Barack Obama claimed he was the President who was the closest to being Jewish, according to his former advisor David Axelrod.
Obama, who is the first black US President, is alleged to have said: “You know, I think I am the closest thing to a Jew that has ever sat in this office. For people to say that I am anti-Israel, or, even worse, anti-Semitic, it hurts.”
Axelrod was chief advisor to Obama during his 2008 presidential campaign. Jewish news source JDupdates reports that Axelrod made the claim during an interview about US-Israel relations.
While Obama is not Jewish, he has a secular Jewish half-brother, Mark Obama.