Charles Barron Loses Race for Congress
Charles Barron Image by Getty images
New York City Councilman Charles Barron, a fierce critic of Israeli policy who was opposed by Jewish lawmakers and top party officials, was trounced his bid to secure the Democratic nomination in a Brooklyn congressional race.
Charles Barron Image by Getty images
Barron lost decisively to state Assemblyman Hakeen Jeffries Tuesday in the fight to succeed 24-year incumbent Rep. Edolphus Towns, also a Democrat, who is retiring at the end of this year. Jeffries attracted support from pro-Israel activists throughout the city and around the country.
With 54% of precincts reporting, the Associated Press deemed Jeffries the easy winner, 75% of the vote to Barron’s 25%, the Daily News reported
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/charles-barron-accept-landslide-loss-brooklyn-8th-congressional-district-hakeem-jeffries-article-1.1102968#ixzz1yze887PE
Several current and former New York Jewish elected officials had denounced Barron’s candidacy to represent New York’s 8th Congressional District, citing what they called his anti-Israel views. Ex-Mayor Ed Koch, Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), City Councilman David Greenfield and state Assemblyman Dov Hikind, among others, gathered earlier this month in front of the Museum of Jewish Heritage-A Living Memorial to the Holocaust in downtown Battery Park to call Barron an “enemy of the State of Israel” and the New York Jewish community.
Barron’s candidacy drew widespread opposition, including from the liberal group MoveOn and Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, who is running as a Republican for Congress in New Jersey.
The politicians at Battery Park expressed support for Jeffries and called Barron an “anti-Semite,” “hateful” and a “bigot.”
Barron has compared the Israeli treatment of the Palestinians to the Nazi treatment of Jews during World War II. He also has publicly praised foreign dictators such as the late Muammar Gadhafi of Libya and Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe.
In other New York races, Rory Lancman, who is Jewish, lost to Grace Meng in a Queens congressional race. Republican Rep. Bob Turner, who famously grabbed Anthony Weiner’s old congressional seat, lost a bid for the GOP Senate nod.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
