The talk was timed just ahead of the Ninth of Av, one of the most mournful dates in the Jewish year, so Mark Mellman came prepared with a drash — a Torah commentary — and delivered it to a rapt room.

That the room at the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston was packed with political operatives, not all of them Jewish, did not seem to matter to Mellman, the veteran pollster pro-Israel voice within the Democratic Party whose death was announced Friday by his family.

For Mellman, Jewish values and Democratic values went hand in hand. As soon as he heard the appreciative murmurs of “yashar koach” (roughly, “well done”) marking the end of his drash, he launched into an endorsement of party presidential nominee John Kerry.

“Mark possessed a profound understanding for American a

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