By Paul Shapiro
To help them with their relatively last-minute decisions, the Five Towns Democratic Club hosted a diverse cross-section of residents, with strong opinions on both Barack Obama and John McCain, at a standing-room-only forum titled “Dialogue: Obama and the Jewish Vote” at the Hewlett-Woodmere Public Library last Thursday.
“It has long been my philosophy that the Five Towns Democratic Club was an integral part of our community and should try to meet the political needs of the community,” said Stephen Anchin, the club’s president. “For many months, I’d been hearing questions from friends, neighbors and relatives about Barack Obama and his background, his stance on the issues and whether he was someone that could be trusted. I felt that this was a question that not only needed to be addressed, but was not being addressed in an open forum by people who had incontrovertible credentials for both honesty and stature.”
The facilitators of the discussion were Rabbi Adam Mintz, the immediate past president of the New York Board of Rabbis and one-time interim rabbi at Young Israel of Woodmere, and Jack Rosen, chairman of the American Jewish Congress. Both addressed issues ranging from the often-raised concerns about Obama’s position on Israel to the current worldwide economic crisis.
Rosen, who is a businessman as well as the chairman of the Council for World Jewry, said he thought the forum went very well, and was a good exchange of questions and ideas. “With two weeks left, everyone is talking about this election,” he said. “And it’s always good to give information out to people that they can use in discussions they can have with others. ... I think this type of event answers their questions and responds to their concerns. It permits them to make better judgment in who they’re going to vote for.”
Rosen said he did not expect such a large crowd, given the demographics of the Five Towns. “I was pleasantly surprised by the support that Senator Obama had in the room,” Rosen said. “I expected, because of the large number of Orthodox Jews that live in the community, that there would be far less support for him and Senator [Joe] Biden.”
Despite the event’s Democratic sponsorship, supporters of Sen. John McCain also attended. Aron Piontkowski of Hewlett went to the meeting because he wanted to hear more about Obama. Piontkowski is a Republican, and, he said, the discussion did not sway his opinion.
“The event was pretty informative,” he said. “It didn’t convince me to change my opinion, but it was informative ... I’m a big supporter of McCain, and being at this meeting reinforced my support for the McCain-Palin ticket. My primary issue is the support of Israel and the survival of Israel, and I believe the person that will do this is McCain. ... [Obama is] not decisive enough for me, whether he is a big supporter of Israel or not. We need a tough guy in the White House.”
Whether Obama would be good for Israel was a hot topic. “The facts are that Senator Obama has been a supporter of Israel,” Rosen said. “The rabbi and I had to make the audience comfortable that the senator has a good, solid voting record on Israel and that they should rely on the facts and not those innuendoes about him. The facts are that he has been a solid supporter of Israel.”
Rhoda Friedland of Hewlett actually joined the Five Towns Democratic Club after the meeting, which simply reinforced her choice to vote for the Obama-Biden ticket. “Everybody I know has pretty much made up their minds, and it’s very difficult to change people’s minds,” Friedland said. “I think most of the people are obviously interested in the topic, which is Obama’s position on Israel. Unfortunately, there are a lot of rumors that he’s anti-Israel, and Israel is good for the U.S.”
Victoria Kaufman of Woodmere said she has voted for both Republicans and Democrats in the past four elections, but this forum gave her an entirely new perspective. “What it did is that it gave me an opportunity to talk to people who know the candidates, who have talked to them in person, so I wanted to get a sense of what their perception was of the candidates, and that was important to me. In case that person is elected, I wanted to get a sense of why they were supporting them.”
While this forum may have affected the way that some participants will vote, others simply came to get a more in-depth profile of Obama. Evelyn Resnick of North Woodmere attended the meeting with her husband, Albert, and left feeling more secure in voting for Obama. “I felt supported in my views,” she said. “I learned a lot about where [Obama] would stand or what he would say about many topics, so I felt a little more secure in voting for him after attending the event.”
Comments about this story? PShapiro@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 201.
