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In a series of speeches otherwise notable for their defi- ant tone against his real and perceived enemies, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. sounded some con- ciliatory notes toward Jews and Israel, casting them as fellow strug- Rev. Wright glers against inequity and for peace. But an outburst in a question-and-answer session and an analysis of what lies behind his remarks reveals that the Jewish community may still have reason to be less than comfort- able with the former pastor to U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., who enters the final stretch of his bid to become the Democratic nominee for president. Excerpts from Wright's past sermons highlighting inflammatory passages in which he suggests that white racism remains pervasive and U.S. foreign policy helped bring about terrorist attacks on U.S. targets have dogged Obama's campaign. The Wright factor may have con- tributed to his defeat in the April 22 Pennsylvania primary, where he lost to U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., 55 to 45 percent. In the Jewish commu- nity, where the pastor issue has come up repeatedly, Obama was beaten 62 percent to 38 percent, according to exit polls. The candidate has sought to dis- tance himself from his former pastor, calling Wright's rhetoric "offensive Campaigning Monday ahead of next week's primaries in North Carolina and Indiana, Obama again repudiated the preacher he once said nurtured his Christian identity. "He does not speak for me, he does not speak for the campaign:' In major appearances, Wright con- fronted what he said were the distortions in a campaign against him boosted pri- marily by Republicans but taken up also by Clinton advocates. The appearances included a dinner Sunday at the Detroit Invisible, Invaluable The most strident of his speeches came at the press club, where Wright said what he likes to call the "corporate media" had ripped his statements from their context. That context, he said, was the African-American church that had remained invisible for too long. "Maybe now we can begin to take steps to move the black religious tradi- tion from the status of invisible to the status of invaluable, not just for some black people in this country, but for all the people in this country;' he said there. "Also in the session, Wright dealt with his association with Louis Farrakhan, the Nation of Islam leader who in lectures in 1984 said Israel represents a "gutter religion" and said Jews in general had corrupted the word of God through "false religions." Wright said he disagrees with Farrakhan on some issues but also admires him. "Louis said 20 years ago that Zionism, not Judaism, was a gutter religion:' he said. "And he was talking about the same thing United Nations resolutions say, the same thing now that President Carter is being vilified for and Bishop Tutu is being vilified for." The distinction between Zionism and Judaism will not placate many Jews; nor will suggestions that the criticism of comparisons of Israeli policies to apart- heid is somehow "vilification." "How many other African Americans or European Americans do you know that can get 1 million people together on the mall?" he said, referring to the 1995 Million Man March that Farrakhan orga- nized."He is one of the most important voices in the 20th and 21st century. That's what I think about him." Wright's overall emphasis was the liberation theology that emerged from the 1960s and 1970s. He often grounded that theology in the Old Testament texts Christians share with Jews. "The prophetic tradition of the black church has its roots in Isaiah, the 61st chapter, where God says the prophet is to preach the gospel to the poor and to set at liberty those who are held captive',' he said."Liberating the captives also liber- ates those who are holding them captive Jewish Telegraphic Agency T Jews And Blacks Outlining such captor-captive dichoto- mies the evening before in Detroit, Wright placed both Jews and blacks in the "captive" category, criticizing groups who saw the "different" as "deficient:" "In the past, we were taught to see oth- ers who are different as somehow being deficient:' he said. "Christians saw Jews as being deficient. Catholics saw Protestants as being deficient. Presbyterians saw Pentecostals as being deficient. Folks who like to holler in worship saw folk who like to be quiet as deficient, and vice versa. Whites saw black as being deficient." As if to underscore such solidarity, he started the NAACP speech with a nod to what he said were his Jewish and Muslim supporters. "I would also like to thank sister Melanie Maron, the former execu- tive director of the Chicago chapter of the American Jewish Committee and the current executive director of the Washington, D.C., chapter of the American Jewish committee," he said. "I would like to thank my good friend and Jewish author, Tim Wise, for his support." Yet such thank-yous could undermine Wright's efforts at conciliation. Wise is a Louisiana writer who has written exten- sively about white racism and tackled expressions of anti-Semitism on the left. But he also has repudiated Zionism as nationalist chauvinism while failing to address the chauvinism inherent in the Arab and Islamic movements that deny Israel's existence. In 2000, decrying Jewish pride in the selection of U.S. Sen. Joseph Lieberman as the Democratic vice presidential nominee, Wise in Z Magazine described Judaism in the United States "as typi- fied by an 'objects culture' of mezuzahs, dreidls and stars of David on the one hand; a popular culture of food, Jewish comedy and entertainment on the other; and all of it topped off by a 'problems culture' preoccupied with Israel and anti- Semitism: a negative identity based on real and potential victimhood." Rabbi Marc Schneier, a co-found- er of the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding, said Wright's radical views were typical of the generation that fell between the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. era and its black-Jewish cooperation and the current resurgence of coopera- tion among young blacks and Jews. 7_1