues: 81 percent preferred how Democrats handled abortion, and 74 percent preferred how the party dealt with church-state issues.

Republicans won their highest marks on U.S.-Israel relations, where they were favored by 40 percent as opposed to 57 percent support for Democrats, and the Iranian nuclear issue, where they were preferred by 37 percent to 60 percent for Democrats.

The gender gap in the general electorate was reflected among Jews: Obama had the support of 67 percent of Jewish women as opposed to 55 percent of Jewish men; Romney had the support of 34 percent of Jewish men and 22 percent of women.

The online poll, administered March 14-27 by Knowledge Networks, surveyed 1,074 respondents who had previously identified themselves as Jewish. It had a margin of error of 4.8 percentage points.

Two veteran congresswomen, Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio) and Rep. Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.), who is Jewish, are vying for the leadership of Democrats on the Appropriations Committee, perhaps the most powerful of the U.S. House of Representatives committees because it determines spending.

And Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.), who is facing the Foreign Affairs committee’s top Democrat, Rep. Howard Berman (D-Calif.), in a redistricting-fueled battle, has declared that he wants his fellow Jewish Democrat’s committee leadership post if he prevails. But if Sherman prevails in his House race, Rep. Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.), a Berman ally, says he would vie to become the committee’s top Democrat.

Irrespective of which party ends up controlling the House after the 2012 elections, the two committee leadership fights are significant.

If the Democrats win back control of the House, they would be able to appoint the committee chairs, who have broad discretion in determining what legislation makes it out of the committee and onto the House floor, and what issues deserve oversight. The minority party’s leaders, while not as powerful as the chairs, may convene hearings and often work with chairs in shaping and advancing legislation.

At this stage the campaigning — among other members of the caucus, the congressional leadership and donors, and to a degree in the media — has been more about who plays well with whom than it has been about issues. But bubbling below the surface of the contests are two issues that are central agenda items for Jewish groups: abortion rights and Israel.

Kaptur is in line to be the appropriations committee’s most senior Democrat now that Rep. Norm Dicks (D-Wash.) has announced that he is not running for reelection. Lowey is ranked fourth in seniority on the committee among Democrats. Rep. Pete Visclosky (D-Ind.), who is one slot above Lowey and one below Kaptur, is not considering a bid. Rep. Jim Moran (D-Va.), who is ranked seventh, also is considering a bid but is considered a longshot.

Asked to describe their respective bosses’ pitches, staffers for Kaptur and Lowey, the senior Democrat on the committee’s foreign operations subcommittee, used similar terms, describing longstanding and productive relationships with other lawmakers.

Kaptur’s communications director, Steve Fought, said of his boss, “She has an ability to get results to work in a bipartisan fashion and with some of the disparate elements of the Democratic caucus, which runs from left to right.”

A staffer in Lowey’s office, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Lowey had “good relationships across the caucus and worked well with members across the ideological spectrum.”

Lowey, 74, who was active in Jewish women’s groups before she launched her congressional career in 1989, is making her support for abortion rights an issue in her outreach, her staffer said. Republicans, the Lowey staffer said, tend to flood appropriations bills with amendments that would inhibit abortion as an option in the United States and overseas.

“It’s important to have someone who is willing to stand up for women’s health and who can be relied on,” said the staffer.

Kaptur, a Roman Catholic who represents a relatively conservative northern Ohio district, has been rated as “mixed choice” by NARAL Pro-Choice America, the abortion rights advocacy group, while Lowey scored a “fully pro-choice” rating.

Lowey’s reputation as a premier pro-Israel lawmaker also may figure in the calculus of who gets the spot, although she is not making it an issue in her campaign. She has been a leader in securing assistance for Israel and has an unusually strong partnership with the foreign operations subcommittee chairwoman, Rep. Kay Granger (R-Texas), based in part on their commitment to the Israel-U.S. relationship.

Kaptur is closer to J Street, the liberal Israel advocacy group. In January 2009, in the midst of Israel’s Operation Cast Lead in Gaza, she said that “the proportionality of Israel’s response to Hamas’ incessant terrorist rocket launches is lamentable.”

Fought said that Kaptur was committed to assistance for Israel, as she was to overall foreign aid. In any case, her bid for the committee’s top Democratic spot was based more on economic issues.

“It’s still about the economy, stupid,” he said, noting that Kaptur opposed NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, saying that it brought job losses — and that she has been able to cobble together allies from both parties in pushing back against such agreements.

Just as Lowey’s emphasis on abortion implies an unstated dig at Kaptur, so does the NAFTA reference seem to undercut Lowey, one of a minority of Democrats who voted for the trade agreement in 1993.

Lowey may have the edge with the leadership; she allowed herself in 2007 to be dissuaded from standing for the committee leadership to make way for since-retired Rep. David Obey (D-Wisc.), which earned her good will. Additionally, Kaptur has clashed with Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), the House minority leader, over the health care package that in 2010 was the then-speaker’s signature achievement.

Meanwhile in California, the Sherman-Berman race is already infused with pro-Israel politicking, and Sherman’s declared candidacy for the top Democratic spot on the foreign affairs committee only intensifies that element of the race. Berman, 71, and Sherman, 57, are both Jewish.

Sherman, in a statement to JTA, suggested that his tough postures on sanctioning Iran and supporting Israel were salient to his leadership bid.

“I have the breadth of experience to do the job and have worked tirelessly to help our caucus achieve a majority,” he said. “My record on Israel and on Iran sanctions is well known to all who read JTA reports.”

Berman would not comment for this article. However, the outline of their increasingly bitter race in a suburban Los Angeles district already has seeped into this battle. Sherman’s backers have sought to depict Berman as bound too closely to the Obama administration and averse to aggressively confronting the president on Israel’s behalf. Berman’s defenders have countered that he is more reliable in securing the support and action that Israel needs — most recently the broad Iran sanctions packages — and advances Israel’s interests better as an influential insider.

Sherman, who has been far ahead of Berman in some polls, may not have helped his case by announcing for the committee leadership so early, before the outcome of his House race.

Much of the congressional leadership is rooting for Berman, albeit unofficially, according to a source close to party leaders. Pelosi has been publicly praising Berman, even as she has not made an endorsement in the race. Berman also has been endorsed by the overwhelming majority of California’s congressional Democrats.

Engel, who is also an outspoken supporter of Israel, has announced his intention to bid for the top spot if Berman loses to Sherman, although he told JTA that he hopes that does not happen.

“I feel a little awkward, but I’m letting people know I would go for the job. I can’t allow someone who has nothing to lose to talk to people,” he said of Sherman, “and not talk to people.”

Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-N.Y.) is second in seniority among Democrats on the foreign affairs committee, but he is not running for reelection this year. Sherman is fourth in seniority, while Engel is fifth.

Should Berman defeat Sherman, Engel likely would vie to become the Middle East subcommittee’s top Democrat, who is now Ackerman.

If Berman loses to Sherman, the next most senior among Democrats would be Eni Faleomavaega, the delegate from American Samoa who cannot vote in the full House but votes in committee.

The source close to the party’s leaders said that Faleomavaega’s chances for the job, should he bid for it, were virtually nil. Multiple calls to Faleomavaega’s office were not returned.

“Elan’s premature death will leave a huge void in the Jewish world,” said WJC President Ronald Lauder, who called Steinberg one of the “greatest Jewish activists” of the past decade. “He was deeply committed to advocating the rights of the Jews around the world and of Holocaust survivors in particular. He was probably the most gifted communication professional in the Jewish organizational world.”

Steinberg helped organize the research, hearings, media campaign and eventually the lawsuit that forced Swiss banks to agree to pay $1.2 billion to compensate Holocaust victims and their descendants. In the aftermath of that action, European governments, insurance companies and other organizations also began payments.

Columnist Isi Liebler described the effort as Steinberg’s “most impressive contribution” to the Jewish people and said his “premature death represents an irreplaceable loss to world Jewry.”

Born in Rishon Lezion, Israel, on June 2, 1952, to Holocaust survivor parents, Steinberg grew up in Brooklyn, N.Y., and received a master’s degree in political science from the City University of New York.

He joined the WJC in 1978, rising to become world executive director. He left the organization in 2004 in protest against financial irregularities there. He later became senior adviser to Lauder, as well as vice president of the American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors and Their Descendants.

Among his accomplishments at the WJC, Steinberg initiated a campaign challenging former United Nations Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim over his Nazi associations when he was running for the Austrian presidency, and persuaded the Vatican and Spain to recognize Israel.

Steinberg also pushed the opposition to a Carmelite convent at Auschwitz and convinced filmmaker Steven Spielberg not to film scenes for “Schindler’s List” at the Nazi death camp.

Steinberg’s approach to those issues changed the way Jewish organizations worked with and pressured world governments and agencies.

Noting that the WJC had been seen as the “greatest secret of Jewish life” with its quiet diplomacy, Steinberg said he brought “a newer, American-style leadership — less timid, more forceful, unashamedly Jewish.”

Yet even some of the Jewish world’s most outspoken leaders sometimes questioned Steinberg’s approach.

Simon Wiesenthal questioned the anti-Waldheim campaign, saying Waldheim was an “opportunist,” not a war criminal. Abraham Foxman, the Anti-Defamation League’s national director, told The New York Times that while he supported WJC’s “persistence” on the Swiss compensation, he worried that the Swiss might begin to see Jews as their enemy because the campaign “fed into the stereotype that Jews have money, that it’s the most important thing to them.”

Writer Douglas Bloomfield said Steinberg’s goal with the Swiss banks was not only money.

“He would say that the real goal of the campaign was moral as well as material restitution — justice for the victims, for the survivors and for their families,” Bloomfield wrote.

In a statement read at Steinberg’s funeral, Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel said, “Whenever Jews were in danger or Jewish honor offended, he vigorously yet elegantly spoke up. Whenever Jewish memory was attacked, he attacked the attacker.”

Steinberg is survived by his wife, Sharon, and three children, and a brother.

(JTA) — Occasionally down the years I’ve winced at being labeled a “self-hating Jew” because my reporting from the Middle East was perceived as tainted by hostility toward Israel. It wasn’t true, of course, but I figured it came with the territory, meaning that I was deemed biased because I reported accurately what was happening on the other side, with the Palestinians.

And it turned out that every once in a while it was helpful to me as a reporter, for the fact that I am Jewish and not in the pocket of the Israelis seemed to appeal to movers and shakers in Cairo and Damascus and Riyadh, who were willing to talk to me on the record with some candor.

I’ve worked the Middle East beat since the 1950s, back in the days of Moshe Dayan, Golda Meir, Menachem Begin, Anwar Sadat, Yasir Arafat, Muammar Gadhafi. My relations with all of them, with the sole exception of Begin, were cordial and straightforward. But when I questioned Begin in a fashion that I thought reasonable and he found belligerent, our conversation was brought to an end by the intervention of Ezer Weizman, his defense minister, who shortly afterward took me for a friendly drink at a nearby bar.

My eyes had first been opened to Israeli-Palestinian realities by two pioneering figures from that part of the world. Back in the fifties, Reuven Dafne, a Romanian Israeli, and Fayez Sayegh, a Palestinian Christian, two friends of mine, gave me a primer course on the complicated subject, for which I remain grateful.

I have long admired the courage and determination of the Israelis and sympathized with their yearning for a secure state. I have similar feelings about the Palestinians. But I’m an American reporter, a Jew who believes in going after facts on the ground, as Daniel Pearl did, and reporting them accurately, let the chips fall where they may.

(Permission granted by Jewish Lights Publishing, P.O. Box 237, Woodstock, VT 05091, www.jewishlights.com.) 

And that was it, as far as the welcome went.

The speech delivered March 26 at J Street’s annual conference by Barukh Binah, the deputy chief of mission at the Washington embassy, was a compendium of the Israeli government’s differences with the liberal pro-Israel group — and, accordingly, it was not interrupted once by cheers or cries of agreement, and Binah left the stage to the lightest of applause.

Yet what was noteworthy was that he turned up at all — something made evident later in the evening when Ehud Olmert, the former Israeli prime minister, told the gathering that Binah’s appearance was “historic,” even if it was mostly about disagreement.

“The fact that the government decided to send him is the most important thing,” Olmert said, triggering another round of cheers, applause and table thumping from among the some 2,500 conference attendees at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center here.

Binah’s very presence was emblematic of how J Street seems to have gravitated toward deeper identification with the country whose interests it has claimed to defend since its 2008 inception — as well as toward the mainstream pro-Israel community in the United States.

Israeli officials monitoring the event said they were surprised by a tone that they considered more pro-Israel than they had expected.

They contrasted this year’s J Street conference with last year’s, when the group opened its conference by honoring Peter Beinart, the journalist who had made waves with an essay warning Israel that it was losing American youth; Izzeldin Abuelaish, the Gaza doctor who remained committed to peace in the wake of the 2009 deaths of three of his daughters from Israeli fire during Operation Cast Lead; and Sara Benninga, a founder of the Sheikh Jarrah Solidarity Movement, which protests Israeli policies in eastern Jerusalem’s Arab neighborhoods and condemns “ethnic privilege” in Israel.

This year, all three opening speakers were Israelis who are participants in the mainstream of the country’s political debate: Amos Oz, the novelist and peace activist; Stav Shaffir, a founder of the social justice protest movement launched last summer in Israel; and Michael Bitton, the mayor of Yerucham, a development town. Sessions included officials of The Israel Project, an Israel advocacy group that consults with the Israeli government — and one that J Street had once attacked as being unrepresentative of American Jews.

In all, it was a striking shift for a group that at its conference last year featured a panel discussion on the boycott Israel movement, which J Street opposes. The panel included a representative of Jewish Voice for Peace, which describes itself as a part of the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement.

It was the decision by Jeremy Ben-Ami, J Street’s president, to pronouncedly distance himself from Beinart’s latest initiative — a call to boycott products made in West Bank settlements — that was the deciding factor in sending Binah, Israeli officials told JTA. The embassy’s announcement that Binah would attend came a day after Ben-Ami told Atlantic blogger Jeffrey Goldberg that Beinart’s initiative would not be productive.

“I don’t think that it makes any sense to put negative pressure on people whose behavior you hope to change,” Ben-Ami told The Atlantic. “I think that the way that Israelis will feel comfortable making the compromises and the sacrifices — and Israel as a whole, not just the settlers — is when they really feel that not only American Jews but the United States is going to be there for them.”

The point of sending Binah to the J Street conference was to establish a relationship with a group that the Israeli government has come around to perceive as significant, said a senior Israeli official.

“A critical conversation is better than no conversation because apathy is our enemy,” the official said. “They understand it’s a process — next time they may get the ambassador.”

Binah suggested that J Street did not appreciate its potential to harm Israel in the organization’s capacity as a lobbying group.

Ben-Ami pushed back in his response, which immediately followed Binah’s speech.

J Street, Ben-Ami said to loud applause, was founded by those who “wanted a voice grounded in commitment and love for Israel but grounded in the Jewish values in which we were raised, grounded in the democratic values in which Israel was founded.”

In an interview with JTA, Ben-Ami said that J Street’s emphasis was always on Israel’s well-being.

Critics have attacked J Street over the participation in its previous conferences of speakers and attendees who are to its left and more hostile to Israel. Asked about the criticism, Ben-Ami attempted to balance his organization’s support for a big tent and open dialogue with clear definitions of its stances.

“I don’t think it’s appropriate to use ‘apartheid’” in discussing Israel, he said. “I don’t think it’s appropriate to use those words, and people who do don’t speak for J Street. I don’t want to hear the phrase ‘one-state solution,’ but does that mean there aren’t people here who do? No.”

J Street’s positioning has disappointed and angered some to its left. In particular, the organization has been criticized over its speaking invitation to Olmert, who is under indictment in Israel on corruption charges.

While Olmert in his address highlighted his efforts to reach a peace agreement with the Palestinians, many on the left have criticized his role in ordering Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip.

The Israeli human rights monitoring group B’Tselem, which was listed as a participating organization in the J Street conference, issued a statement saying “we would not have advised featuring Olmert as a speaker.” The statement referred to “grave suspicions regarding serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian law under the Olmert government,” citing Cast Lead.

In her opening remarks Shaffir, the Israeli protest movement leader, suggested that the liberalism of J Street supporters could be a vaulable contribution to her country.

“I know and admire the histories of many of the communities and individuals in this room,” she said. “I know of your important history in the trade union movement, of your involvement in the civil rights’ struggle, and of the role that American Jewry takes today in fighting social justice in the U.S. and throughout the world. I know you fight not only for my country but also for my values.”