Chaptzem Blog!      

The mensches for the job



Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, a blonde in an electric blue suit, stood out in a sea of black yarmulkes.

"Israel may be on the front lines," she said. "It faces a common threat to our traditions, our values, our beliefs, and it should be our common cause."

Clearly, the candidate knows her audience.

She wasn't the only one. Eight senators, two of them presidential candidates, addressed an audience of 90 Orthodox Jews who were enjoying a kosher lunch and some politics in the Hart Senate Office Building last week.

Every speaker bent over backward to proclaim his or her support for Israel, and most also stressed the growing threat from Iran.

For a group representing just 10 percent of an estimated 5.3 million Jews in the United States, the Orthodox Union attracts an interesting mix of political players. After saying afternoon prayers, the union met with White House spokesman Tony Snow.The night before, its members ate dinner with Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito.

The union's members were no schleppers, either.

The audience included high-profile Orthodox Jewish advocates including Howard Friedman, the first Orthodox president of the powerful American Israel Public Affairs Committee, Rabbinical Council of America President Rabbi Shlomo Hochberg and Allen Fagin, managing partner of Proskauer Rose, one of the biggest law firms in the country.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0607/4532.html