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Isaac Abraham in his office. Mr. Abraham attended the Brooklyn council debate this week

Borough Park, NY - I had the unique opportunity to watch the debate hosted by the Jewish Press Wednesday night between candidates (L to R) David Greenfield, Jonathan Judge, Joe Lazar and Avraham Shlomo Tischler running for Simcha Felder’s vacated City Council seat in the 44th district.  Here are my thoughts on the debate:

Over the past twenty five years, I have been privileged to attend debates for Senate, Governor, Mayor, Assembly, State Senate and City Council elections, both as a candidate and a spectator. In my previous experience, upon entering the room, one would take a seat and read the flyers and campaign literature handed out by the candidates while waiting for the debate to start.  Not so in this case.  When I walked in, it looked more like a Shulem Zucher, with people schmoozing and greeting each other, asking, “hey who are you with?” When you finally walked another ten feet you noticed that there was actually a debate going on.



Great radio host Nachum Segal was the moderator, setting the tone and agenda, joined by three Jewish Press reporters who asked their own questions and questions submitted by audience members.  The debate was set to start at 7 PM, Jewish time, and end when either the candidates finished answering the questions or when the lights went out.

L-R David Greenfield, Jonathan Judge, Joe Lazar and Avraham Shlomo Tischler Photo: ShiaHD (edit)

The debate began with opening remarks by each candidate introducing themselves, explaining why they deserved to be voted into office and why they were the most qualified to serve on the city council and should be entrusted with the future of their potential constituents, not to mention the children, schools, health and safety of the residents of the 44th district.  Once the questions began, they were about the budget, budget cuts, affordable housing, transportation, and health care, among other topics. Not a single candidate answered the questions asked, not on the budget, housing, summonses, gay rights or any other topic.

Watching the various candidate’s facial expressions was very entertaining and if you come across video of the debate, be sure to watch it.  Clearly, no one told the candidates that it is important to keep their expressions as neutral as possible.  As they were facing the audience, every expression and reaction was clearly visible to everyone.  It reminded me of watching the judges on American Idol, where every grimace, every nuance is there for the entire audience to see.  And by the way, if any of the candidates are interested, there is one open judge’s seat on American Idol!

In order not belabor every question asked and every answer given by each candidate, I will summarize the candidate’s answers, going from left to right, as they were seated.

David Greenfield, who carried an enormous folder, claims to have done more then any other elected official for the Jewish community in a short period of time.  I wonder if all the dollar amounts that he cited, regarding parents, yeshivas and non profit institutions can actually be documented.  The simple answer is no.  The documentation just doesn’t exist.

In my own experience participating in fourteen City Council debates, not a single candidate was ever able to provide documentation on statistics, surveys and polls to the moderator.  In one of my debates, one young candidate claimed he was running on his record.  Given his age, I asked him “What crime did you commit?  The only person your age who has a record is an athlete in the Olympics”.

Mr. Greenfield needs to remember that a candidate needs to connect with the people.  Not by landline, text, email or cellphone, but in person, where you must convince the voter that you are the best candidate and they should take the time on election day to vote for you.  Additionally, being a fast talker, Mr. Greenfield can do a one minute commercial in fifteen seconds in the expressionless tone of a defense attorney cross examining a witness.  He came across as completely unemotional and robotic.  Someone should take him to a comedy club or give him a good strong mixed drink before the next debate, so that he loosens up a little bit.

Mr. Greenfield stated that he wants to continue “working with Mayor Bloomberg and Speaker Quinn just as Simcha Felder did”.  While Mr. Felder is a great person and former councilman, in his eight years on the city council his friendship with the Mayor left his district with an 18% real estate tax, $5,000.000 in annual parking tickets  and the winter streets are still as icy as ever.  Multiply the revenue generated to the city from the 44th district’s real estate taxes, parking and sanitation summonses and building department violations by eight years and you will get over 120 million dollars collected in the district during Simcha Felder’s tenure.  How much do you think the community got back from all that revenue generated? Is Mr. Greenfield really sure that Simcha Felder is someone he wants to emulate?

The community needs a councilman that will stand up and fight for everything it deserves.  My advice to Mr. Greenfield:  You have to stand for something.  If not you fall for everything.

Jonathon Judge:  While the Judge was in, the jury is still out , deliberating where this guy came from.  We do know that he is a Republican Conservative with many beliefs and concerns that are shared by a large part of the Jewish community. Judge carried no notes or folder, which made it look like he wasn’t properly prepared for the debate.

Mr. Judge was on target with most of his responses about the budget, taxes, gay rights and the old party system, attacking the Democratic machine.  One of the best shots he took at Mr. Greenfield, who was sitting to his left, was for parading around town announcing that he had the support of Brooklyn Democratic Chairman Vito Lopez, who had more news reports of scandals than the former chairman,  Clarence Norman.  I wonder why former State Senator Joe Bruno was found guilty and is serving time for doing the same thing the Mr. Lopez has been doing for years (as reported in the NY Post) while Vito is still walking the streets.

Mr. Judge also took a shot at all the endorsements that fellow candidate Joe Lazar received by claiming to change the system because it is broken.  Judge was very articulate and directly responded to most of the questions asked.

In one of my debates, I once stated, “If you are looking for a councilman to stand up to the King and the Quinn, I’m the one.”  Judge is that kind of guy, since term limits are now in effect again.  Quinn, a great leader and speaker, will run for Mayor and together with the City Council will act more independently than in the last eight years.  We should all learn from former late Councilman James Davis who was shot and killed in City Hall.  He stood up for his constituents and voted against the 18% real estate tax. That’s my kind of guy.

By the way how did you “Judge” the other candidates?

Joe Lazar, one of the nicest people, is polite, charming, mellow and experienced in working with government in many different levels and agencies. But to be one of fifty one members of the city council and also be able to deal with a large community with many needs, it is not enough to be a chihuahua.  This community needs a pit bull.

Why?  Let me explain.

The Jewish community saves the city, state and federal government hundreds of millions of dollars.  Imagine if we closed all our schools and sent all our children to public schools.  Imagine if we close Hatzolah and send all calls to EMS.  Therefore, when we ask the Government for special funds for affordable housing (Section 8 is the only answer in Boro Park, not the rezoning of warehouses and sharing of the profits as suggested by Mr. Greenfield) , we deserve special attention.  And we need a candidate who will aggressively fight for our community.

On the gay rights issue, Mr. Lazar, the answer is, as Mr. Judge said, no , and the answer that I myself gave was “it’s a state issue, not a city council issue”, but there should be no discrimination on any part.

As for the budget, in my campaign i released MY Big Ideas For NYC theIsaac Abraham budget report, which was done by myself,  not a CPA or comptroller, where you will find over two billion dollars that can be saved or diverted to better serve the people in the community and all over the city. Reading the report will give you an idea of the waste we are dealing with.  Money saved from those agencies can and should go towards the community needs.

While Mr. Lazar has received many endorsements, endorsements alone do not guarantee victory.  Endorsements by elected officials should have made Joanne Simon the Councilwomen, Gulianni the Republican candidate for President and Hillary Clinton the Democratic candidate.

As I myself have said many times in debates, if I can’t convince you in my flyer, message or debate to vote for me, then I ask you to look at my record and achievements for the last twenty five years.  Joe Lazar does has a proven record but must understand that while nice guys don’t always finish last, they do play a different game.  Times have changed and people have changed.  Both City Hall and the government have also changed and now the people want change as well, and we are not talking about coins in their pockets.  They want independent elected officials who are not controlled by what is politically correct.  In order to be successful, a candidate can’t just promise to bring about change.  They need to be able to prove that they are up to the task. A story is told of a child who asked their grandmother “Does every fairy tale start with once upon a time?”  The grandmother answered , “No, some fairy tales start with “if elected I promise””.  If elected City Councilman, I hope that Mr. Lazar will continue to fulfill his promises.

My advice to Mr. Lazar?  Firstly, if you can effectively answer a question in less than the allotted response time of one to two minutes, don’t stretch out your answer just to make it longer.  It dilutes your response.  If you can keep it short and sweet, then by all means do so.  Second of all, perhaps the pit bull analogy was too strong, so I will try a different one.  Go to Auto Zone and get a spark plug to fire up your engine so you can really serve the district to the best of your abilities.

Avraham Shlomo Tischler: What can I say?  You made my night.  Clearly,  America’s got talent and instead of being out looking for a shidduch, you were ready to face the public.  If you receive at least as many votes as you did signatures on your petitions, that would be a real accomplishment.

You were the cherry on my ice cream, not just the topping.  You were clear on the closing of fire houses at a time when we want to build more affordable housing.  You were clear that we are all being taxed to death.  Most of all, you were charming.  I would love to see another debate where you were better prepared on the other issues including housing, sanitation, transportation and crime.

Your future is ahead of you.  I just don’t know how far ahead.

In conclusion:  My intentions are not to offend any candidate or support any candidate as of yet.  I just wanted to add a little flavor to the debate, hoping there will be another one, with each being more mellow and humorous.  Afterall, it is Chodesh Adar.

I know there will be some comments saying that I am trying to get even with someone, but that is simply not the case. If you take a few minutes to digest what I wrote, I am confident you will agree that my points are valid, no matter which candidate you support.  I hope the candidates take my advice seriously and hope that they will learn something from my suggestions.

My final thoughts to all the candidates?

Remember this:  It’s the people’s seat.  Don’t play musical chairs with it.

Isaac Abraham is an outspoken activist from Williamsburg NY and a former City Council candidate in the 33rd District.

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