Associate editor

Armchair analysts have been parsing President Barack Obama's inaugural speech in search of a signature line or phrase that will long resonate in the public consciousness.

For some Washington-area Jews, a single word suffices: "Nonbelievers."

Obama used that apparently precedent-setting term midway through his address, declaring before a crowd of more than 1 million listeners on the National Mall in Washington a week ago Tuesday: "For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."

With that utterance, Obama became the first American president explicitly to acknowledge nonbelievers in a public address, according to several observers.

The historic significance of the moment was not lost on Hildie Block, 42, who watched the inauguration in her Arlington home with friends.

"I cheered," she said. "I mean I really shrieked. And then I popped open a bottle of champagne. It seemed like an appropriate time to open it. I couldn't believe that we'd been included."

A teacher of creative writing workshops, Block, a mother of two, is a nontheistic Jew, one of several terms used to describe Jews whose beliefs are people-oriented rather than theologically rooted. They do not believe in God, at least not as the deity is traditionally understood. They are also known as secular Jews, cultural Jews and humanistic Jews, among other monikers.

"I refer to myself as having been raised Jewish," said 63-year-old District resident Perry Saidman, an attorney, who also referred to himself as a "cultural or humanistic Jew."

Regardless of which nomenclature they prefer, many of them were thrilled by Obama's reference.

"It felt good, it felt really, really good," said Saidman, a longtime member of the Washington Ethical Society, a self-described "humanistic religious community" whose official motto is "deed before creed." Saidman, who grew up in the Conservative movement, watched the inauguration on a large-screen TV with about 100 other viewers at the Ethical Society on 16th Street in the District. When Obama slipped in "nonbelievers," Saidman said, "everybody cheered."

That word has generated considerable buzz throughout the Washington-area nontheistic community.

"Obama's speech was amazing," said nontheist Marlene Cohen, 57, of Silver Spring, who also was raised as a Conservative Jew. "We felt like we were finally included in the conversation. It was a breath of fresh air. All of a sudden, I started getting e-mails about it. It was such a powerful statement."

Cohen is a member of Machar, a secular humanist Jewish congregation of about 130 membership units that holds services at a Unitarian church in Bethesda and whose religious school operates out of the Jewish Primary Day School of the Nation's Capital.

Machar's internal e-mail list was alive with inauguration-related chatter, almost all of it positive, according to member Michael Prival, 63, a retired research microbiologist who lives in the District. He grew up as a secular Jew in New York.

"It was thrilling," said Prival, who heard Obama's address in person. However, like other nontheists, Prival quibbled over Obama's use of a certain word to describe his group.

"We're not nonbelievers," he said. "We believe in many things."

For example, according to Machar's Rabbi Ben Biber, "We believe that people can be good and make the world a better place, and we see evidence of that."

Biber, 47, witnessed Obama's implicit acknowledgment of that precept while he was watching the inauguration with his wife and friends on TV. "We said, 'Yes!' or some version of that," he recalled. "We felt very happy that he [Obama] was clearly trying to make the spectrum very expansive and show that there are many different beliefs in our nation."

While shunning "supernatural" philosophies or beliefs, secular humanist Judaism prizes Jewish culture, history and values. It promotes democracy and freedom of choice, and is deeply committed to the ideal of tikkun olam, healing the world, as embodied in various progressive causes.

"Secular humanist Jews, like other Jews, value the Sabbath and festivals as special times to celebrate Jewish culture and values with family and friends or by ourselves ..." states a fact sheet compiled by Biber.

Regardless of their religious or ethnic connections, nonbelievers are "just reviled by so much of the population," said Danny Horowitz, 59, a secular Jew from Arlington, who reported "definitely feeling a jolt go through me" when Obama recognized nonbelievers in his speech.

An international corporate tax lawyer (who was raised almost entirely without religion), Horowitz pointed to surveys indicating that an atheist is less likely to be elected president than a member of many other identity groups, including gays.

"Nonbelievers are the last closeted group," said Rabbi Arthur Blecher of Beth Chai-The Greater Washington Jewish Humanist Congregation. Beth Chai, which rents space in a Unitarian church in Bethesda, has about 120 membership units, according to Blecher. Although the congregation promotes a "cultural and secular understanding of Judaism," it is not entirely nontheistic, said Blecher, who described himself as a nontheistic Jew.

Obama's inclusive choice of words, he added, "was refreshingly forthright, and I got a big kick out of it."

The only openly atheistic member of Congress is Rep. Pete Stark (D-Calif.). In an address last June to the American Humanist Association, Maryland state Sen. Jamie Raskin (D-Montgomery), who is Jewish, paid homage to Stark, telling the audience: "I vowed to show up in person so people could see at least one other elected official besides the great ... Pete Stark who isn't afraid to utter the 'h' word in public."

Contacted last week, Raskin, who is a member of Reform Temple Sinai in the District, declined comment on personal faith matters. But he termed Obama's speech "a very powerful moment," adding: "With one word, he essentially elevated nonbelievers to the same plane of civic parity as all of the believers."

Aside from that single mention, the inauguration was brimming with theistic messages, including several conveyed by Obama himself.

"We're used to that kind of stuff by now," said Prival.

The inaugural invocation was delivered by controversial evangelical leader, Rev. Rick Warren, who began his address by reciting an English version of the Sh'ma and who later recited Jesus' name in Hebrew, Arabic and Spanish, as well as English.

Rev. Joseph Lowery, who delivered the benediction, mentioned God several times in his address, but closed with: "Let all those who do justice and love mercy say 'amen.' "

A brief response was posted on the Web site of the District-based Secular Coalition for America. "I hardly say amen, but how could you not say amen to embracing justice," wrote Lori Lipman Brown, the director of the organization, a nontheistic Jew who lives in the District.

The day before the inauguration, Brown's organization had posted an open letter to Obama on its Web site, urging him to find a way to include a nontheistic viewpoint at the next day's event.

"I was very pleased; it was a turning point," Brown said of the inaugural address in a subsequent interview, declining to take credit for the president's choice of words.

She did, however, mention a January 2007 encounter she had with then-Senator Obama at a dinner reception, during which "this big smile came over his face," Brown recalled, "and he said, 'My mother was a humanist.' "

An ad making the same point -- that Obama was not raised in a religious household ----ran in The Washington Post on Inauguration Day. It was placed by the American Humanist Association.

In contrast, Rabbi Yitzchok Breitowitz of Orthodox Woodside Synagogue-Ahavas Torah in Silver Spring is an unabashed believer in God. "But given the pluralism of our society, I can see the need to be totally inclusive," he said. "If I were president, I'd have to try to serve the needs of all the people. But as a rabbi, I probably would have referred to 'not-yet-believers' rather than 'nonbelievers.' "