Valerie Jarrett, President Obama\’s top domestic policy adviser, told a Jewish audience that her great-grandfather was Jewish. \”The Passover seder has a unique lore in my own family,\” Jarrett said Monday while addressing the annual plenum of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, the Jewish public policy umbrella, in Washington.
The U.S. Jewish policy umbrella welcomed the emergence of a new state in southern Sudan, but said the international community must be vigilant in bringing about a broader peace. \”With the release of the Southern Sudan Referendum Commission’s results today, the world will soon wake up to a new and independent country in southern Sudan,\” the Jewish Council for Public Affairs said in a statement after the official results released Monday showed a decided majority favoring independence. \”And if the United States and international community can maintain the level of involvement and influence that brought us to last month’s successful referendum, then peace and calm in Southern Sudan will seem possible for the first time in decades.\”
Hours after an international court issued a warrant for his arrest, Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir kicked humanitarian aid groups out of his country. Nevertheless, Jewish activists who backed the indictment are standing behind their decision.
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