Blacks, Jews, and Thompon's old man, the lawyer, should see that Nassau OTB does not close on Roman Catholic Palm Sunday in preference to Greek Orthodox Palm Sunday. Ditto for Easter Sunday.
NY PML Sec 109 does not pass the laugh test let alone scrutiny per NY Const. Art. 1, Sec. 3
Old man Thompson remembers when NYC OTB was not bankrupt and people had the chance to work and make money and/or bet if they wished.
Thompson and Thompson should do the right thing and see that religious preference does not appear in the laws of the State of New York.
In Mayoral Bid, Thompson Hopes Old Ties Attract Jewish Votes
Michael Appleton for The New York Times
Crossover Campaigning:
In his campaign to be the next mayor of New York City, William C.
Thompson Jr. is counting on strong support from Jewish voters,
especially the Orthodox community.
By DAVID W. CHEN
Published: February 22, 2013
William C. Thompson Jr.
knows not to initiate a handshake with an Orthodox Jewish woman. He
sprinkles Yiddish phrases into his conversations with observant Jews. He
is familiar enough with the rituals that, on a recent Friday visit to a
home in Midwood, Brooklyn, he commiserated with a woman about the work
involved in preparing for the Sabbath.
Michael Appleton for The New York Times
William C. Thompson Jr., left, a candidate, before a breakfast with Jewish leaders in Brooklyn.
Mr. Thompson, an Episcopalian, is the only African-American candidate in
the 2013 mayoral campaign, and he is focusing much of his effort on
rallying support from blacks and Hispanics. But he is also claiming an
edge among one of New York City’s fastest-growing groups: Orthodox Jews,
who are up for grabs in the election and are concentrated in the very
Brooklyn neighborhoods that Mr. Thompson’s father represented as a
legislator and that he has frequented since he was a boy.
“I still remember his bar mitzvah,” joked Ben Barber, an observant Jew who owns a linen business in Borough Park.
The wide-open Democratic primary race promises to be a bit of a
free-for-all, in which the candidates, with few ideological distinctions
among them, jockey for advantage among the many neighborhoods and
demographic groups that make up the electorate. Mr. Thompson’s courtship
of Jewish voters is emblematic of calculations being made by all of the
candidates: perhaps 600,000 New Yorkers are expected to participate in
the Democratic primary, and many of those voters are expected to be
black or Jewish.
For the first time in years, no major Jewish candidate is running for
mayor. Mr. Thompson, a former city comptroller, Board of Education
president and deputy Brooklyn borough president, is pushing for Jewish
support.
Jews outside Manhattan could constitute one-sixth of primary voters,
according to demographers, and of that group, maybe 30 percent are from
the fast-growing Orthodox population, mostly in Brooklyn.
“I think Billy is going to surprise a lot of people in terms of his
support in the Jewish community,” said William E. Rapfogel, the
politically connected executive director of the Metropolitan Council on
Jewish Poverty. “He’s extremely well liked by the Jewish community, and
he’s built up a lot of credibility and good will over the years.”
In the 2009 mayoral race, as the Democratic nominee, Mr. Thompson held
his own among Jewish voters against Michael R. Bloomberg’s $100 million
third-term juggernaut. Whereas Mayor Bloomberg had trounced Fernando
Ferrer in Brooklyn’s Orthodox neighborhoods in 2005 by five to one, Mr.
Thompson lost by just two to one, and drew almost even in Crown Heights
and Williamsburg, said John Mollenkopf, director of the Center for Urban
Research at the City University of New York.
Ask Orthodox leaders about Mr. Thompson and the responses are uniformly
warm. He was there as a child when his father forged alliances with
religious leaders. He helped to defuse tensions after the Crown Heights
riots. He fought for Orthodox Jews’ interests on education and business
issues. And last month, he was the only Democratic candidate at a news
conference denouncing Brooklyn College for a discussion of a movement
that advocates boycotts of Israel.
That familiarity began with Mr. Thompson’s father, William C. Thompson
Sr., who, as a state senator, city councilman and judge, represented an
evolving swath of central Brooklyn, beginning in the 1960s.
Mr. Thompson’s father, who still practices law, routinely resorted to
Yiddish phrases. Also, his father’s second wife, Sybil Hart Kooper, a
state appellate judge who died in 1991, was Jewish.
“It goes back to when I was a child,” Mr. Thompson, 59, said in an
interview. “I remember being in the car with him — was I 14? — and going
to Crown Heights. Even to this day, people that you meet say, ‘I
remember when you were a teenager.’ ”
As an aide to Representative Fred Richmond (whose career was later
derailed by corruption charges), and then the Brooklyn Borough President
Howard Golden, Mr. Thompson served as an emissary to Orthodox
neighborhoods.
Never were his diplomatic skills more in demand than in 1991, when Mr.
Golden tracked him down on vacation in France and asked him to return
immediately to pacify black and Jewish activists because, Mr. Thompson
recalled, “Crown Heights was burning.”
“He was helpful as someone who represented authority yet had a common
background, or a common race, who manifested a desire to keep things
calm, and reason with people,” said Milton Mollen, a deputy mayor under
David N. Dinkins. “Excellent temperament.”
After the Crown Heights riots, Mr. Thompson was active with the organization Blacks and Jews in Conversation, which was co-founded
by his father, then an appellate judge. He also found ways, as the
Board of Education president, to supply yeshivas with computers and
supplies and to ease bus rules for students in religious schools, said
Rabbi Jacob Goldstein, the longtime chairman of Community Board 9 in
Crown Heights.
Orthodox Jews are hardly monolithic, thanks to divisions among the
Satmars and differences among Russian immigrants, Bukharin Jews and
others. But there could be 30,000 Orthodox voters in the Democratic
primary this year, and they often vote in blocs, said Councilman David
G. Greenfield, a Democrat who represents Borough Park and Midwood.
And while Mr. Greenfield has not endorsed anyone, he said he believed
that voters would consider longstanding friendships and issues like
child care, education and religious liberty.
In the 2001 Democratic primary for comptroller, Mr. Thompson defeated a
better-financed candidate, Herbert E. Berman, a Jewish Brooklyn
councilman. Mr. Berman said Mr. Thompson “very intelligently kept up his
ties with the Orthodox community, and as a consequence, when I felt I
should have gotten the endorsement of the Jewish press, they didn’t
endorse either of us.”
Mr. Thompson said he was the first comptroller to make city investments
in Israeli bonds. He also took part in a panel, at a 2007 conference
of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee headlined by Vice
President Dick Cheney, on financial sanctions against “Iran and other
state sponsors of terror.”
Early this month, Mr. Thompson was the subject of a lengthy profile, in Hebrew, by an Orthodox magazine, Bakhila. And in December, Mr. Thompson made quite an impression by attending two Hanukkah events in Brooklyn and Manhattan, scheduled for the same hour, and drawing rousing receptions at both.
“Thompson’s reputation walked into the room before he did,” said
Jonathan Greenspun, who served as Mr. Bloomberg’s unofficial liaison to
the Orthodox community, and was an informal adviser during the 2009
campaign against Mr. Thompson. “Jewish leaders want you to show up, and
they want to know: ‘Does this guy get me? Does he understand who I am
and what my needs are?’ And a guy like Thompson — that familiarity, that
credibility — is there, without question.”
Of course, all of the declared and presumed Democratic candidates are
reaching out to Jewish voters. For instance, Bill de Blasio, the public
advocate and a former councilman with Borough Park ties, has been
attuned to issues grating on Orthodox Jews, like business fines and
parking. Christine C. Quinn, the Council speaker, met recently with
Orthodox women who own or manage businesses in Williamsburg. John C.
Liu, the comptroller, has tirelessly attended community events.
But at a breakfast with Mr. Thompson at his house in Midwood, Chaskel
Bennett, a businessman, used Yiddish to differentiate Mr. Thompson from
other politicians. Mr. Thompson, he said, was a “mensch” and had never
asked for a dime. Others, by contrast, were “schnorrers” — transactional
officials who begged for dollars and votes but did not reciprocate when
help was needed.
Mr. Thompson, nodding, noted that he went to middle school a few blocks
away. “This isn’t about relationships from 5, 10 years ago,” he said.
“This is my life.”
Mr. Bennett added that many voters had “buyer’s remorse” about 2009,
because they believed the Bloomberg administration was too
Manhattan-centric and ruthless in levying fines and fees.
“There are a lot of people in the Orthodox Jewish community who feel
that maybe our relationship with Gracie Mansion, with City Hall, would
be a lot better had Bill won the election,” he said. “Good friends are
hard to find, and Bill Thompson is a friend.”
A version of this article appeared in print on February 23, 2013, on page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: In Mayoral Bid, Thompson Hopes Old Ties Attract Jewish Votes.
HI-
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address.
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LI Confidential
> Stop scratching on holidays
Stop scratching on holidays
Published: June 1, 2012
Off Track Betting in New York State has been racing into a crisis called shrinking revenue. Some people have spitballed a solution: Don’t close on holidays.
New York State Racing Law bars racing on Christmas, Easter and Palm Sunday, and the state has ruled OTBs can’t handle action on those days, even though they could easily broadcast races from out of state.
“You should be able to bet whenever you want,” said Jackson Leeds, a Nassau OTB employee who makes an occasional bet. He added some irrefutable logic: “How is the business going to make money if you’re not open to take people’s bets?”
Elias Tsekerides, president of the Federation of Hellenic Societies of Greater New York, said OTB is open on Greek Orthodox Easter and Palm Sunday.
“I don’t want discrimination,” Tsekerides said. “They close for the Catholics, but open for the Greek Orthodox? It’s either open for all or not open.”
OTB officials have said they lose millions by closing on Palm Sunday alone, with tracks such as Gulfstream, Santa Anita, Turf Paradise and Hawthorne running.
One option: OTBs could just stay open and face the consequences. New York City OTB did just that back in 2003. The handle was about $1.5 million – and OTB was fined $5,000.
Easy money.
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