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Yet more news today in the Obama and Exodus front. In an interview that Jeffrey Goldberg has now posted on his new blog, Obama talks about his appreciation of the Leon Uris novel Exodus.

Obama and I spoke over the weekend about Hamas, about Jimmy Carter, and about the future of Jewish settlements on the West Bank. He seemed eager to talk about his ties to the Jewish community, and about the influence Jews have had on his life. Among other things, he told me that he learned the art of moral anguish from Jews. We spoke as well about my Atlantic cover story on Israel’s future. He mentioned his interest in the opinions of the writer David Grossman, who is featured in the article. “I remember reading The Yellow Wind when it came out, and reading about Grossman now is powerful, painful stuff.” And, speaking in a kind of code Jews readily understand, Obama also made sure to mention that he was fond of the writer Leon Uris, the author of Exodus.

Goldberg then asks him about the concern in some Jewish quarters about his presidency, and thsi is Obama's answer.

I find that really interesting. I think the idea of Israel and the reality of Israel is one that I find important to me personally. Because it speaks to my history of being uprooted, it speaks to the African-American story of exodus, it describes the history of overcoming great odds and a courage and a commitment to carving out a democracy and prosperity in the midst of hardscrabble land. One of the things I loved about Israel when I went there is that the land itself is a metaphor for rebirth, for what’s been accomplished. What I also love about Israel is the fact that people argue about these issues, and that they’re asking themselves moral questions.

Sometimes I’m attacked in the press for maybe being too deliberative. My staff teases me sometimes about anguishing over moral questions. I think I learned that partly from Jewish thought, that your actions have consequences and that they matter and that we have moral imperatives. The point is, if you look at my writings and my history, my commitment to Israel and the Jewish people is more than skin-deep and it’s more than political expediency. When it comes to the gut issue, I have such ardent defenders among my Jewish friends in Chicago. I don’t think people have noticed how fiercely they defend me, and how central they are to my success, because they’ve interacted with me long enough to know that I've got it in my gut. During the Wright episode, they didn’t flinch for a minute, because they know me and trust me, and they’ve seen me operate in difficult political situations.

The other irony in this whole process is that in my early political life in Chicago, one of the raps against me in the black community is that I was too close to the Jews. When I ran against Bobby Rush [for Congress], the perception was that I was Hyde Park, I’m University of Chicago, I’ve got all these Jewish friends. When I started organizing, the two fellow organizers in Chicago were Jews, and I was attacked for associating with them. So I’ve been in the foxhole with my Jewish friends, so when I find on the national level my commitment being questioned, it’s curious.

As regular readers of FeilerFaster know, I've just completed a book about the influence of Moses in America that looks at the Exodus as the great American story, linking the Pilgrims, founding fathers, Abolitionists, civil rights leaders, and almost every American president from George Washington to George W. Bush. Obama has made his hewing to the Exodus story one of the meta-themes of his run for the presidency.

Interesting language in a Bob Novak column:

John McCain, who has spent the last two months trying to consolidate right-wing support as the Republican candidate for president, has a problem of disputed dimensions with a vital component of the conservative coalition: the evangelicals. The biggest question is whether Mike Huckabee is part of the problem or the solution for McCain.

An element of the Christian community is not reconciled to McCain's candidacy but instead regards the prospective presidency of Barack Obama in the nature of a Biblical plague visited upon a sinful people. These militants look at former Baptist preacher Huckabee as "God's candidate" running for president in 2012. Whether they can be written off as merely a troublesome fringe group depends on Huckabee's course.

Plague? Biblical? Is this going to be the Exodus campaign all of a sudden? Obama has likened his candicacy to the "Joshua generation," saying on several occasions that the leaders of the civil rights movemement with the Moses generation and his generation is the one that follows, designed to take African-Americans (and the rest of the country as well) into the Promised Land. Now suddenly we have language coming out of the evangelical wing of the GOP that he is a biblical plague. And not the good kind, like the ones God sends to free the Moses generation. The 2008 Presidential Election is shaping up to be, among other things, an exegetical battle over the Book of Exodus.

Ben Smith returns with thoughts on Clinton's branding.

What we can expect if this gets to the Pennsylvania primary:

The race between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama for the Democratic nomination continues to heat up -- but in one Montgomery County, Pa. household, the debate turned violent.

Prosecutors say that two brothers-in-law tried to settle the presidential race on the kitchen floor of a Collegeville, Pa. home.

Jose Ortiz, 28, is now behind bars on felony assault charges after prosecutors say he stabbed Sean Shurelds inside a home in the 100 block of Honeylocust Court.

District attorney Risa Ferman says a heated debate over the candidates escalated into violence:

"One is a supporter of Barack Obama, the other is a supporter of Hillary Clinton, and an argument of words turned bloody when one brother-in-law tried to choke the other and the victim then responded with a knife and stabbed his brother-in-law in the stomach.”

The chatter about Obama and the Jews is likely to increase as the nomination fights heads into the final weeks. Josh Marshall reviews a number of the charges here (with more in his piece.) Here's one:

If things continue on their current trajectory and Barack Obama is the Democratic nominee we should get used to much more of the still largely subterranean effort to scare Jews and broader portions of the electorate into believing that Obama is anti-Israel. The truth is that there's little apparent difference between Obama's position and Hillary's or, for that matter, anyone else in the mainstream of the Democratic party or most of the non-Taliban wing of Republican party. Here's a relatively mild example of the effort -- a story in the New York Sun about how Obama supporter Zbigniew Brzezinski (the article calls him an 'advisor' -- he's probably something between a supporter and advisor) is leading a delegation to Syria sponsored by the highly controversial left-wing Rand Corporation.

The Forward explores why Jews split their vote on Super Tuesday.

But more interesting to me has been the backlash in the Jewish community to the anti-Israel fearmongering that often surrounds the Jewish vote. My email box recently filled with two examples. This from a 43-year-old rabbi in Atlanta.

This week, I became aware of a something very disturbing. Senator Barack Obama has been characterized as a closet Muslim parading as a member of a Christian Church opposed to the State of Israel. It is part of a pattern of vicious lies circulated on the Internet. This slanderous attack has been reported in a number of Jewish news publications. In the name of honesty and justice, I am sharing this Open Letter to the Jewish Community so that you will not be fooled or deceived by thses horrific tactics. We Jews, as much as any group, understand how injurious a vicious lie can be.

Another from the head of United Jewish Committee.

As leaders of the Jewish community, none of whose organizations will endorse or oppose any candidate for President, we feel compelled to speak out against certain rhetoric and tactics in the current campaign that we find particularly abhorrent. Of particular concern, over the past several weeks, many in our community have received hateful emails that use falsehood and innuendo to mischaracterize Senator Barack Obama's religious beliefs and who he is as a person.

These tactics attempt to drive a wedge between our community and a presidential candidate based on despicable and false attacks and innuendo based on religion. We reject these efforts to manipulate members of our community into supporting or opposing candidates.

Attempts of this sort to mislead and inflame voters should not be part of our political discourse and should be rebuffed by all who believe in our democracy. Jewish voters, like all voters, should support whichever candidate they believe would make the best president. We urge everyone to make that decision based on the factual records of these candidates, and nothing less.

These notes may be dismissed as coming from Obama supporters, though neither letter writer identifies himself as such. I've certainly heard grumblings about Obama from inside the Jewish community in the last year. But I'm hopeful that this backlash against the Muslim rumors and chatter about Obama's pastor's pro-Palestinian stance is another sign that the Jewish community can have a civilized conversation about a candidate's positions in the Middle East without succumbing to outmoded kneejack reactions.

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