Obama:"I am Jewish, in my soul"

On the third day of Hanukkah for year 5775 (according to the Jewish calendar), President Barack Obama hosted Jewish leaders to celebrate the festival of lights.  

After the President made his Hanukkah remarks and there was prayer and the ceremonial lighting of the menorah, it was time for the President to glad hand the greeting line.  A gentleman with a booming voice proclaimed: "Mr. President, when I told my Christian friend that I was coming to a Hanukkah party at the White House, he told me: 'I didn't know that the President was Jewish!'".

After Mr. Obama had a good belly laugh, he said as he was walking away: "I am [Jewish], in my soul."  This sotto voce utterance impressed Jewish Journal writer  David  Suissa.  This does jibe with a New York Magazine proclamation in 2011 that Mr. Obama was America's first Jewish President.  

But to my goy ears, the quip sounded like pandering pleasantries which mean about as much as "If you like your health care plan then you can keep it."  However, there are some similarities.  Mr. Obama had  a secular and politically progressive secular upbringing which showed Marxist sympathies.  That definitely parallels sensibilities on Manhattan's Upper West Side.  

So maybe he is what he says, but a self hating one who harbors little affinity towards the state of Israel.