Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Scandal-Scarred Jewish Poverty Group Gets New Leader In City Councilman

David Greenfield, an influential and well-connected member of the New York City Council, will lead the scandal-scarred Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty after his term ends at the end of this year, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Greenfield represents much of the Orthodox Brooklyn neighborhood of Boro Park in the council. The former head of the Sephardic Community Federation, he has close ties to the Orthodox Union, and good relationships with county Democratic party leaders in Brooklyn.

The Met Council, now run by former Touro College administrator Alan Schoor, is still living in the shadow of a major scandal that engulfed the organization in 2013. William Rapfogel, the group’s longtime executive director, pled guilty three years ago to stealing more than $1 million from the organization. His predecessor also pled guilty to stealing from the group.

“I love being a councilman, it’s wonderful to be in the thick of things,” Greenfield told the Journal. “But part of the purpose of serving the public is to try to figure out where you can make the greatest impact.”

Contact Josh Nathan-Kazis at [email protected] or on Twitter, @joshnathankazis.

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.

In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.

At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.

Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we still need 300 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.

Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly. 

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Only 300 more gifts needed by April 30

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.