JTA: “Deciphering the Obama polls”

Aaron Keyak — December 18, 2009 – 11:21 am | Barack Obama | Israel | Polls | Stop the Smears Comments (0) Add a comment

Eric Fingerhut has a great piece in JTA that aims to decipher the latest polls that measure President Barack Obama’s popularity in the American Jewish Community and Israel. Fingerhut begins with the simple point that “[o]pinion polls are expected to provide a simple answer to an important question: What are the people thinking?” However, he points out that in the Jewish community “the details often reveal a much more complicated picture.”

Here’s Fingerhut’s take on the two most recent polls:

Take two recent surveys—one of American Jews and one of Israelis—dealing with attitudes about President Obama. The former found that support for Obama has plummeted, but a closer look reveals that the findings are virtually useless as a measure of American Jewish opinion. The survey of Israelis is scientifically solid, but the numbers provide a more complex, divided view than previously thought.

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