Obama will announce that he’s appointing Ron Bloom his Senior Counselor for Manufacturing Policy, White House sources tell ABC News.
Political Punch
Bloom is currently Senior Advisor to Secretary of the Treasury Tim Geithner as a member of the President’s Task Force on the Automotive Industry, named to that position in February. He will remain in that position even while he takes on his new task.
A key part of the team that advised the White House on the struggling U.S. auto industry, Bloom and team pushed U.S. automakers General Motors and Chrysler to come up with viable plans for the future, pushed the CEO of GM to resign, and pushed the U.S. government agreed to become a major shareholder in GM, ponying up $50 billion.
Ron Bloom: Car Czar Driven by the Labor Zionist Tradition
By now, Ron Bloom’s professional road to becoming the Obama administration’s car czar has been widely reported. Missing from the coverage, however, has been any mention of those formative years at Jewish summer camp.
Born in New York City and raised in Swarthmore, a suburb of Philadelphia, much of Bloom’s early life revolved around Habonim (now known as Habonim Dror), a progressive Labor Zionist youth movement that emphasizes cultural Judaism, socialism and social justice.
It’s all part of an upbringing that the man overseeing the country’s bailout of the U.S. auto industry cites among his earliest influences.
“I had an aunt in the teacher’s union,” and relatives who were “Hebrew butchers and Hebrew bakers,” Bloom recently said as part of an exclusive interview a few days after returning from a trip to Israel to attend the 80th birthday of an uncle who moved there several decades ago. “My grandparents were immigrants from Eastern Europe; that was very much in my upbringing.”
Bloom’s parents met at a Habonim summer camp in the 1940s and moved to Israel, intending to make aliyah. Though they changed their minds and moved back to the United States, Habonim remained an integral part of their lives.
“My parents had always been supportive of doing something that we found meaningful,” said Bloom. “There was always a view that what’s going on in the world matters. We talked politics at the dinner table. Life was about engagement in the world.”
At the age of 10, Bloom was sent with his two siblings to Camp Galil, a movement-run summer camp near Doylestown.
He returned each season for the next four years, and later became a camp counselor.
One of campers was Jack Markell, who years later would become the governor of Delaware. Bloom reconnected with Markell, as well as with several other old Habonim friends, upon arriving in Washington for his new job.
They are now “offering me home-cooked meals,” said Bloom, who is commuting between his family in Pittsburgh and his job in Washington.
Bloom recalled camp as “a fun experience” that afforded him the opportunity to “meet people from different places.”
He said that he never intended to go into the Labor Zionist movement professionally.
Addressing the question of how the experience influenced him, Bloom said: “It’s all a tapestry, and it’s hard to figure out what fits where.”
He added that Habonim infused him with values that influenced the way he views public service.
“We sang the songs, but it wasn’t about that,” he said. “It was a broader sense of identifying with the underdog, and of observing the world through a lens, through people who don’t have as much and aren’t as lucky.”
The Labor Zionist movement prides itself in its direct connection with union work and its ability to inspire leadership, said Kenneth Bob, president of Ameinu, the Labor Zionist organization that provides funding to the Habonim Dror Foundation.
Prior to his ascent in the Labor Zionist movement, Bob was actually Bloom’s counselor at Camp Galil. He recalled Bloom as being “a very serious, engaged person, there for the right reasons, to drink in the experience and learn as much as he could.”
Bob said there is a “great deal of pride” within the Habonim community regarding Bloom’s new position in the Obama administration.
“There’s definitely been a buzz on the online alumni ListServ,” he said. “People are very proud, very supportive of Obama and excited about the things he’s trying to do, and to have one of our own helping.”
Wild Thing’s comment……..
Whenever I see the word Labor, or Union I just want to run. Not toward but away from the person. So to Ron Bloom, I am running away from you, I do NOT like UNIONS, they have done more damage then good. And that will never change.
Ron Bloom is already a czar of salaries. This is the second czar-ship for ole Ronnie boy. . It brings the number of czars to 43.
And this guy is a former banker with the head and heart of a labor activist. I don’t think it’s right that the U.S. taxpayers are being forced into paying for these “czars.” Can’t someone in Washington stop this monster Obama and his Czar fetish??? Obama is spending like there is no tomorrow! How much are these CZAR’s being paid? This really ticks me off!!
Their salaries should be coming out of the Czar PIMP Obama’s pocket. We don’t want or need these Czars in Washington.
He appoints a car czar who has never changed a set of spark plugs. He appoints a green jobs czar who knows nothing about energy. He appoints a manufacturing czar who know nothing about manufacturing.
….Thank you Mark for sending this to me.
Mark
3rd Mar.Div. 1st Battalion 9th Marine Regiment
1/9 Marines aka The Walking Dead
VN 66-67
The guy looks the picture of health, doesn’t he?
Something about socialism does this to people.
Bloom should fit in the obama mold of Left wing socialist, who want to fundamentally change this country and restrict the freedom of every individual in this country.
Habonim Dror is a Socialist Zionist Culturally Jewish youth movement that has been at the forefront of Jewish education for over 75 years. Habonim “The builders” was created in 1929 as the brainchild of Wellesley Aron to give Jewish children a strong grounding in Judaism and the importance of Israel as a focus for the Jewish world. Chaverim of Habonim went on to be major contributors to the Labour Zionist movement establishing kibbutzim attracting the likes of Teddy Kollek as a shaliach. Dror “freedom” was created in 1915 as the secular pioneers of Russian Zionism. Just under 30 years later they found themselves on the frontline of the struggle in the Warsaw ghetto and tragically many members died fighting for Dror.
These are the people Netanyahu has to deal with Liberal leftist Jews who for some reason think they can make peace with the Moslems.
Bloom is of the same mold as the Emanuell Brothers pure communists.
Good info Mark. I wondered about Netanyahu’s opposition in Israel. I did not even know there was a labor movement in Israel. I knew there were socialists and communists. You are right. Mr Bloom will fit right in with the Emmanuels.
I wish the same for Ron Bloom that I wish for Blowbama…….. a serious neck stretching.
If that picture is really what the guy looks like…
I went to over 400 fatal car crashes in my career as a Highway Patrol Officer.
I have seen dead people look more alive than this guy.
Niccolo Machiavelli once said that “The first method for estimating the intelligence of a ruler is to look at the men he has around him.” Which is kind of funny because the negrito said “If you want to know what my policies are, look at the people I surround myself with.”
Try these on for size:
“The new ruler must determine all the injuries that he will need to inflict. He must inflict them once and for all.”
“The promise given was a necessity of the past: the word broken is a necessity of the present.”
“Whoever conquers a free town and does not demolish it commits a great error and may expect to be ruined himself.”
“Men are so simple and yield so readily to the desires of the moment that he who will trick will always find another who will suffer to be tricked.”
“No enterprise is more likely to succeed than one concealed from the enemy until it is ripe for execution.”
“One change always leaves the way open for the establishment of others.”
“Severities should be dealt out all at once, so that their suddenness may give less offense; benefits ought to be handed ought drop by drop, so that they may be relished the more.”
“A prince never lacks legitimate reasons to break his promise.”
“It is much more secure to be feared than to be loved.”
“It is not titles that honor men, but men that honor titles.”
“Men ought either to be indulged or utterly destroyed, for if you merely offend them they take vengeance, but if you injure them greatly they are unable to retaliate, so that the injury done to a man ought to be such that vengeance cannot be feared.”
Gee… Doesn’t all of this seem like it’s going on in Washington? Someone’s been reading “The Prince” one too many times.
Obama Manifesto 2009… TEA PARTY on in 48 hours and counting in Washington DC CCCP!
Rhod, LMAO that is funny and true.
I agree, that photo came with the
article and I sat here and thought gosh
this Ron Bloom looks like death warmed
over.
Mark, thank you for the information.
It is weird too how his appearance
is so similar to the Emanuell brothers.
Tom, interestign how Netanyahu has the
same kind of jerks there we have here.
DaveH,LOL hahahaha that is the photo
that was with the article at the link.
I have a feeling it is exactly what he
looks like but with bad lighting.
I doubt much would help though.
JohnE PFC U.S. Army, wow thank you.
Darth, loving the countdown.