Nachman Caller, a likely Republican candidate for the new, heavily Orthodox Jewish district, embraced the “Super Jewish District” terminology some have used for the seat in his latest campaign ad, featured in Hamodia yesterday. The Wednesday extended edition of the paper, designed to be read during Shabbos, is the most widely read of the week.
“The Super Jewish Candidate for The Super Jewish District,” the ad declares, with all of its subsequent points in Yiddish.
With significant help from Jacob Kornbluh, here’s my rather rough impression of what the Yiddish text reads:
- The first Haredi candidate with decades of experience in business and real estate.
- The first candidate that has his own money, and is not looking for a political career, but rather to help the community.
- The first candidate with no political background.
- The first candidate with no connections to big companies or organizations, who’s looking to help each individual.
- The first candidate who helped individuals, mosdos and organizations for over 30 years.
- The first candidate that will lay out political, business and economic plans for how to help the community in these struggling times that will be both detailed and practical.
- The candidate that will, with God’s help, represent our interests, our housing, our businesses and our bread and butter.
Interestingly, the arguments here all seem aimed at the likely Democratic candidate, former City Councilman Simcha Felder, rather than Mr. Caller’s possible primary opponent, David Storobin. Mr. Storobin, of course, is currently the leading candidate in a recount for a partially overlapping state senate district and may assume office sometime next month. As Mr. Storobin was a political neophyte who worked in the private sector until his most recent special election, he wouldn’t seem to be the intended target for arguments against career politicians and the like.
And, although Mr. Felder declared his candidacy at a “Super Jewish Press Conference,” he has since shown skepticism over the term, telling the Brooklyn Daily, “Calling it a majority Jewish district is correct, but a ‘super Jewish’ district is something for the comic books.”
Orthodox Pundit, who beat me to writing about the ad, has additional observations.
