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WASHINGTON, D.C., July 17, 2012, (LifeSiteNews.com) – The chair of the Democratic National Committee has told a Jewish show host that American Jews should vote for Barack Obama, because he supports abortion on demand and forcing religious employers to provide contraception coverage at no co-pay.

Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida tole Lee Lazerson of Jewish Life Television (JLTV) the president had done nothing to alienate the Jewish vote in the upcoming election. “On the contrary, the president has an incredible record of support and advocacy on the issues, domestically, that Jews care about – fighting, for example, to make sure that women have the right to make their own reproductive choices; fighting to pass the Affordable Care Act,” and “making sure that we have access to affordable birth control without a deductible or a co-pay,” she said.

She added that “Mitt Romney and the Republicans fought to take us back to a time when we couldn’t make our own reproductive choices, when you didn’t have access to birth control,” because “they’re controlled by the extremists in the Tea Party.”

Yuval Levin responded to the exchange in National Review Online, describing the American Jewish community as an “important and (maddeningly) loyal constituency” of the Democratic Party.

Although half of all Israelis hold a negative view of Obama, a recent Gallup poll showed 64 percent of American Jews plan to vote for the president. 

Some 46 percent of American Jewish voters consider themselves “liberal,” more than twice the national average of 22 percent. 

However, American Jews who do not consider themselves liberals were perplexed by the DNC chair’s comments.

Joel Pollak at Breitbart.com dismissed Schultz’s “attempt to label abortion a ‘Jewish’ issue.”

“No doubt it is for some – but then, for those ultra-left Jews, anything on the Democratic Party platform becomes instantly ‘Jewish,’” he wrote.

Levin wrote on NRO, “Politicians used to insult Jewish voters by implying that all they cared about was Israel. Surely this is much worse.”

Transcript

LEE LAZERSON: Has the president done anything wrong with respect to the Jewish vote?

DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: No. On the contrary, the president has an incredible record of support and advocacy on the issues, domestically, that Jews care about – fighting, for example, to make sure that women have the right to make their own reproductive choices; fighting to pass the Affordable Care Act, to make sure that being a woman is not a pre-existing condition, and that insurance companies can’t drop us or deny us coverage, making sure that we have access to affordable birth control without a deductible or a co-pay, while Mitt Romney and the Republicans fought to take us back to a time when we couldn’t make our own reproductive choices, when you didn’t have access to birth control. And we’re re-fighting the same cultural and social battles with the Republicans because they’re controlled by the extremists in the Tea Party. So President Obama’s earned the support of the Jewish community.