Barack Obama’s tremendous warmth toward Israel and his energy and seriousness about working with the parties to find a solution to the conflict were clearly visible in the intense coverage of his recent visit!

Below, Jews for Obama brings you a selection of the media coverage of Obama’s trip, including video from infolive.tv, a good source of Israeli news in English.

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This spring, roughly 10,000 young people applied for approximately 3000 places as Obama Organizing Fellows. The Fellows are spending their summer registering new voters, canvassing undecideds and organizing Get Out the Vote programs.

Liz Braunstein is one of a number of Fellows who focuses on organizing Jewish voters. Liz has returned to her native Bergen County, New Jersey, which has a large and diverse Jewish community. Liz, who will start at NYU Law School this fall, sat down with J4O editorial board member Matt Funk to talk about her experiences.

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By Don Rose (Chicago Daily Observer)

As an American Jew I find that the most deceitful, depraved and disgusting sub-campaign of the presidential season is the viral e-mail and blogging attack on Barack Obama that characterizes him as an enemy of Israel if not Judaism itself.

This campaign goes far beyond the false but persistent rumor that he is a Muslim—as if that in itself were a criminal position—but tries to put him in the political bed of every enemy of Israel and America of the past half century.

Some of the slime that enters my inbox makes Joseph McCarthy look like the chairman of the ACLU.

Read more at the Chicago Daily Observer…

By Jews for Obama volunteer Yocheved Seidman

After Obama’s visit to Montana on the 4th of July, I was inspired to reach out to Jews living in Montana, to ask them about Obama’s visit and about support for Senator Obama’s Presidential bid among the Jewish community in Montana.

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By Janet Cornish

BUTTE, Montana — Butte sits quietly in a high mountain valley along the Continental Divide, more than a mile above sea level in Southwest Montana in the northern Rocky Mountain West. Many of its nearly 34,000 residents are first and second generation Americans whose parents and grandparents came west, from northern, southern and eastern Europe; from Asia and from America east of the Mississippi. They came to work in Butte’s deep copper mines and stayed to raise their families and put down deep roots.

Jews were among the earliest settlers in Butte. Jewish merchants followed the miners as they moved from strike to strike — in California, Nevada and Montana. Jews settling in Butte formed the Hebrew Benevolent society and were active in cultural and civic affairs. The first and third mayors of Butte (beginning in 1879) were Jewish and many of the businesses were owned by Jewish families. The city hosted a regional B’nai B’rith convention in 1936 and supported three synagogues — two Orthodox and one Reform. In the mid-1960’s the congregations were combined and Butte’s Jewish community, which consists of about 25 families, currently worships at Congregation B’nai Israel, a Reform temple, built in 1903.

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From the Palm Beach Post:

In May, Barack Obama spent three days traveling throughout Florida, and we saw firsthand why this transformational leader and presumptive Democratic nominee will be the next president of the United States.

Sen. Obama will end the divisive politics of the past and reconnect Americans to the political process, while working tirelessly to forge common-sense solutions to the challenges facing our nation. He is committed to working with Democrats and Republicans to reinvigorate the American economy and make certain that all Americans have access to quality health care. He has a sound plan to end the calamitous Iraq war.

Sen. Obama also is a champion of the issues Floridians care deeply about. He wants to ensure that restoration of the Everglades is funded, and he strongly supports a national catastrophe insurance fund.

Another issue of importance to Floridians is America’s unbreakable bond with Israel. During a June 4 speech that drew several standing ovations, Sen. Obama firmly stated his unwavering support for U.S.-Israel relations before 7,000 Jewish-Americans at the annual meeting of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. Sen. Obama said that as president he will “make known to allies and adversaries alike that America maintains an unwavering friendship with Israel, and an unshakable commitment to its security.” (more…)