ACTIONS » Bring Your Brains to the Ballot

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Jewish Women Watching
October 15, 2008 / 5769

This Election Day, JWW Tells the Jewish Community to Bring Their Brains to the Ballot

This election season, Jews are receiving and spreading distorted messages about Barack Obama. As false rumors circulate and cast his potential presidency as dangerous or "bad for the Jews," Jewish Women Watching is on the scene to expose the ignorance, misinformation, narrow-mindedness, and suspicion that characterize too much conversation about Obama in the Jewish community. The renegade group is holding Jewish voters accountable for looking beyond the tabloid veil - riddled with Islamaphobia - to the issues that will have a deep and lasting impact on our country.

This latest JWW project takes the form of a YouTube parody of a campaign commercial, drawing attention to the skewed rumors making their way across the kosher grapevine. The piece is critical of the complicity of Jewish Americans in perpetuating troubling narratives about Obama's personal identity and his positions on the Middle East and national security. One satirical rumor reads, "Did you hear that his middle name is Hussein Mohammad Ali Bin Laden?" and another, "If Obama gets elected, will he replace his motorcade with a camelcade?"

The video calls on Jewish voters to "Challenge the ignorance" and "Bring your brains to the ballot." Jewish Women Watching states plainly: "The Jewish community should ask intelligent questions."

Miriam the Prophet, a JWW member, laments, "My grandmother tells me she is wary of voting for Obama because he is anti-Semitic, but she heard it from her friends and has no hard evidence. I am furious that members of my family are being co-opted by right-wing messaging that is trying to play on fear and insecurity in Jewish voters." She added, "My grandmother always told me to use my keppe, or head. Now I wish she would use hers."

Rose Schneiderman commented, "People ask 'What is his policy on Israel?' and instead of looking it up, they make a simplistic assumption that it is bad. This uninformed way of thinking needs to be stopped. We have to be vigilant about reminding our friends and members of the Jewish community to get smart and be critical thinkers. And, we shouldn't forget that maintaining the separation of church and state, caring for the earth, and increasing economic justice in our society all represent Jewish values."

It is time to seek atonement for the sins of the past eight years. JWW is exposing the absurdity of Jewish rumors about Obama and pulling the lever for an Obama/Biden win.

Jewish Women Watching is an anonymous activist collective that aims to rouse the public to challenge and change the sexist and other discriminatory practices in the American Jewish community. Since 1999, JWW has been criticizing the Jewish community's narrow-minded priorities through online, print, and street actions. For more information, visit JWW's web site at www.jewishwomenwatching.org. To arrange an interview, write to .

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