Chicago Tribune: “Barack Obama: The first Jewish president?”

Aaron Keyak — December 12, 2008 – 1:30 pm | Obama Comments (0) Add a comment

Many in the Jewish community feel very close to our President-elect. How close? Obama's home town newspaper asks about this in their piece titled, "Barack Obama: The first Jewish president?"

Writer Toni Morrison famously dubbed Bill Clinton "the first black president"—a title he fervently embraced.

Abner Mikva, the Chicago Democratic Party stalwart and former Clinton White House counsel, offers a variation on that theme. "If Clinton was our first black president, then Barack Obama is our first Jewish president," says Mikva, who was among the first to spot the potential of the skinny young law school graduate with the odd name.

"I use a Yiddish expression, yiddishe neshuma, to describe him," explains Mikva. "It means a Jewish soul. It's an expression my mother used. It means a sensitive, sympathetic personality, someone who understands where you are coming from."

Obama, of course, is a Christian. And his middle name is Hussein. In the presidential election, he won 78 percent of the Jewish vote and about 70 percent of the Arab-American vote, according to unofficial exit polling. Obama collected 52.8 percent of the overall vote.

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