Nothing but the truth…
 , NJJN Staff Writer | 02.07.08

When it came time to vote, the rumors seemed not to matter. In an ugly buildup to Tuesday’s multi-state presidential primaries, Jewish voters were the recipients of an e-mail suggesting Illinois Sen. Barack Obama was a closet Muslim who as president would work against Israel’s best interests.

 
 

Sid Friedman of West Orange votes on Super Tuesday at Ahawas Achim B’nai Jacob and David.
   

But in conversation – with a reporter at least – local Jewish voters repudiated the false e-mails and instead chose their candidates based on their positions, experience, and persona.

“I don’t believe the rumors,” said Robert Atterman moments after voting for Obama at the Mount Pleasant Middle School in Livingston. “If we get Hillary Clinton, we get Bill Clinton, and I think we need a change.”

At midday, Edna Yacersky of West Orange had not yet decided for whom she would vote, but, she said, “I think it will be for Clinton. I think she is more experienced to work with foreign governments than Obama is.”

But Yacersky said she was unhappy with some attacks on Obama circulating through the Jewish community.

“What if he was a Jewish person?” she asked rhetorically. “What would the Christians say?”

At the last minute, Marion Solovay of Florham Park changed her choice from Clinton to Obama. “I still like Hillary but I feel she has so many negatives that she may not be electable in the fall. She voted for the Iraq war, and I think that will be a problem.”

And, she added, “I like that Obama is drawing so many young people into voting.”

 
 

Robert Atterman
   

Taking time away from a Women at Leisure mah-jongg game at the Lautenberg Family JCC in Whippany, Solovay said rumors about Obama “don’t bother me. Any president of the United States will be an Israel supporter.”

But writer and film scholar Azriel Fellner, former rabbi at Temple Beth Shalom in Livingston, said rumors had nothing to do with his misgivings about Obama.

“I don’t trust Barack Obama on Israel at all,” he said. “I do not care what he says publicly or whom he says it to. He is untested.”

Fellner, a Clinton supporter, found the e-mailed rumor campaign against Obama to be “vile, obscene, and I wrote people back saying, ‘This is a terrible scourge and you ought not do that.’”

But, he said, he believes “Obama is a totally inexperienced guy. He is giving us promises he cannot keep and giving hope to people that are never going to be fulfilled. Hillary Clinton knows what the score is. She knows how to work both sides of the aisle. She is as cynical as you get, and you need cynicism and a certain degree of toughness that he does not have.”

‘Swift-boated’

Mark Goldman of West Caldwell said he was “leaning toward Obama. It sounds corny, but he provides me with a certain type of inspiration that I haven’t seen in a politician for a long time. I think Obama is also sincere, in comparison to the past eight years of compassionate conservatism that we knew was false.”

Goldman said Obama was “swift-boated” in the e-mail smear campaign, a reference to a campaign tactic designed to discredit John Kerry in the 2004 elections.

A victory for Obama “would show the rest of the world that we can be the moral guiding light we used to be, and we don’t need a 70-year-old white man running the government,” said Goldman. “We can actually elect someone who is a minority. I can see people in the rest of the world being absolutely stunned by the fact that the Americans voted in a black man.”

Beverly Brodsky of Morris Plains is an emphatic Clinton supporter. “Obama is very young and doesn’t have a lot of experience.” Untroubled by allegations that he is a follower of Islam, Brodsky said, “I think he is a Christian.”

 
 

Gil Shvartz
   

Eileen Fingeret, also of Morris Plains, had not heard any of the rumors about Obama and is a supporter of Clinton.

“Why? Because I think she is very knowledgeable,” said Fingeret. “I feel she really cares about the people in this country and that she would be a good president.”

Unlike the others, Gil Shvartz of Rockaway had not decided whether he would actually vote. “None of the people running for president gives me any good reasons to vote for them,” he said.

Iris Friedman of Rockaway said she intended to vote for Republican John McCain over rivals Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee.

“I am a middle-of-the-road person – a liberal Republican or a conservative Democrat,” she said. “Romney and Huckabee are too conservative for me, and I think McCain would be more independent. I would vote for McCain over Hillary or Obama. They are a little too liberal for me.”

As adamant a Clinton supporter as he is, Fellner said he would choose Obama over McCain if they are the candidates in the general election.

“I will not vote for McCain. I think he is basically deep down inside a conservative who is going to owe the conservatives something if he gets into office,” Fellner said, adding that he doesn’t like McCain’s “horrible attitude” in supporting two of President George W. Bush’s nominees to the United States Supreme Court, John Roberts and Samuel Alito.

“I think basically he will kowtow to people and it doesn’t matter what the principles are,” said Fellner.


 Local stories posted courtesy of the New Jersey Jewish News