Obama was polling at 60% among Jews before the election, far below traditional Jewish levels for the Democratic candidate. For months there'd been talk of Obama's "Jewish problem", that he couldn't gain traction among the Jewish electorate no matter how hard he tried, that he couldn't convince Jews that he didn't hold Jeremiah Wright's views on Israel, leading to charges of racism and silly videos from Sarah Silverman.
But as it turns out, in the end Obama won 77 percent of the Jewish vote, more than Kerry and almost as much as Gore!
This probably represents not a change in the fear of Obama's attitudes towards Israel, but simply a shift in the momentum of Jewish voters together with the rest of the electorate in the midst of the economic crisis. Still, it's nice to know I'm a typical Jewish voter after all.
However, based on conversations with friends & family and the chatter on the JBlogosphere, Obama still has a big frum problem. Plenty of racism there, unfortunately.
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