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WASHINGTON – For a few minutes this afternoon, Donald J. Trump played the beltway like it was the Borscht Belt.

“Obama, oy-yoy-yoy,” he said at a gathering of the Republican Jewish Coalition here, where he took his turn among the party’s other presidential candidates in addressing a theater full of influential Jewish donors.

He tried to establish a link with his audience, through family connections as well as some stereotypical Jewish traits, quickly earning critical coverage in an Israeli newspaper.

“My father, Fred, was always a big supporter” of Israel, he said.

And his daughter, Ivanka, converted to Judaism, he noted. “The only bad news is I can’t get her on Saturday,” he said. “I call and call. I can’t speak to my daughter anymore on Saturday!”

He boasted that he was ahead in the polls though he had spent precious little money on campaign advertisements, adding: “I think you, as businesspeople, will feel pretty good about this, and respect it.”

He flattered the audience, at one point insisting that he would have achieved a better deal with Iran than President Obama did because “look, I’m a negotiator, like you folks.”

But he also needled the crowd, saying that while Jewish groups had long esteemed him, they now had competition: “My Christians are liking me a lot lately.”

For the most part, Mr. Trump’s listeners chuckled along. They seemed especially to enjoy his elliptical reference to Hillary Clinton and her handling of the terrorist attack on the United States consulate in Benghazi, Libya.

He said that Mrs. Clinton had refused to answer appeals for help from the United States ambassador in Benghazi, but acidly noted that “she responded to her friends. And you know what friends we’re talking about.”

As the crowd laughed, Mr. Trump added: “Sort of an interesting friend going on there. A lot of people don’t get that. She responded to her friend, but she doesn’t respond to our ambassador that’s asking for help.”

(Mr. Trump did not name the “friend” he meant, leaving the audience to surmise whether he had in mind Huma Abedin, a confidante and adviser to Mrs. Clinton, or perhaps Sidney Blumenthal, another friend, whose emailed offers of advice to Mrs. Clinton became the focus of intense scrutiny by the House Benghazi committee.)

Mr. Trump’s performance was not an unalloyed success. Perhaps sensing the room turning against him at one point, he abruptly asserted, “You’re not going to support me, even though you know I’m the best thing that could ever happen to Israel. And I’ll be that. And I know why that is: You’re not going to support me because I don’t want your money.”

He also had some ground to make up with his audience: Earlier in the day, he had questioned Israel’s commitment to peace in an interview with The Associated Press. Matthew Brooks, executive director of the Republican Jewish Coalition, raised the subject with Mr. Trump and questioned his commitment to Jerusalem as the undivided Israeli capital.

Mr. Trump avoided answering the question, saying instead that he would be visiting Israel in the coming weeks and would meet there with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “You know what I want to do? I want to wait till I meet with Bibi,” he said, but a chorus of boos erupted from the audience.

“Just relax, O.K.?” he said. “You’ll like me very much, believe me.”

He called the issue of Middle East peace “maybe the hardest deal ever in history to make,” but said it would take him no longer than six months to bring Israel and the Palestinians together, “and maybe sooner.”

Once again, he alluded to his negotiating prowess, something he said he shared with the Jewish donors in the room.

“With us, we have a deal instinct, a lot of us, you walk into a room and you can tell almost like in two seconds whether or not you’re going to make a deal,” he said.

He said he didn’t like to give away his strategy, but said he would make a fresh start. “I’d like to go with a clean slate and just say just, let’s go, everybody’s even, we love everybody and let’s see if we can do something.”