The Jewish joke answer to Obama’s religion

My sister, who is fairly non-political, thinks it’s a dreadful thing that so many Americans think Obama is a Muslim.  She was shocked when I suggested that Americans are not alone in this belief.  I started with a classic Jewish joke:

Sammy gets rich and buys himself a yacht.  He shows up at his Mama’s house in perfect yachting attire — a blue jacket and white cap, both with captain’s insignia.

“Look, Mama!  I’m a captain!”

His mother looks, and sighs.

“Sammy, by me you’re a captain, and by you you’re a captain but, tell me, by captains are you a captain?”

Substitute “Obama” for “Sammy”, and “Muslim” for “captain”, and the answer to Mama’s joke is a resounding “yes.”  Islam is a one way street.  If your daddy’s a Muslim or if you profess at any point in your life to being a Muslim, you’re a Muslim — forever.  The only way out is apostasy, and apostasy means death.

My strong belief is that Obama is an atheist and, given his Leftism, arguably quite hostile to the Judeo-Christian tradition.  Certainly the church in which he sat for 20 years didn’t offer the typical Christ-centric religious experience.  It worshiped at the book of Marx, with a heavy overlay of racial paranoia.  God was optional. To the extent he has an affinity for Islam, he likes its totalitarianism.  That’s Obama’s voluntary religious experience.

Obama’s involuntary religious experience is different:  He is the blood son of a Muslim, and he spent several years of his life being identified and raised as a Muslim.  This means that, regardless of his internal beliefs, “by Muslims, he’s a Muslim.”

Given Islamic and Obamanic hostility to Jews, there is a certain irony to all this:  Being Jewish is also entirely separate from ones beliefs.  Whether you want it or not, if you’ve got an ancestor who was Jewish, people will identify you as Jewish.  Nobody does that with Protestants.  That’s why I always tell my children not to be self-hating Jews.  German Jews quickly discovered that disavowing their roots didn’t help.  The American reaction to Obama shows that the same is true for the President raised as a Muslim when he was a child.