NY Jewish Week’s editor-in-chief reported on NYJA’s “Jewish Political Power in New York” webinar, in which panelists shared their unique views on the diversity of New York Jewish voters, the role of Israel in local politics, and what it means for Jewish political figures to do their work explicitly as Jews.
Ruth Messinger recalled a time, before she became Manhattan borough president, before she ran for mayor in 1997, when New York’s ethnic politics were relatively simple. “For probably 80 to 100 years, there was a simple mantra” for the three citywide seats — mayor, comptroller and council president: “One had to be Irish, one had to be Italian and one had to be Jewish.”
The city’s diversity has exploded that mantra, even when it comes to the Jewish community. As Messinger explained last week on a panel on “Jewish Political Power in New York,” no one candidate today could represent the “Jewish vote,” which ranges from New York Times-reading liberals on the Upper West Side to the Brooklyn Orthodox Jews who went for Donald Trump, and everything in between…