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World Jewish News
US Jewish Organizations Meet with Obama Team
23.12.2008
Leaders of 29 Jewish organizations met with representatives of Barack Obama's transition team. For more than two hours they discussed domestic and international issues.
According to William Daroff, the director of the Washington office of United Jewish Communities, the agenda included the economy and legislation to assist vulnerable populations, church-state issues, judicial appointments, energy independence, Iran, the Middle East peace process, international anti-Semitism and U.S. participation in the Durban II conference,.
"President-elect Obama's transition team shrewdly invited just about every national Jewish organization to participate in a wide-ranging roundtable discussion that touched on nearly every issue of concern to the Jewish community," Daroff said. "Left-leaning groups, right-leaning groups and all of us in between were included in the meeting in a truly unprecedented effort to ensure complete representation of the vast spectrum of American Jewish opinion."
In addition to mainstream organizations like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the meeting included representatives of pro-Israel groups geared towards a peaceful solution of the Palestinian conflict - Israel Policy Forum, Americans for Peace Now, Brit Tzedek v'Shalom and J Street - as well as from the militant Zionist Organization of America.
Bush administration meetings with Jewish groups tended toward a narrower focus on the mainstream.
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