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| Ezra and his Date Christine Quinn |
bolded parenthesizes mine
Former Comptroller Bill Thompson has Jewish friends in Borough Park and
Manhattan.
Christine Quinn is likely to find some backing from chasidim
who respect her positions on crime and her support for nonprofit groups
and city services.
And a Staten Island Evangelical pastor named Eric Salgado is winning
some Jewish friends by supporting a controversial circumcision practice. (
they forgot toievah)
With six months to go until New York elects a new mayor, the campaigns
for the Democrat and Republican nominations have yet to gather serious
momentum. But some of the candidates are busy presenting their
pro-Jewish bona fides and cementing the relationships they hope will
boost their prospects this fall.
It will be the first time in a dozen years that no incumbent is seeking
re-election, and the first time in 20 years that no Jewish candidate is
vying for the job.
That could change if Anthony Weiner jumps into the fray, as many
consider likely given his extensive campaign war chest and his drive to
rehabilitate his image after the humiliating sexting scandal that drove
him from Congress two years ago.
Weiner has developed an extensive policy platform, which he calls “Keys
To The City,” and has done a series of print and TV interviews: at the
same time, critics have been dishing dirt against him — and in one case
organizing a protest against one of his policies — demonstrating that
some see him as a viable candidate.
Already in the fray for the Democrat nod are Public Advocate Bill de
Blasio, City Council President Christine Quinn, Comptroller John Liu and
former Comptroller Bill Thompson. Another longshot, in addition to
Salgado, is former Brooklyn Councilman Sal Albanese.
On the Republican side, former deputy mayor and former MTA chairman
Joseph Lhota is the best known candidate, vying against supermarket
mogul John Catsimitidis and George McDonald, founder of a nonprofit that
helps formerly homeless people get back on their feet. Running as an
independent is Adolfo Carrion, the former Bronx borough president.
It’s a race with virtually no issues of specific concern to the Jewish
community(
what about the store signs in Williamsburgh), other than perhaps the city’s efforts to dissuade fervently
Orthodox Jews from using the controversial and risky metzitzah b’peh
(oral suction) circumcision procedure. The city’s Department of Health
and Mental Hygiene is now requiring parents to sign consent forms before
a brit using the technique is performed.
Democrat Liu has come out in favor of ending the city’s interference in
the practice, and so has Salgado, which earned him the support of
Joseph Hayon (
I think they forgot a very important issue), an Orthodox activist and former Republican candidate for
Assembly in Brooklyn. According to the blog Brooklyn Independent GOP
Fountainhead, Hayon hosted a Jewish event for Salgado that was attended
by several rabbis as well as Romi Cohn, a top mohel and proponent of
metzitzah b’peh. (
he clearly didn't listen to this speech)
A lawsuit to stop the informed-consent decree is of interest primarily
to ultra-Orthodox Jews, whose leaders brought the challenge. For other
Jews, the legal battle will likely fall into the larger question of the
city’s role in safeguarding public health beyond the era of Mayor
Michael Bloomberg, who has worked to regulate smoking, disclosure of
calories at restaurants and the sale of large sodas, and more.
Another concern to many Jewish leaders will be the future of
member-item funding for local organizations from Council members, which
have come under fire in some circles. De Blasio and Albanese have called
for the process to be eliminated, saying it is fertile ground for
corruption.
“Time after time, the discretionary funding system has led to bribery,
political blackmail and a boatload of big legal bills paid for by
taxpayers,” he said at a press conference recently. “New York doesn’t
need an appropriations process that aids and abets corruption and
political gamesmanship in order to invest in our city’s priorities and
worthwhile projects. We can do better.”
Thompson so far appears to have developed the broadest constituency
among Jews (
no real rabbis), with strong ties to the Orthodox community of Brooklyn he
has long courted and nurtured in his political career. On Sunday, the
former board of education president and 2009 Democrat nominee for mayor
attended Agudath Israel of America’s annual dinner. (All the major
candidates were invited.)
“Thompson has a track record of being there, answering the phone,
responding to issues, showing up even when it’s unpopular,” said Chaskel
Bennett, a Flatbush businessman, member of Agudah’s board and Thompson
supporter.
And with Merryl Tisch, chancellor of the New York Board of Regents and a
well-known philanthropist in the Jewish community, as his campaign
chair, announced two weeks ago, Thompson stands to gain inroads in other
boroughs and non-Orthodox communities as well. Thompson has also hired
Democrat political consultant Hank Sheinkopf, who worked on Bloomberg’s
successful 2009 campaign and has a key understanding of the Jewish vote
(recently earning rabbinical ordination from an Orthodox rabbi in
Israel).
Sources say Brooklyn Assemblyman Dov Hikind, who campaigns vigorously
in the Orthodox community for candidates he endorses (but does not
always deliver a majority of its votes), is currently torn between
backing Thompson, as he did in 2009, or de Blasio, who represented part
of Hikind’s district in the City Council.
Bennett noted that Thompson declined to backtrack from his criticism of
the controversial February event sponsored by Brooklyn College’s
Political Science Department advocating economic measures against
Israel.
When asked about his view of that event at a forum last week sponsored
by the Arab American Association of New York, Thompson stood by his
denunciation of the event, while others said politicians shouldn’t
interfere with academic freedom. “If you look at Brooklyn College, that
wasn’t a question of freedom of speech, it was a question of should the
college political science department be sponsoring a forum that, in that
case, that pushed hate,” he said, according to the blog Mondoweiss,
which reported that Thompson was booed for his response.
De Blasio also criticized the Brooklyn College event.
Because Quinn, as the frontrunner, has and may well continue to control
the purse strings of discretionary funding, she may do particularly
well with Jewish voters who rely on city services, such as the poor,
recent immigrants aand the elderly.
The 2011 Jewish Community Study of New York, released last year, shows
that the total number of Jewish households living in poverty rose 22
percent from 103,000 a decade ago to 130,000, and the Orthodox make up
42 percent of the Jewish poor.
The number of Jewish senior citizens who live alone rose from 21,000 a decade ago to 29,000.
Another area of key concern in Jewish communities will be crime, an area on which they have tended to vote more conservatively.
“The issues for Jews are the same as for most other communities,
especially the middle class,” said David Pollock, associate executive
director of the Jewish Community Relations Council. “Issues of keeping
the neighborhoods safe and affordable housing and making sure New York
grows economically, the Jewish community is really no different than any
other community in that.
Political consultant Ezra Friedlander, (
How much does money does he expect to make)
who is supporting Quinn but not
working for her campaign, noted that the speaker recently said that, if
elected, she’d favor retaining Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly,
despite the current controversy over the department’s stop-and-frisk
policy, its impact on minority communities and the debate on whether it
actually reduces crime.
Friedlander said Kelly is popular in Orthodox neighborhoods where
residents worry about typical crime as well as rising anti-Semitism and
the threat of terrorism.
“
When she publicly came out (interesting choice of words) and said she would retain Ray Kelly,
a
chasidic rebbe came over to me and said he will support Quinn just
because of that,” said Friedlander. (
Sharon Kleinbaum is not a chasidic rebbe)
Weiner, for his part, polled in second place citywide after Quinn in
two recent surveys even without being in the race. But it seems unlikely
he will match or exceed his 2005 second place showing in the mayoral
primary now that questions about his judgment and honesty — he lied to
the media for a week about his Twitter account being hacked — have come
to define his public image.
“Public office requires a certain level of good judgment, operating
from the moral high ground said Ester Fuchs, a political science
professor at Columbia. “You don’t want to begin with people knowing you
already failed that very low bar. It will be an uphill battle for him,
to say the least.”
Cynthia Darrison, a political consultant who is not representing any
candidate for mayor, said Quinn, Thompson and de Blasio seem to be in
the best position for winning Jewish votes.
“Bill Thompson has longstanding relationships with the Jewish
community, and having Merryl Tisch as his campaign chair certainly gives
him credentials with a wider group of people,” she said Tuesday. “Bill
de Blasio when he was in the City Council represented parts of Borough
Park, and he established a good relationship through that. Quinn has
been involved in the broader Jewish community over the years as
speaker.”
In the Republican field, only Catsimitidis seems to be making a
concerted play for Jewish votes, with his campaign reaching out to
Jewish media, including The Jewish Week.
“I saw Joe Lhota at one Jewish event and we exchanged cards, but that
was the last I heard of him,” said radio host Zev Brenner of Talkline
Communications, which is aimed at Orthodox listeners. “The Democrats, I
get contacted by them all the time. They’d be on weekly if I would let
them. The Republicans are almost invisible, except for Catsimitidis.”
(
Jewish Week)
