Obama Visits Mosque Where Crowds Cheered Ahmadinejad

President Barack Obama made a much-publicized visit to a mosque during his recent stay in Indonesia, but he has yet to visit a single Jewish synagogue since taking office.

Obama has met with leaders of the American Jewish community and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House. But a search of the White House website and news stories by CNSNews dating back to his inauguration shows that he has not set foot in a synagogue.

Yet Obama had no problem visiting the Istiqlal Mosque in Jakarta, the Indonesian capital, on Wednesday — even though it was the site of virulent anti-American outcries during a visit four years ago by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

During his May 2006 trip to Jakarta, Ahmadinejad first visited the University of Indonesia and gave a speech casting doubt on the Holocaust, predicting the destruction of Israel, and declaring that liberal democracies would be replaced by Islamic law.

One member of the cheering crowd told Ahmadinejad, “We will always be with you,” according to The Associated Press.

He later told a group of Indonesian clerics that every young Muslim man is an “atomic bomb because they have faith.”

The Iranian leader then visited the Istiqlal Mosque, the largest in the world’s most populous Muslim nation. Agence France Presse disclosed that he was “mobbed by a crowd of thousands” eager to shake his hand. The congregation chanted, “God is great!” After Ahmadinejad offered prayers, the crowd shouted, “Fight America, fight Israel!”

Rabbi Aryeh Spero, president of Caucus for America, told CNSNews he believes a goal of Obama is to “mainstream Islam,” and visiting a mosque is in line with that goal, while visiting a synagogue “doesn’t fit his agenda.”