Despite all the Internet blather during the recent presidential campaign that Jews had reason to fear Barack Obama — because he was a secret Muslim, educated in a madrassa, a covert enemy of Israel and a friend of terrorists — Jews turned out in support of him in a proportion greater than that of any other demographic group except African-Americans.

Seventy-eight percent of Jews voted Democratic this year, four percent higher than for John Kerry in 2004, and only one percent less than for Al Gore in 2000, when he had a Jewish running-mate.

Certainly there were many important reasons for our enthusiasm which had nothing to do with race.

But given the proud history of Jewish solidarity and sacrifice with African-Americans during the great struggle for civil rights led by Martin Luther King, it was important for us to be on board this freedom ride to the White House.

We share the savor of its success with all Americans who hold the faith that we shall overcome our hideous American legacy of slavery, racism and injustice.

For many Jews, the great symbolic image of our old alliance is the photograph of Dr. King and his good friend Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel marching arm in arm in Selma, Ala.

After the march, Heschel wrote that “the day we marched together out of Selma was a day of sanctification. That day I hope will never be past to me — that day will continue to be this day.”

From the moment of their first encounter in 1963, King and Heschel recognized their common bond and inspiration in the moral ardor of the Hebrew prophets. Both men heard the call of Amos alive in their hearts and channeled it in their oratory: “Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

That traditional Jewish passion for justice once shaped our public profile, not only in the anti-segregation movement, but also in the struggles of the early labor movement, in the dangerous voter registration drives of the 1960s, in the frustratingly stalemated war on poverty, and in countless First Amendment battles fought in American courtrooms.

Today we face some of the same issues, above all poverty, homelessness and chronically failing inner-city schools.

But there are other smoldering and shameful social justice issues that scarcely draw enough of our collective Jewish attention.

America’s reputation as the land of the free is seriously stained by the fact that, with five percent of the world’s population, we have locked in our prisons 25 percent of the world’s incarcerated population. This tragedy falls heavily on the African-American community, upon whom harsh drug laws are disproportionately enforced.

While violent crimes and property crimes have declined in recent decades, the prison population has quadrupled since the 1980s because of mandatory sentencing in drug cases. And the result has been devastating for the entire social structure of the black community, already plagued by poverty and troubled schools.

When Montgomery County Commissioner Debbie Lieberman and Judge Walter Rice inaugurated the Montgomery County Task Force on Ex-Offender Re-Entry, they invited me to participate with a group of local clergy to offer insight from the faith congregations.

Although every part of our community has to deal with helping the formerly incarcerated re-enter the mainstream of civic life, the great burden of this work in Dayton falls upon African-American churches.

I was profoundly humbled after a recent meeting with three of my black colleagues, having learned from them first-hand of the inspiring, arduous, daily spiritual struggle they engage in with their churches to help men and women coming out of prisons rejoin their families and neighborhoods and rebuild their lives.

We four agreed to prepare a curriculum for the faith communities that would teach our congregations how to understand, help and welcome ex-offenders.

I wondered frankly what I could contribute to the effort, with so little personal experience of these problems. But all three urged my help and perspective, and in part because of the high regard for just those aspects of our Jewish tradition that Martin Luther King once extolled in us: strong families, the importance of education, and the outspoken commitment to social justice.

One of the pastors, an ex-offender himself, spoke in particular about two “Jewish” experiences which forever changed his life.

It was a Jewish couple here in Dayton who looked after his family during his incarceration. And it was a Jewish judge, Walter Rice, who helped him see who he really was and made sure he got the help he needed to turn his life around.

I would like to be another one of his good “Jewish” experiences. I would like all of us to be.

Each January in Dayton there is an interfaith prayer breakfast as part of the community’s commemoration of Dr. King’s legacy.

Over the years, Jewish participation in the event has diminished because of the predominantly Christian orientation of its prayers.

At one time this misunderstanding seemed insurmountable. But when I met last year to discuss this problem with the leadership of Dayton’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference, which sponsors the event, I discovered an eagerness on both sides to celebrate Dr. King’s legacy together again.

They came to understand our Jewish prayer issue, and agreed to support the principle of non-denominational civic prayer at this event.

So I invite you to join with me that morning to celebrate our great American prophet, Martin Luther King.

More urgently, I hope all of us will actively take up again the passionate call for justice, which burst forth among the Hebrew prophets 3,000 years ago in the land of Israel, and which we ourselves heard again here in our own land a few decades ago in the passionate oratory and fearless leadership of Dr. King.

As Rabbi Heschel wrote about that day of sanctification when he marched with King in Selma, let that day continue to be this day.

The Martin Luther King Interfaith Prayer Breakfast will be held at the Dayton Convention Center on Friday, Jan. 16 from 7:30-9 a.m. Admission is $30 per person ($300 for a table of 10). Tickets will be available beginning Jan. 2. Call the Southern Christian Leadership Conference at 268-0051. Proceeds from the breakfast support youth programs of the SCLC.