Home

When New York Times reporter Jodi Kantor saw Barack and Michelle Obama's former apartment in Chicago, she realized that she was covering a family unlike any other in the recent history of the White House.

Kantor, keynote speaker at "Main Event" for the Women's Philanthropy division of the Jewish Federation of Greater Middlesex County on May 13, said the small apartment made her think "this is where your kid would live in graduate school," and the apartment's tiny closet made her ask "Where does Michelle Obama keep her clothing?"

The speed of the Obamas' transformation, from humble beginnings in Chicago to the national spotlight of the White House, is "completely unprecedented in American politics," Kantor said, but what also makes the Obamas different from other presidential families is their attitude about their current environs.

"There was something I felt I recognized in the Obamas," Kantor, a Washington correspondent for the Times, told the crowd at Highland Park Conservative Temple-Congregation Anshe Emeth.

"They seemed to me somewhat uncomfortable with some of the normal rules of politics," she said.

In late October of 2009, about a year after Barack Obama was elected president, Kantor came out with the story she has garnered the most attention for, a New York Times Magazine piece titled "The Obamas' Marriage." But Kantor said Audrey Napchen, the federation's director of women's philanthropy, actually discovered her after a November 2008 blog entry titled "The Mom on the Bus," in which Kantor explored the challenge of being a young mother and a presidential campaign correspondent at the same time.

Kantor, who grew up in Holmdel, said her mother is very active in the Jewish Federation of Monmouth County, and that she felt "totally at home" speaking at the Middlesex County federation event. After one semester at Harvard Law School, Kantor took a leave to work at the online magazine Slate and, at age 27, became the Arts and Leisure editor at the Times. But because she is a "curious person," Kantor said she felt the need to shift gears and become a reporter, and the 2008 presidential election provided the perfect timing because the Times "needed bodies."

The "first marriage" was a particularly intriguing topic for Kantor because Michelle, before her husband was elected, expressed her fundamental problems with politics and was frank about the difficulty of blending marriage and politics. For the couple, Kantor said, that left the question of "How does a marriage work in the White House?"

Kantor asked the Obamas' friends, White House staff, and advisors that question, also inquiring about how the Obamas were different than past White House couples. Then came the moment she was waiting for -- a 40-minute interview with the Obamas in the Oval Office.

Michelle was "remarkably honest" about marriage during the interview, implying that all marriages have bumps in the road and that she didn't want her marriage idealized, Kantor said. When Kantor asked how it was possible to have an equal marriage when one spouse is the president and the other isn't, she said the president "did about a quadruple take" with his answer before Michelle "swooped in to rescue him."

Kantor said she is coming out with a book about the "first marriage" by late 2011 or early 2012. In a question-and-answer session, when asked "who is running the show" when it comes to the Obamas' daughters, Sasha and Malia, Kantor responded that Michelle plays "a traditional mom role" and is the more "hands-on" parent, but that Barack's "time with the kids is pretty sacred." The president often doesn't leave his home until 9 or 10 a.m. so he can spend time with his children, and eats dinner at home most nights, she said.

Asked for her insight into the president's views on Israel and relationship with the Jewish community, Kantor said that relationship is "very, very close." She pointed out that the Obamas had many Jewish friends in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago, that many of Barack's early political backers were Jewish, that the president hosted the White House's first Passover seder, and that Sasha and Malia even attended a Jewish Community Center camp in Chicago.

"I don't think the Bush twins ever went to a JCC camp," Kantor said.

That being said, the U.S.-Israel relationship is at one of its greatest points of tension in recent history, Kantor acknowledged. While the relationship between the president and the Jewish community certainly isn't one of "gigantic distance," sometimes people who are very close with each other do go through periods of serious tension, she said.

Joan Litt, co-chair of Main Event, told The Jewish State that Women's Division chose Kantor as a speaker because "she's so dynamic, and we felt her topic, her interviews with the Obamas would be very interesting to our membership." Kantor offers a fresh perspective on the Obamas, Litt said, because she doesn't speak about them politically, but instead on a more personal level as a husband and wife, and a mother and father who try to keep their family grounded.

Five local women who in January were among the 75 on the Jewish Federations of North America's (JFNA) Heart to Heart Mission to Israel spoke about the important work JFNA and the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) do there.

Wendy Friedman of East Brunswick described that what started off as the fulfillment of a personal pledge to say Kaddish for her father at the Western Wall "turned into a life-changing experience." On the second day of the trip, when the group visited both Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum and the Kotel, Friedman said she finally got closure for her father's death.

"I had re-lived [my parents'] journey, what shaped their lives, in one day," Friedman said.

Friedman also recalled an Ethiopian girl, brought to Israel by JDC, who said to her mother "I had no idea that there were white Jewish people."

"You don't have any idea of where your money goes or what it does until you get [to Israel]," Friedman said.