Barack = Baruch

Obama fielded questions in a Conservative synagogue in a congressional district with one of the highest concentrations of Jewish voters in the country. Photo: AP

BOCA RATON, Fla. – Barack Obama traveled Thursday to the center of Florida’s Jewish community and asked one of his most skeptical constituencies to judge him “by what I say and what I have done.”

Aiming to reverse misperceptions about his background and his policy positions, Obama fielded questions in a Conservative synagogue in a congressional district with one of the highest concentrations of Jewish voters in the country.

It was deemed an essential visit by the campaign, which has been struggling against a tide of negative stories that have raised doubts in the community, and by his Jewish supporters here, who have heard enough of their friends and neighbors trading in the misinformation about him being a Muslim or an unenthusiastic backer of Israel.