After Iran deal, does Cory Booker have a Jewish problem?

Is Cory Booker's relationship with New Jersey Jews in danger?

Observer reported this weekend New Jersey's junior senator had started hastily assembling summits with Jewish leaders, to repair any damage after coming out in favor of the controversial nuclear agreement with Iran. Supporters say the deal will curb Iran's nuclear activity and subject it to a strict inspection regime; opponents say it gives Iran the economic freedom it needs to pursue hostile acts and eventually a bomb.

It's not like Booker went in with full enthusiasm. In a lengthy essay on his decision to support the deal, Booker called it the "better of two flawed options" — arguing participating in a community of nations working together to keep Iran from getting a nuclear weapon is better than sitting one out.

But he said a "fractured community of nations," some participating and others not, would effectively let Iran off the hook — giving it economic freedoms without the close supervision the nuclear deal promises.

The Observer said Booker was "under fire from Jewish supporters who had long treated him as one of their own." Politico New Jersey reported last week several New Jersey-area Jewish leaders expressed disappointment — albeit in careful, respectful statements.

One damage-control meeting was set for Tuesday in Newark. Another was to be in Livingston.

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach — who last month stood alongside Gov. Chris Christie to encourage Booker to reject the — took a measured tone in a response published in the Huffington Post Tuesday. He referred to the senator as one of his "soul-friends" and called him by his first name throughout.

"Despite my public condemnation of Cory's choice to support an agreement that will legitimize a genocidal regime, I made it clear, both in my statement and the column that followed, that I would never reject Cory as someone whom for nearly 25 years has been as a brother," Boteach wrote.

He and the senator have spent Shabbat dinners together and studied the Torah together, Botech wrote. And Booker "danced up a storm" at Boteach's daughter's wedding.

Still, Boteach, wrote, Booker needs to understand why many American Jews are outraged by the Iran deal:

"Cory's vote to excuse Iran's repeated promise to exterminate the six million Jews of Israel is not a personal affront to me but is, respectfully, an affront rather to victims of genocide the world over who have to live with murderers who stalk them, promising their annihilation."

Tuesday State Senate Majority Leader Loretta Weinberg (D-37) — a self-described “feisty Jewish grandmother" — reaffirmed her support for Booker, as well as the Iran deal, Politicker NJ reports.

“I think it’s inappropriate for people attacking Cory Booker on Facebook to use words like ‘disgusting.’ I also find the attacks on (Congresswoman) Debbie Wasserman-Schultz to be very inappropriate. She came out yesterday in favor of the deal. Obviously is a very important issue," Weinberg reportedly said.

So what do you think? Has Booker risked his relationship with New Jersey's Jewish community? Tell is in the poll below.