Barack Hussein Obama, the harbinger of an America in which racial and ethnic minorities will comprise a majority of its population in the future, has broken barriers in this astonishing political season.

 He  soundly defeated Hillary Clinton, a formidable opponent, in the Democratic party primaries and he walked away from this week’s Democratic convention in Denver as the party’s first African American candidate for president. Come November, he will face John McCain, the Republican candidate, for the greatest prize of all – the presidency of the United States.

But as he sets his sights on the White House, Obama, the liberal U.S. senator from Illinois, must surely wonder whether Jews – one of the most important and influential constituencies in American politics – will vote for him in sufficient numbers to carry him over the top. Judging by a recent survey commissioned by J Street, a Washington-based Israel advocacy organization, he may well have reason to be concerned. The survey found that only 58 per cent of American Jewish voters would definitely support him, while another four per cent said  that they were leaning toward him. By contrast, the last Democratic standard-bearer, John Kerry, drew 76 per cent of the Jewish vote, while the previous candidates, Al Gore and Bill Clinton, both garnered about 80 per cent.

So Obama has his work cut out for him, even though he appears to enjoy more support among Jews than among white Christians.  Consider these statistics: while more than 80 per cent of black voters have a favourable opinion of Obama, the comparable figure in white America is only about 30 per cent. Clearly, the prospect of a black president conjures up resistance in some quarters.

Nonetheless, Obama cannot take Jewish voters for granted, even though some of his earliest mentors, advisers and supporters are Jewish. Indeed, his candidacy is still dogged by what the mayor of New York City, Michael Bloomberg, recently called a “whisper campaign.” Obama, whose mother was a white American Christian from Kansas and whose grandfather was a black Kenyan convert to Islam, has been the object of nasty e-mail messages suggesting that he is a Muslim, sympathizes with radical Islam and is lukewarm to Israel. Residents of southern Florida, home to the second-largest Jewish community in the United States, have been the recipients of many of these messages.

Being an Obama supporter, Bloomberg took the trouble of travelling to Boca Raton to refute these “rumours,” which he denounced as “lies” and “wedge politics at its worst.” Bloomberg, in comments at the Jewish Federation of South Palm Beach County, urged his listeners to reject the rumours, which have also surfaced in Israel.

Bloomberg’s appearance in Boca Raton took place three weeks after Obama sought to assure voters there of his commitment to Israel’s security, his opposition to Iran’s nuclear program and his view of Hamas as an organization bent on Israel’s destruction. Speaking at B’nai Torah Congregation, Obama – a practising Christian whose chief strategist, David Axelrod, is Jewish – also tried to dispel false rumours that he is a Muslim. Realizing that they may undermine his campaign, Obama has yet to schedule a talk  at a mosque.

Obama reiterated these themes when he addressed the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s annual policy conference in Washington, D.C. in June. Prior to launching into his speech, he said, “I want to say that I know some provocative e-mails have been circulating throughout Jewish communities across the country. A few of you may have gotten them. They’re filled with tall tales and dire warnings about a certain candidate for president. But if anyone has been confused by these e-mails, I want you to know that today I’ll be speaking from my heart, and as a true friend of Israel.”

Obama proceeded to say that he would work with Israel to pursue a peace agreement with the Palestinians within the context of a two-state solution, and that he would do “everything in his power to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.”

Skeptics in the audience may well have been disarmed when Hillary Clinton, in her speech, said, “Let me be very clear. I know Senator Obama will be a good friend of Israel.” For a politician whose pro-Israel credentials are impeccable, Clinton’s comment may have had an effect.

Obama has presented himself as a staunch supporter of Israel in speeches and interviews before and since. In what may have been his most definitive observation on Israel, he told The Atlantic magazine: “I think that the idea of a secure Jewish state is a fundamentally just idea, and a necessary idea, given not only world history but the active existence of anti-Semitism.”

Yet Obama does not agree with “every action of the state of Israel.” He is known to oppose Israeli settlements in the West Bank and  he believes that the status of Jerusalem will have to be negotiated in future peace talks.

These caveats aside, Obama is wholeheartedly in Israel’s camp, as he demonstrated last month during a visit to Israel and in discussions with the Israeli leadership from Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on down.

He vowed he would not force Israel to make concessions that might jeopardize its security and pledged to preserve the United States’ close  relationship with Israel.

Prior to going to Jewish state, Obama described Israel as “a valued ally” and promised to maintain Washington’s “unshakable commitment to supporting Israel’s right and capability to defend itself.”

Touring Sderot, a town in the northern Negev that has been hit and traumatized by thousands of Qassam rockets and mortar shells launched from the Gaza Strip, he said that Israel had every right to defend itself against attacks on its civilians.  

As for Iran, Obama has said that its nuclear program will be one of his foreign policy priorities as president.

As he put it on the eve of his trip to Israel, “Through its nuclear program, missile capability, meddling in Iraq, support for terrorism and threats against Israel, Iran now poses the greatest strategic challenge to the United States in the region in a generation.”

Unlike the Bush administration, Obama wants to engage Iran in “direct and aggressive diplomacy” on the nuclear file. Yet, in a reference to Iran’s sabre rattling, he has warned that he will “always leave the threat of military action on the table” to defend Israel.

(Regarding Iraq, Obama has called for a phased withdrawal of U.S. combat troops, arguing that the current insurgency there has diverted the United States from the central front in the war against terrorism, the lawless region along Afghanistan’s border with Pakistan. As he wrote in a New York Times op-ed piece, “It was a grave mistake to allow ourselves to be distracted from the fight against Al Qaeda by invading a country that posed no immediate threat and had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks.”)

Despite Obama’s efforts to curry favour with Jewish voters, he has yet to win the hearts and minds of skeptical Jews who doubt his commitment to Israel and who worry about his past associations with three figures: the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr., a Chicago pastor who has delivered racially and politically charged sermons; Rashid Khalidi, a Palestinian American academic who has spoken on behalf of his people’s cause, and Robert Malley, a U.S Mideast expert and former diplomat whose views have offended right-wing Jews.

To the majority of Jews, however, Obama, a  man who represents the ascendancy of ethnic and racial minorities in America, comes across as a defender of Israel, a foe of the current regime in Iran, an adversary of Hamas, an advocate of social justice, and a proponent of a responsible and balanced foreign policy in the 21st century.