DOV TALES
by Dov Burt Levy

Nudnik: a pestering, nagging or irritating person. Political nudnik: nudnik obsessed with political passion. Absolutely sure they are right. Like all true believers, they ooze infallibility.

Nudniks who know me as a columnist send me lots of email. If we meet in person, they rush or sidle up to me with similar messages: Do you know that the Black Muslims elected Obama in Chicago? That his middle name is Hussein and he went to grammar school in an Indonesian Maddrassah? Do you know his father was Muslim? Do you know his African-centered church won't let white people attend? That the minister approves of and has honored Farrakhan? Do you know that Zbigniew Brzezinski is on his team?

There's more but I call a halt. I have no time to discuss with someone who really doesn't want to discuss but wants only to inform and convince, then leave with nothing more on his brain than he brought to the encounter.

Yes, I am hard on them. Now, I'm not saying that everybody who questions Obama's knowledge, fitness, experience or possible antipathy towards Israel or the Jewish community is a nudnik. The nudniks know who they are; they know they are on a mission. Let me tell you how all of this relates to me personally and how my discussions with the nudniks often go.

Yes, Obama's middle name is Hussein. I tell the nudnik, so what? You want him to change his name to Moshe or Solomon? What's in a name, after all?

I sympathize with Barack. My name, Dov, is also unusual. Here's a real conversation I had in Scotland.

The clerk asked, "What's your first name?" "Dov", I replied. "Oh, a white bird of peace." "No, it means a bear, B-e-a-r." "A foreign name?" "Yes, a Hebrew name." "Oh, does that mean you are Jewish?" "Yes, certainly Jewish. "Oh, that's too bad."

Well, I don't think the name Hussein is bad for Barack Obama or Jordan's King. Yes, it has ominous overtones because of Saddam Hussein, but it wasn't Saddam's name that earned him a death sentence.

What about the Trinity United Community Church, pastor Jeremiah Wright, Jr. and Louis Farrakhan? I take Barack at his word in the Ohio debate last week. He deplores and denounces Farrakhan's anti-Semitism. Even Abe Foxman of ADL, said, "[Obama] distanced himself and condemned it and rejected it…What more do we want?…we should move on."

Obama has his pastor story. I have my rabbi story. In 1975, I chaired the rabbi selection committee at the reform temple in Durham, North Carolina. The best applicant was chosen. His name was Eric Yoffie, his first pulpit. Yes, Rabbi Yoffie is today the president of the Union for Reform Judaism.

Lots of Jews don't like Rabbi Yoffie's positions on Israel, on American social issues or his brand of Judaism. Were I to run for office in America, my relationship with Rabbi Yoffie is now an indictable offense under the nudnik's newly minted law of pastorization, which I define as blaming the alleged sins of the pastor upon the congregant.

Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Carter's National Security Advisor, can be legitimately criticized for having a name no one can spell. But to make an advisor's service to a campaign a reason to vote against a candidate is foolish. There are dozens of so-called advisors and position-paper writers working on a presidential campaign. What the candidate says, has written and does is what matters.

Besides, I wouldn't give Brzezinski an anti-Israel label. If you do that, among other things you must decide which Israel? The 25 percent or fewer who want to withdraw from the West Bank today; the 25 percent or fewer who want to keep every inch forever; or the others who wish they knew the right answer for both peace and security.

Now to the blasphemy of Obama wearing Somali Muslim tribal clothes in a 2006 photo. If you want to hold that outfit against him, than you will have to fault this columnist for the picture of me wearing an Arab jalabiya (man's gown) in Cairo, 1985.

Is my position clear? I am not a good propaganda target for anti-Obama political nudniks. I don't believe absurdities, slanders, irrelevancies have a valid place in the discussion. I don't believe that there is fire wherever there is smoke. And I will not approvingly pass the nudniks' ideas and obsessions on to my readers.