Dishing dirt: race for Felder’s seat becomes nasty

Posted

By Mayer Fertig

Issue of February 5, 2010/ 21 Shvat 5770

A candidate for the still-warm New York City Council seat vacated on Monday by Simcha Felder has had an embarrassing setback. Joe Lazar said he doesn’t know why State Senator Kevin Parker now denies endorsing him.

“I spoke to Kevin last Thursday and thanked him for his endorsement and as far as I knew he was on board. I don’t know what may or may not have changed.” Lazar told The Jewish Star. He hopes to meet with Parker in the near future, he added.

Lazar and at least three other candidates are running for the 44th Council District, covering Borough Park, and parts of Flatbush, Kensington and Bensonhurst.

Other candidates include David Greenfield, who is perhaps best known for leading the grassroots TEACH NYS effort to obtain more state aid for private schools; tax attorney Nachman Caller, and Jonathan Judge, president of the Brooklyn Young Republican Club.

Former State Senator Seymour Lachman told the Daily News on Wednesday that he would not enter the race; late last week, former Councilman Noach Dear, now a judge, told The Jewish Star he would not run.

Parker’s now-you-see-it-now-you-don’t endorsement became public knowledge when theyeshivaworld.com, an influential website that covers news of Orthodox interest, published a letter from Parker denying that he had taken sides.

Later the website reported that only four of a dozen or so community leaders shown with Lazar in a picture released by his campaign were, in fact, endorsing him.

“Three were insistent that this was no endorsement and they were simply asked to take a photo and were shocked when it was attached to a press release implying their endorsement,” the website said. “Two refused to comment and two more were unavailable to confirm or deny.”

Lazar denied the later report was true and tried to cast doubt on the website’s veracity.

“I don’t believe in responding to negative publicity that is unfounded. I think Yeshiva World is coming out with piece after piece that is lies and I’m just not going to respond to lies. You will see whether I do or do not have that support and that’s all I’m going to say.”

Through his campaign manager, Nachman Caller declined to comment. In a telephone interview, Greenfield, who is on leave from his job as executive director of the Sephardic Community Federation, sought to focus on his own efforts.

“I can’t speak to how Joe Lazar is running his campaign, he said. “All I can tell you is that we’re proud of the support we have.”

One important endorsement Lazar has is that of State Assemblyman Dov Hikind. He has been using the pulpit of his weekly radio program to proclaim his support for Lazar, whom he has known for 30 years, and to attack Greenfield, who once worked as his chief of staff, and the Yeshiva World website, which has come out for Greenfield.

On the Jan. 23 broadcast, Hikind and his co-host, his longtime aide Charnie Shochet, shared this exchange:

Hikind: “The race is unfolding. Everyone is going to get an opportunity to listen to the candidates. It’s very easy to make claims that you have already saved the world.”

Shochet: “They call that the messiah complex, don’t they?”

Minutes later:

Hikind: “and there’s one particular blog, almost like a hate blog.

Shochet: “Blogs are supposed to be fair and honest, it’s painful to watch this become manipulated by an entity.”

Hikind: “There’s one particular blog that’s disgusting. I think people know who it is, I’m not gonna mention it.”

A week earlier, on the Jan. 16 program, Hikind said, apparently about Greenfield, “There are people out there who run for office who take credit for everything in the world and I don’t respect people like that ... some people just make these claims that are unbelievable. There’s one guy running who claims all these things he did in Albany - two years ago I never saw him there. Not once.”

The race has “unfortunately gotten rather nasty very early and I think the level of nastiness and negativity is bad for the community as a whole,” said Michael Fragin, once an aide to Governor George Pataki and Mayor Michael Bloomberg. “Somebody is going to win the race and it’s important for everybody to be able to live and work together after its over.”

Lazar said he doesn’t see any dirt coming out of his campaign or from his chief sponsor, Assemblyman Hikind.

“I have not seen any dirt come out of our campaign. If you see any I would like to respond to it. I don’t like dirt. I won’t put dirt out and I don’t know of any dirt that Dov has put out there. I don’t believe he has done anything negative.”