Evidently there has been a major up-tick in the number of Obama religious email smears to Jews. It has long been a right-wing tactic to accuse Obama of being a Muslim: the highest profile being Fox News. The Anti-Defamation League characterizes the emails thusly:

A widely circulated e-mail suggests that U.S. Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) attended a fundamentalist Muslim religious school, known as a “madrassa,” as a child living in Indonesia, and that his childhood education was steeped in radical Islam.

In fact, from ages 6 through 10, he attended a public school in Indonesia with both Muslim and non-Muslim students.

Sen. Obama is not a Muslim; he is a Christian who attends the United Church of Christ.

It has actually been a Obama campaign tactic to play up his religious ties, particularly in South Carolina, where he has been sending out mailers highlighting his faith. Not only is that red meat to African-Americans in the state, but it helps combat these persistent slanderous emails and whisper campaign.

Meanwhile a number of highly respected Jew sent out this letter today:

An Open Letter to the Jewish Community:

As leaders of the Jewish community, none of whose organizations will endorse or oppose any candidate for President, we feel compelled to speak out against certain rhetoric and tactics in the current campaign that we find particularly abhorrent. Of particular concern, over the past several weeks, many in our community have received hateful emails that use falsehood and innuendo to mischaracterize Senator Barack Obama’s religious beliefs and who he is as a person.

These tactics attempt to drive a wedge between our community and a presidential candidate based on despicable and false attacks and innuendo based on religion. We reject these efforts to manipulate members of our community into supporting or opposing candidates.

Attempts of this sort to mislead and inflame voters should not be part of our political discourse and should be rebuffed by all who believe in our democracy. Jewish voters, like all voters, should support whichever candidate they believe would make the best president. We urge everyone to make that decision based on the factual records of these candidates, and nothing less.

This should be helpful, however it is almost guaranteed that more people will see the slime emails than will this letter. It just is not as much of an incentive to send this letter around, as the smear was to forward. The damage has been done, but it is great to see proactive efforts made to help fix the situation. No matter who you support these emails abhorrent. Please forward on the letter if you have received the original emails.