Republican challenger Zeldin rallies Haredi voters in New York governor’s race

NEW YORK — On Saturday night in Brooklyn, Republican US House Representative Lee Zeldin rallied a crowd at the close of Shabbat with a message tailored to the Haredi community ahead of the state’s race for governor.

Zeldin highlighted his family’s Jewish background, relating how his grandfather founded a synagogue, before turning to two central issues for the community in the hotly contested race.

“My mother was a 4th-grade yeshiva teacher here in Brooklyn,” he said.

“I’ll say it publicly and I’ll say it proudly and I’ll say it anywhere,” he said. “It would be an honor to be the greatest champion of yeshiva education.”

The fired-up crowd in the Williamsburg neighborhood, the home base of the Satmar Hasidic movement, responded with chants of “Zeldin! Zeldin!”

The candidate then turned to crime and antisemitism, blasting progressive cashless bail laws and vowing to “take back our streets.”

“You should not be targeted for who you are. New Yorkers right now have been under attack. There must be zero tolerance for antisemitism on our streets, in any of our schools and in the halls of government,” he said. “The violent antisemitic attacks taking place in Brooklyn must end and I want to work with all of you.”

New York, a Democratic bastion, has emerged as an unlikely battleground state in the run-up to Tuesday’s gubernatorial elections. Governor Kathy Hochul remains ahead in most polls, but Zeldin has made the race competitive by focusing on the economy and crime, in line with Republican messaging in the US.

And for religious Jewish communities, Zeldin has vowed to defend the yeshiva school system, which has come under heavy pressure from state officials and mainstream media, particularly The New York Times, which has covered yeshivas aggressively in recent months. The Republican candidate has secured a slew of nominations from Haredi Jewish groups ahead of the vote.

Zeldin’s message appears to have galvanized some voters. On Sunday evening, a line of voters, mostly Haredi, lined a street in Williamsburg as early voting came to a close. The neighborhood was eerily quiet due to road closures for the New York City marathon, with groups of children strolling down the center of Division Avenue as yellow fall foliage drifted on the pavement.

Poll workers said the line had stretched out over a block long as neighborhood residents who were not able to vote on Shabbat lined up, with some waiting up to 40 minutes.

“Everyone here will get in to vote, even if I’m here until 9 o’clock at night,” one of the poll workers told patient voters ahead of the 5 p.m. closing time.

“Usually it’s not like this but it’s because of the situation, who’s running,” another poll worker said. Similar lines were reported in Haredi areas of Brooklyn’s Boro Park, where many community leaders have endorsed Zeldin, including from the influential Bobov movement.

Several voters in line said most of the community was supporting Zeldin and that yeshivas were the main issue. Posters telling residents to “Vote for education” were plastered on walls and street light poles around the neighborhood.

“Crime is a big issue but the drive to get out the vote is definitely the yeshivas,” one of the voters said.

Zeldin has repeatedly come out in support of yeshivas, including after a major New York Times piece attacking the system.

“Yeshiva education teaches values that have their students living law-abiding, productive lives, and provides high-quality learning experiences for so many young boys and girls,” he said in September. “New York is wrong for pushing these substantial-equivalency standards, and Kathy Hochul has been AWOL every step of the way.”

The State Education Department is outside the purview of the governor, and the push to increase secular studies in yeshivas began long before Hochul took office. She has sought to stay out of the issue, as has New York City Mayor Eric Adams.

“The governor’s office has nothing to do with this,” Hochul said in September.

“That’s the problem, she’s not involved and under this administration the rules got worse,” one Haredi voter said on Sunday. The state passed new rules to regulate secular education in yeshivas in September.

“She didn’t talk about it; he [Zeldin] did talk about it,” another man in the line to vote said. All declined to share their full names for publication.

In a letter to Jewish community leaders last week, Hochul offered qualified support for yeshivas, saying she would “continue to fight for your right to practice your religion and teach your children with religious education.”

“I want to assure everyone that Jewish schools will always be treated with fairness and respect. I also fundamentally believe that every school across New York should have the resources to provide a proper education that gives every student the opportunity to be successful,” she said.

Another voter said the community was “fed up” with Democratic policies in the last several years, especially during the early part of the pandemic, when schools and synagogues were closed.

“We are really upset about how they shut up the shuls in COVID and schools,” he said, adding that progressive bail laws that release some offenders quickly were another sticking point. He said antisemitism was a lesser issue than crime, because the community expects Jew-hatred as a fact of life, but wants stricter enforcement against criminals.

“People can do whatever they want and get released. It’s not about antisemitism,” he said. The overall crime rate has increased in New York City in recent years, but it remains safer than most of the US and crime is far lower in the city than it was in the past. Jews are consistently the group most targeted in hate crimes in the city, with near-daily reported incidents of harassment, vandalism and assault.

Hochul had a significant lead at the start of the race, but the tide turned and her party appeared to have been caught off guard. Democrats have cruised to victory in every state gubernatorial race since 2006, but recent polls have shown Hochul’s lead shrink to single digits. Some areas near the city, including the Hudson Valley and Zeldin’s native Long Island, appear to have become increasingly Republican.

For both candidates, the Haredi Jewish vote is only one piece of a larger campaign strategy. Non-Haredi Jews in New York, representing the vast majority of the Jewish population, are overwhelmingly Democrats, while the Haredi population only accounts for around one percent of the state’s nearly 20 million people. The communities have long been players in New York City politics, though, with lawmakers courting community leaders for endorsements and leaders urging residents to vote for favored candidates. Haredi communities have usually voted Democratic in local elections, but gave widespread support to Trump.

Zeldin has leaned into the Jewish vote, trumpeting his endorsements, including claiming “universal support” from Hasidic communities in Brooklyn. Hochul has snagged backing from at least one Satmar group while other groups have remained mum. Haredi communities have voted against Jewish candidates in the past, and although Zeldin’s family includes several prominent Jewish leaders, he does not come from an Orthodox background. Both candidates are firm supporters of Israel.

I am honored to earn the support of one of the largest Hasidic sects in New York State and will always stand in solidarity with the Jewish community. https://t.co/TQLxdAyed3

— Kathy Hochul (@KathyHochul) November 2, 2022

Friday “Lee Zeldin For Governor” Vibes! ???? Let’s do this! 4 Days to Go! ???? pic.twitter.com/Dc5b6URNco

— Lee Zeldin (@leezeldin) November 4, 2022

Last weekend, both candidates visited Jewish communities in the city, with Zeldin nabbing endorsements in Flatbush and drawing crowds in Boro Park, and Hochul paying respects to the Chabad-Lubavitch Rebbe’s gravesite in Queens.

Honored to visit the grave of the Lubavitcher Rebbe and pray alongside my dear friends. The safety of New York’s Jewish community is a responsibility I don’t take lightly, and I’ll never stop fighting for our Jewish neighbors as your governor. pic.twitter.com/raZWfTo5yd

— Kathy Hochul (@KathyHochul) October 30, 2022

Just left Borough Park. It’s clearer than ever we have all of the energy and momentum on our side, we have the issues on our side, and, in 9 Days, New Yorkers are ALL IN to FIRE Kathy Hochul, TAKE BACK our streets, and SAVE our State!pic.twitter.com/s93BG5C8vO

— Lee Zeldin (@leezeldin) October 30, 2022

Some groups have urged followers to split the ticket, voting for Zeldin for governor but Democrats for other positions, including the Senate and state attorney general.

Hochul and other Democratic city leaders have strong ties with Jewish communities, and the governor has repeatedly spoken out against antisemitism, provided funding for security and supported Holocaust survivors, among other measures. The yeshiva reforms happened under her watch, though, and her party is being buffeted by trends favoring Republicans in the US.

Hochul and the Democratic party have pulled out all the stops to regain lost ground. On Saturday afternoon in Brooklyn, she held a rally with former US president Bill Clinton and hometown political heroes Attorney General Letitia James, US Representative Hakeem Jeffries, New York City Mayor Adams and Senator Chuck Schumer. On Sunday, she appeared with US President Joe Biden in Yonkers, north of the city, and other big names including Vice President Kamala Harris and Hillary Clinton have made appearances.

At the Saturday rally in Downtown Brooklyn, the speakers focused on the Democratic playbook of abortion, women’s rights, health care and Republican attacks on the democratic process, which have faded from national headlines amid inflation concerns and crime.

The election will be the first in the state since Roe v. Wade was overturned in June. A victory for Hochul would make her the first elected woman governor of New York, after she took over from Andrew Cuomo last year when he resigned due to a sexual harassment scandal.

Zeldin has been a vocal defender of Trump and voted against certifying Biden’s election victory after the January 6 assault on the US capitol, along with 146 other Republican lawmakers. Zeldin is one of only two Jewish Republicans in the US Congress.

Hochul is expected to handily win most votes in deep blue New York City, with Republicans reportedly aiming to win around 30%, but she is campaigning to drum up more votes and consolidate her lead. In addition to the governor’s race, several US House seats are up for grabs as the parties vie for control of Congress.

Hochul’s Saturday rally was attended mostly by a diverse array of labor groups bearing bright signs announcing their membership in unions for groups like carpenters and hotel and gaming workers. It was held during Shabbat and aside from a couple of nods to synagogue security after a threat in neighboring New Jersey, Jewish issues were absent.

The speakers tied crime to Republican support for gun rights, highlighting Hochul’s efforts to rein in firearms in New York. The issue of the economy was mostly absent, although Clinton ascribed inflation to global trends, including Saudi Arabia and its OPEC allies cutting oil output.

The tone was similar to Israel’s “gevalt” campaign tactics, with speakers urging the crowd to vote, and get their friends to vote, to ward off Republican control.

Hochul, from the Rust Belt city of Buffalo in Western New York, highlighted her family’s working-class roots in the city’s steel mills.

“I’ve got steel running through my veins,” she said. “I appreciate what labor has done for millions of New Yorkers like my own family and I will never let you down.”

She traced historical activism in New York for women’s rights, racial equality, abortion access and gay rights, mentioning the Seneca Falls Convention for women’s rights in 1848 and the Stonewall Riots for the LGBTQ community in 1969.

“Do we take those torches passed to all of us by those brave individuals who challenged the tides of their time and march forward with them glowing even brighter, or will that torch be extinguished on our watch?” she said. “That’s what’s on the ballot on Tuesday.”

“We’re going to overcome our fear with our votes,” Hochul said, tying her opponent to white supremacy, extremism and election denial. “Complacency can destroy our Democracy. Complacency can destroy our voting rights.”

“I want you to be scared, I want you to be mad,” Clinton told the enthusiastic audience. “For the young people here, your life is on the line.”

“This whole election could come down to turnout in Brooklyn,” he said. “You’ve got a few days here to make sure enough people know it, to know that they need to take the time to vote.”