Serving 250,000 Jews (including 75,000 in Synagogue congregations), the Rabbinical Board of Flatbush, or Vaad Harabbonim, is one of the most influential Orthodox rabbinical boards in New York City, and is considered the largest local Orthodox rabbinic body in the world today.  The Vaad’s rabbis serve as the spiritual leaders and teachers in synagogues, Yeshivas, and Jewish institutions throughout the Greater Flatbush area.

“Joe Lazar is a man of great integrity and strength with a proven record of fighting for yeshivas, seniors and the vital services the Orthodox community depends upon. That’s why in these difficult economic times, The Rabbinical Board of Flatbush is confident that Joe Lazar is the right leader to represent our community in the City Council.” said Rabbi Herbert Bomzer, President of the Vaad and Chairman of the Political Action Committee of the Vaad Harabonim of Flatbush. “We are certain that Joe Lazar will follow in the noble path of those that preceded him as our council representative.”

“I am honored to receive the endorsement of The Vaad Harabbonim of Flatbush, one of our community’s most respected and important organizations,” said Joe Lazar. “This goal of this campaign has always been to unify our community and I am proud that The Vaad has joined us in this historic demonstration of Achdus [Hebrew for ‘unity’].”

Get out the vote loudspeakers mounted on truck driven on election day

Brooklyn, NY  (HNS) – Pleas from Orthodox Jewish leaders and organizations that Jews in New York City should vote are a perennial phenomenon. So is their lackluster effect.

City Councilman Simcha Felder, who grew up in Boro Park and represents most of it, said he hasn’t seen a spike in the community’s lame voting pattern since the election following the 1991 Crown Heights riots.

Until Tuesday.

Unofficial Board of Election results from Tuesday’s races for mayor and other city offices indicate a stronger showing at the polls in frum neighborhoods, where ‘Get-Out-The-Vote’ [GOTV] campaigns were launched like never before.

In the district encompassing Boro Park/Kensington, voter turnout increased 13.5 percent, or by 2,224 voters, over the 2005 election, the last one also featuring a mayoral race but not a presidential one.

“Turnout was much better than in previous elections. People really did get the message,” Rabbi Shmuel Lefkowitz, vice president for community affairs at Agudath Israel, told Hamodia yesterday.

Felder points out that the success of this year’s various GOTV activities was amplified by a citywide lull in turnout.

Even if voting levels within Jewish neighborhoods would have held steady, “it would have been a tremendous accomplishment,” making the Jewish vote a larger share of the overall tally, Felder noted. “The increase is a big deal.”

Citywide, 1.1 million New Yorkers voted in the general election on Tuesday, compared to 1.3  million in 2005. The city has 4.5 million registered voters.

The efforts to instill a sense of the role of community voting statistics in getting results from officials, and a greater commitment to voting, intensified.

Felder attributes the breakthrough progress in Boro Park to more personalized GOTV methods that raise accountability.

This year’s efforts surpassed the usual statements issued in media and other mass techniques. Days before the election, Boro Park and Williamsburg schools sent home with children letters instructing parents to vote. Parents had to report on the form whether they voted. If they did not vote, they had to list the reason. The letters, written in Yiddish and English, were then to be returned to the school, so the parents knew their compliance would be monitored.

In addition, the students were enlisted to urge their parents to vote, putting more heat on them to model responsibility.

The new approach was introduced by United Federation of Torah Institutions, a group of about 40 yeshivah administrators and Rabbi Shiya Ostreicher, who  is credited with orchestrating the yeshivah-based GOTV approach.

Agudath Israel, TEACH NYS, United FTI and other organizations stepped up their GOTV campaigns this year after struggling to fend off harsh cuts in government funding or services, or to make headway on key political agenda items. The community was told in various media that askanim will have better negotiating power with officials if more potential votes are at stake.

UFTI and Rabbi Ostreicher also instituted a bilingual, no-waiting hotline to inform callers of their polling site’s location.

The yeshivah administrators and staff that played a key role in pressing parent bodies to vote “are the heroes. They worked very hard,” said Felder.

NEW YORK, (HNS) – After the stunning close race in NYC, it seems that Bloomberg; by being himself, is not into at least pretending to take a new more humble approach in governing. But most analysts see a weakened Mayor, facing a more strengthened Democratic opposition to his -up to now- seemingly unopposed rule of Gotham city.

As for winners and losers, in New York City’s ofter fractious Orthodox Jewish community; it seems that the intensive efforts by activists to bring out the vote (BOTV), did create an above average turnout. It remains to be seen which candidate benefited from those efforts.

Most Orthodox Jewish publications, and leaders of various important endorsed Bloomberg, reportedly this was achieved by the Bloomberg campaign through various methods, some of which seem to have backfired on the campaign.  Rumors were spread in local synagogues and by emails, blogs, and text messages, that most if not all Jewish endorsements were obtained by -more ‘stick’ than ‘carrot’- methods of the Jewish section of the Mayor’s campaign.

Reports of the heavy handed tactics by Mike Botnick, Bloomberg’s Liaison for the Jewish community, have been circulating within the orthodox community,might have contributed significantly to a large part of the community ignoring, the lukewarm endorsements for the mayor.  Detailed results will be available later in the week for pundits to go over with a fine comb.

Should there be a showing of a noticeable protest vote for Thompson, in heavily Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods such as Boro-Park, it would be no small victory for Assemblyman Dov Hikind and others who took the risk against all odds in support of the Bloomfield challenger. Hikind as a power broker, who never expected a mass defection from the once solid support the mayor got from the Orthodox community , will be able to crow about his power to influence the Orthodox vote, even if only a noticeable minority of Hasidic voters registered their dismay at the Mayor by throwing their support for Thompson.