Sarah Silverman's "Great Schlep" video has been making the rounds among my friends. It encourages young Jews to visit old Jews in Florida to stop them from picking Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin over Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., and Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del.

The message is that the younger Jews "get it" and old Jews need to "get in line." As a thirtysomething Jew in Florida who just traveled north for the High Holidays and worked to convince my relatives that their decision to vote for Obama was misguided, I find the Silverman video funny. Funny peculiar, not funny ha-ha.

A lot has been made of the Jewish vote this year, sadly without much analysis. Can this tiny group of people-- 2 percent of the national population -- make much of a difference? Well, maybe, in a tight election. In Florida in 2000, a few hundred people could have flipped the state and the election. In Ohio in 2004, about 60,000 voters (out of about 5.6 million) could have changed the outcome. But would that be your Bubbie? Does Zayde make a difference?

Because nearly all Jewish citizens vote, the Jewish vote could be determinative in some places. There are not enough Jews, or the vote is too lopsided, in places such as Wyoming and California, but there are nine states where the size of the Jewish population was larger than the size of victory for either President Bush or Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry in 2004: Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. All except New York and New Jersey are "swing" states in 2008.

But, of course, not all Jewish votes are movable. Since the time of President Franklin Roosevelt, Democratic presidential candidates have been able to count on about 75 percent of the Jewish vote, with some variation. President Lyndon Johnson received 90 percent of the Jewish vote in 1964, while President Jimmy Carter received only 45 percent in 1980. Given these extremes, it seems that only about one-half of the Jewish population is in play.

And what are the issues that Jews vote on?

As it turns out, what Jews care about are the same things as the rest of the country. (Shock!) In a recent survey by the liberal J Street Group in Washington, the top three issues for American Jews are: the economy, the war in Iraq and health care. As with non-Jewish American voters, lunch-bucket issues rule the day, and social issues -- separation of church and state, education and abortion -- are at the end of the list.

But there is one issue on which Jewish voters may be liable to swing: Israel.

In the J Street survey, Israel falls in the middle of the list. Yet, in recent elections, when red flags are raised about political candidates on the issue of Israel, there can be large shifts among Jewish voters. Carter's vote total plunged from 71 percent of the Jewish vote in 1976 to 45 percent in 1980, and President George H.W. Bush's vote total dropped from 35 percent in 1988 to 11 percent in 1992. Carter's pro-Arabist approach to the Middle East and Bush's withholding of a loan package to Israel in the face of massive Soviet immigration were the likely culprits -- positions that gave Jews that feeling in their "kishkes" that something was just not right.

"The Great Schlep" is meant to counteract the feeling that many Jews have that something is not right about Obama.

Obama's words strike a nice tone about Israel. In his speech before the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, he proclaimed support for Jerusalem as the undivided capital of Israel. But the next day, the Obama campaign backtracked on that statement. In this election cycle he has claimed that he's a strong supporter of Israel's security, but he has previously said that "nobody is suffering more than the Palestinian people." And he pointedly sidestepped a condemnation of Carter's meeting with Hamas earlier in 2008.

It's not just Obama's words but his actions and associations that leave many Jews feeling uneasy. For some, it's his association with the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., whose frightening anti-American, anti-Israel rants are matched only by the mind-boggling fact that Obama embraced him for 20 years and raised his daughters in Wright's church.

This crowd has left many Jews worried that Obama will not serve Israel well, either because these people blame Israel for the failure of Mideast peace initiatives, or justify the terrorist regimes that murder its citizens, or place terrorists and the dictatorships that enable them on the same moral plane as Israel.

A stance on Israel represents for many Jews the way a candidate views the world. Will the candidate stand up for minority interests or for moral truths?

They want a president who recognizes that the rest of the world is not just like us and that, sometimes, the United States must lead the world even if it makes us unpopular. They want a president who is able to call evil by its name and never forget that inhumanity is not only possible but omnipresent.

It's Sarah Silverman who doesn't "get it." For me, going north and persuading my relatives to vote for McCain and Palin was no schlep at all. In fact, it was well worth the trip.

Anat Hakim, an attorney and writer who lives in Florida, wrote this article for the Los Angeles Times.