He has published poetry, sat in a Soviet prison, collected Russian religious icons and treated drug addicts with a tough programme that has drawn praise but also criminal prosecution. Now Yevgeny Roizman is about to begin his latest incarnation, as mayor of Russia’s fourth-largest city – one of the highest posts to be held by…
The Jews of New York like Mayor Michael Bloomberg. As Josh Nathan-Kazis notes in the Forward, 64% of New York City Jewish voters think that the outgoing Bloomberg is doing an “excellent” or “good” job, compared with just 45% of registered voters overall. But their enthusiasm for the mayor did not carry over to votes…
New York City mayoral candidate Bill Thompson, who placed second in the Democratic primary, will concede to top vote-getter Bill de Blasio and avert a bruising runoff, local media reported on Monday. Thompson planned to make an announcement at 11 a.m. EDT (1500 GMT), according to sources cited by New York’s Daily News and NY1…
After 12 years and three terms as mayor, Michael Bloomberg somehow still can’t figure out how the average New Yorker thinks. The out-of-touch billionaire who bought a trifecta free pass to Gracie Mansion is leaving office this year. But he couldn’t resist the urge to make an idiot of himself on the way out the…
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said the Democratic front-runner to succeed him as mayor is waging a “class warfare and racist” campaign, according to an interview published on New York Magazine’s website on Saturday. Bill de Blasio, the city’s public advocate who has built his campaign around the issue of rising economic inequality, has been…
In his first five-year term as mayor of the city holy to the world’s three monotheistic religions, Nir Barkat has limited ultra-Orthodox power in the city, slowed the migration of non-Haredim out of Jerusalem and boosted secular culture — a low priority for his Haredi predecessor — with a budget increase of 300%. But one…
The political leaders of half of Brooklyn’s Satmar Hasidic community announced they would back New York City Democratic mayoral frontrunner Bill de Blasio today, setting the stage for an epic get-out-the-vote showdown in Williamsburg next week. “All in all we felt it’s a no-brainer, the shidduch between him and us,” said Isaac Sofer, a leader…
New York mayoral candidate Bill Thompson’s political tour guides to Hasidic Brooklyn are two guys named Joseph — both famous influence-peddlers with strong community connections and checkered pasts. When he campaigned in the ultra-Orthodox neighborhood of Williamsburg on Labor Day, Thompson was accompanied by Hasidic fixers Joseph Menczer and Joseph Goldberger, the New York Observer…
