Former Obama adviser, David Axelrod, said the president once told him he feels like the “closest thing to a Jew” who has ever been president. Photo: wiki commons.

Former senior adviser to President Barack Obama, David Axelrod, said in an interview this week that the leader once told him he feels like the “closest thing to a Jew” who has ever been president, political blog JP Updates reported.

“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 recalled Obama once telling him, in a conversation on Israel’s Channel 2.

Axelrod served as a chief campaign adviser to President Obama during his run for the presidency in 2008. His interview with Channel 2’s Ilana Dayan was broadcast ahead of Obama’s own interview with the Israeli news station, which aired on Tuesday.

The latter segment also included comments from White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest who said Obama’s speech at a Jewish synagogue in Washington last month expressed “the kinds of common bonds and common values that are embodied in his administration that are [also] advocated by the Jewish community,” The Washington Times reported.

“The president does feel that kind of kinship,” Earnest claimed.