- WASHINGTON (JTA) -- Michael
Lebovitz's wife, Lauren, watched the evening news from her home in Chattanooga,
Tenn., and suddenly her husband's new volunteer work made sense.
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- On the screen was President Bush changing the landscape
of U.S.-Israeli relations, endorsing Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's
plan to withdraw from the Gaza Strip and enunciating American support for
some Israeli claims in the West Bank.
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- "My wife looked at me and said, 'That's why you're
doing this,'" Michael Lebovitz said. "And that's exactly right."
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- Lebovitz, 40, has become the key conduit between Bush's
re-election campaign and the American Jewish community, which is a key
constituency for the Republicans in several vital states, including Florida.
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- Driving him, he says, is a feeling that the Jewish community
should show gratitude for President Bush's Israel policy by helping him
win another four years in the White House.
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- "I have a very strong conviction that our community
has a responsibility to thank this president for how he has supported us,"
Lebovitz said in an interview in a colorless conference room in the campaign's
northern Virginia offices.
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- Lebovitz travels to Washington about every other week,
coordinating outreach to Jewish communities across the country. The rest
of the time, he works out of his home and office.
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- He recently worked to find Jewish leaders in Michigan
who could help campaign staffers there galvanize Jewish outreach. He also
has been making similar connections in other states, and nationally.
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- A real estate developer, Lebovitz has taken on the campaign
task without pay, and tries to downplay his role as a mediator between
the Jewish world and the Bush campaign.
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- "I'm not the head of anything," he said. "I'm
not in charge of anything."
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- In fact, he has no official title at the campaign; his
business card reads only "Jewish Outreach."
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- The story of how Michael Lebovitz became Bush's go-to
guy for the Jews starts, he says, at the Shabbat dinner table, where the
third-generation Chattanooga resident saw his father engage in Jewish activism,
rising to become vice chairman of the United Jewish Appeal.
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- "That part is definitely hereditary," he said.
But Lebovitz combined his family's interest in the Jewish world with his
own interest in politics.
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- Lebovitz was a Republican from the beginning, said Fred
Zimmerman, president-elect of the Nashville Jewish Federation, who participated
in the B'nai B'rith Youth Organization with Lebovitz when they were in
high school.
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- "He was the first person I ever heard predict the
great Jewish migration to the Republican Party," Zimmerman recalled.
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- In college at the University of Texas, Lebovitz volunteered
at the 1984 Republican National Convention in Dallas. In 1996, when he
served as a delegate at the convention, Lebovitz formed a friendship with
his state's new Republican senator, Bill Frist.
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- A year later, Lebovitz and his wife took Frist to Israel
on a trip sponsored by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.
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- Lebovitz has been an active donor in political circles.
According to the Federal Elections Commission, he has given $55,500 to
political candidates and committees since 1997, including $2,000 to Frist,
$3,000 to President Bush and $6,000 to his local congressman, Rep. Zach
Wamp (R-Tenn.).
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- He also has been active in Jewish circles, serving on
AIPAC's executive committee and as national vice chairman of the United
Jewish Communities umbrella organization of Jewish federations.
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- "He has a good feel for how his age peers will react
to issues and challenges," said Stephen Hoffman, UJC's chief executive
officer. Lebovitz serves as chairman of one of UJC's pillars, helping craft
strategies for campaign and fundraising efforts to UJC federations.
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- Still, many seemed surprised when Lebovitz was chosen
to head up Bush's Jewish outreach, having assumed that someone with a longer
list of contacts and experience in Washington would get the job. Rumors
have spread throughout Washington that Lebovitz was placed in the position
to appease AIPAC or Frist.
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- But as Lebovitz and his supporters tell it, it was his
quiet discussions with Bush campaign officials about the opportunities
for gaining ground in the Jewish community, mixed with the logistical ability
to take on the job as a volunteer, that won him the role.
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- Jeff Ballabon, a Bush fundraiser in New York's Orthodox
community, calls Lebovitz an "incredible mensch."
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- "Whatever people said at the beginning because they
didn't know him, what has emerged over the last year is that he is dedicated
to the set of goals and priorities," Ballabon said.
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- Lebovitz's goal for the next six months is to improve
on the 19 percent of the Jewish vote Bush received in 2000. In 1980, Ronald
Reagan received the largest percentage of Jewish votes for a Republican,
winning 39 percent against President Jimmy Carter.
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- As part of the campaign's outreach, Vice President Dick
Cheney is expected to speak Friday to a Jewish audience in West Palm Beach,
Fla.
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- "There is an opportunity in the Jewish community
for more votes than last time," Lebovitz said. "There's not a
number out there we have to reach."
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- The opportunity stems from Bush's outspoken support for
Israel, Lebovitz says. Even before Bush's support last month for the Gaza
withdrawal plan, many American Jews were touting Bush's defiant stances
against terrorism and his designation of Palestinian Authority President
Yasser Arafat as persona non grata at the White House.
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- Even Sharon has called Bush the best American president
Israel has ever seen.
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- Lebovitz feels that may be enough to turn the tide in
the traditionally Democratic voting bloc by convincing Jews that it's not
about the candidate who agrees with them on most issues, but rather on
the issues that matter most.
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- "You have to decide what's most important to you,
and as an American Jew, Israel right now is the most important thing to
me," he said. "This is a man who, from the day he came into office,
has changed policy."
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- The Bush campaign is focused on increasing its numbers
in several key states, most importantly Florida, where Bush won by a very
small margin in 2000, and where the Jewish community makes up almost four
percent of the population.
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- But he also is spending time courting Jews in New York,
who he says have a lot of connection to Florida Jews, and in California,
where Arnold Schwarzenegger's gubernatorial victory last year shook up
the state's political landscape.
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- "The Jewish community is very mobile; we have friends
and relatives all over," he said. "There is no part of the community
that we are not contacting, that we are writing off."
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- Copyright 2004 Cleveland Jewish News http://www.clevelandjewishnews.com/articles/2004/05/13/news/world/plink0512.txt
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