Will he be forced to apologize again?
In this week's Suburbanite (issue dated May 24, 2006), Howard Prosnitz covers the continuing fallout from the recent Council elections. After a brief detour from the saga of the anonymous anti-Teaneck New Beginnings campaign into Senator Weinberg's complaint against Charlie Gonzalez's financial disclosures, Prosnitz dives back headfirst into the mystery surrounding the allegedly libelous attempts to rally opposition to the TNB slate through mailings and recorded phone messages. Little of the information presented should be new to Teaneck Blog readers, as it has discussed by various posters over the past two weeks.
What is new, however, is a series of on the record comments from some of the participants in the election drama. Most notable for their anger, bitterness, and blatant use of the politics of division are the remarks by none other than Joe Harris (pictured), campaign manager for the TNB team. You may remember Joe Harris as the man who first attempted to whip up anti-Orthodox Jewish sentiment by circulating a letter accusing the four candidates who happened to identify as Orthodox Jews of complicity in bigotry after the publication of an article profiling them as a group in an obscure publication called The Jewish Voice and Opinion. Shortly after, Harris was forced to backtrack and issue a public apology for his hurtful comments.
It seems that Harris succeeded in removing his foot from his mouth just in time to embarrass himself again. Handed the opportunity to exit with dignity in a sympathetic article that highlights the victimization of TNB, Harris just could not restrain himself from falling into the same bad habits.
"The New Beginnings slate did better than everybody else except the four Orthodox candidates," Harris notes, lest anybody forget the personal religious affiliation of those who outpolled his candidates (just for the sake of clarification, Lizette Parker, a TNB candidate, did attract more votes than fellow Council member elect Adam Gussen).
Then Harris goes on to make a gratuitous and offensive comment that ought to end his political career in disgrace and shame.
Referring to Councilman elect Elnatan Rudolph, who captured the two-year seat in a close race that did not involve a representative from the TNB slate, Harris says:
"Nobody knows anything about him. There is no basis for electing him other than his religion and I am opposed to electing candidates on that basis."
Not only is this inaccurate, as Rudolph actively participated in candidate forums and made his views on a variety of issues clearer than his main opponent ever did, but this is insulting to the voters of Teaneck and extremely disrespectful to Rudolph. It betrays an outlook colored by religious bias, in which Harris apparently views people by what form of religion they practice rather than as individuals to be judged on their own merits.
One is certainly entitled to criticize Rudolph and consider him an unworthy choice for Council because one disagrees with him on the issues or sees him as inexperienced. But to reduce him to a representative of a particular ethnic, racial, or religious group is vile. There is no place for that in Teaneck politics (or in any other part of an enlightened society for that matter). A comment like that should make Harris every bit as much of a pariah in Teaneck as whoever it was that sent out illegal campaign literature or spread malicious rumors about certain candidates. If Harris had said there was no basis for electing a certain candidate other than the color of his or her skin or his or her gender, he'd never show his face again. Why should this be any different?
The more he opens his mouth, the more it looks like the voters of Teaneck made the right decision in keeping Joe Harris and those who would associate with him far away from municipal government. Let's hope that is the last we hear from Joe Harris for a long time to come.
posted by Teaneck Blog @ 11:22 PM
34 Comments:
This is quite a good analysis of someone (Joe Harris) who really needs to come to the realization that Teaneck's electorate is much smarter than he gives it credit for being. But one of the real sad parts of Mr. Harris' "apology" is that he failed (or refused) to apologize to Councilmember Yitz Stern for calling him a bigot as a result of his support for 4 out the 5 winning candidates. It is also interesting to note that the 3 TNB candidates did not publicly distance themselves from their campaign chair's divisive comments. This gave the residents the clear impression that he was speaking on their behalf and agreed with what he said. Unfortunately, Harris was an active particpant in exactly the type of campaigning he allegedly abhors. Makes one want to think about where some of those anonymous mailings really came from.
Bogger, it's nice to be back on the same side more or less. A few comments:
Will he be forced to apologize again?
If he does "apologize" again, I hope that this time he will correct the glaring omission in his first "apology." I didn't totally agree with Yitz Stern's endorsements, but he absolutely did not deserve to be tagged with a scurrilous "bigotry" label, and he absolutely did not deserve to be omitted from Joe Harris's original "apology."
The new and green Suburbanite reporter described the "unpleasant odor" hanging over our town as "unfamiliar" for Teaneck. Tell that to Eleanor Kieliszek, who in 1992 (the year of Ron Schwartz's first council campaign) was the victim of an anonymous letter sent to primarily observant Jewish households. In that letter readers were told that Ms. Kieliszek (a Catholic) was "not a friend." Yitz Stern was one of five signatories (I believe all Orthodox) to a rebuttal letter that rightly condemnmed the attack letter as "scurrilous and untruthful."
Candidate Schwartz, who that year had a plank in his platform of "outreach" to the Orthodox community, was silent on this attack. His mentor Loretta Weinberg basically dismissed it as the type of politics that had gone on in Teaneck before.
In this she was right, but I do not mean to imply that two wrongs make a right. In that regard I should acknowledge that in 1995 an anonymous letter was sent out to primarily observant Jewish households attacking the opponents of my wife in her first Board of Education election. To this day she doesn't know who was behind it, but of course it was used to discredit her election.
And therein lies one problem with these types of anonymous attacks: they make it easy for the vanquished to undermine the legitimacy of the victors, while ignoring the real issues they may have lost on.
"The New Beginnings slate did better than everybody else except the four Orthodox candidates," Harris notes, lest anybody forget the personal religious affiliation of those who outpolled his candidates (just for the sake of clarification, Lizette Parker, a TNB candidate, did attract more votes than fellow Council member elect Adam Gussen).
Just for thesake of further clarification, Lenny Hennig, who trailed Ron Schwartz by 55 votes, also led fellow candidate Dennis Crowley, who ran on the New Beginnings slate, by 39 votes.
And that's another problem with the anonymous mailings that ran this year. No one can say whether or not they backfired and actually netted more votes for the targets of these attacks, while taking away votes from other deserving candidates. On the eve of the election, Councilman Randall Day (appointed to be a conciliator) recorded an automated voice message urging voters (and I'm paraphrasing) "to reject negative campaigning and support the New Beginnings slate." Asking voters to reject negative campaigning is fine, but telling them to support a particular slate was a betrayal of his commission as a council appointee. What of the candidates (perhaps all of them) who had nothing to do with these mailings?
We can't be done with Randall Day's officious council "service" soon enough.
It is these sort of last-minute machinations that call a lot of results into question: Who's to say, for instance, that except for the Randall Day-abetted backlash, Hennig would not have outpolled Schwartz, thus depriving Harris of his empty boast that "The New Beginnings slate did better than everybody else except the four Orthodox candidates"?
A word about the defeat of David Langford, whom I voted for:
No offense to Elnatan Rudolph, whom I have met, who is a good man, and who deserves a honeymoon upon taking office. But what a travesty that David Langford was defeated.
Let us not, however, kid ourselves about who defeated him. Cliff Arrington, who had no chance to begin with, harped on Langford's 2-plus-year residency. Congratulations, Ciff: you elected a candidate with less than a year's residency.
Former Township Attorney Martin Cramer made a point of undermining the legitimacy of Mr. Langford's appointment--even though he presided over the travesty of Andrew Nestor's appointment in 1995, in which NO MEETING WHATSOEVER was held before that "done deal" was presented.
Henry Pruitt, who started out supporting Mr. Langford, recorded an automated voice message endorsing only Lizette Parker and saying nothing about the candidate he promised to support.
And Loretta Weinberg, understandably sensitive about her inability to sway local elections, sent out a mailing endorsing only Lizette Parker, while also putting in a non-committal good word for more candidates than were running.
Cripes, Loretta and Henry: There were two elections going on here. Were you so selfishly afraid of losing support from the Arrington fringe that you couldn't bring yourselves endorse David Langford in his hour of need? How pathetic.
It should be noted that one of the two mailings pictured on the Suburbanite cover was sent by a registered "Political Committee" calling itself "Tax Fairness in Teaneck". The form it filed with the NJ Election Commission can be found on the online site. Labelling it as anonymous is not appropriate.
Jeff,
to further drive your point home, did everybody with caller ID notice that councilmember day's automated phone call come from the registered phone of Ron Schwartz as it registered on my caller id?
What about Loretta's letter urging people to vote for Parker because she was the only female out of 17 candidates?
What about Loretta's letter urging people to vote for Parker because she was the only female out of 17 candidates?
We didn't hear Joe Harris call her a bigot for doing that, did we?
On the other hand, does anyone know if there really was a rumor spread in the Orthodox community that if TNB won they would tear down the eruv? It was even rumored that one of the rabbis in a major Orthodox shul publicly asserted this to his congregation in his shul. If it's true, this is, IMHO, a bigger disgrace than anything Joe Harris did or said, since TNB had no position on the eruv and, to the best of my knowledge, Crowley (and perhaps Parker) did not know what an eruv is.
It appears that I will be forced (or at least shamed into) apologizing myself.
I referred to the Suburbanite reporter, Howard Prosnitz, as "new and green." This was not fair or accurate.
Mr. Prosnitz is indeed new to the Suburbanite, but anyone reading his prolific and professional works would know that he is not "green" as a reporter.
It was not my intention to suggest otherwise, though I may have unintentionally done so. More to the point, he is also not "green" when it comes to matters involving Teaneack.
I have been informed that Mr. Prosnitz lived in Teaneck for many years and even covered our town as a reporter for another local paper about ten years ago. I assumed that he came to his Teaneck assignment without prior knowledge of our town, but you know what they say about assuming.
I still maintain that the "unpleasant odor" following this election is not entirely "unfamiliar" to Teaneck. Nevertheless, I was wrong to write without real knowledge of Mr. Prosnitz's background, and I apologize to him for my careless and ass-uming phrasing.
On the other hand, does anyone know if there really was a rumor spread in the Orthodox community that if TNB won they would tear down the eruv? It was even rumored that one of the rabbis in a major Orthodox shul publicly asserted this to his congregation in his shul.
And while we're on the topic, can anyone confirm that several rabbis are planning to deliver sermons on Saturday pinning the blame for yesterday's power outage on Teaneck New Beginnings activists who were trying to tear down the eruv?
:-)
does anyone know if there really was a rumor spread in the Orthodox community that if TNB won they would tear down the eruv?
Dan, I won't be quite as dismissive of your post as our resident blogger.
However, surely you understand how rumors can grow and mutate from facts. Please look up post 234.2 on NJO's Teaneck Forum archives (http://www.nj.com/forums/teaneck) The fact is, the eruv WAS threatened, albeit by a former employee.
Just prior to the election, this former employee entered into a mutual non-disparagement agreement with township officials as part of a settlement. Not being part of that settlement, New Beginnings candidate Ron Schwartz took it as an opportunity to take pot shots at the sitting council, knowing full well that they couldn't respond to his disingenuous suggestions that they had settled because of the "merits" of the case(s).
It's not that far a jump to imagine this New Beginnings candidate had aligned himself with the former employee who threatened the eruv. Just two or three whispers away, and you've got a full-fledged rumor on your hands.
Perhaps one of the lessons for Mr. Schwartz and his cronies is, don't be so opportunistically disingenuous. I could point out another lession, but I've already been viciously libeled once this month.
to the best of my knowledge, Crowley (and perhaps Parker) did not know what an eruv is.
Hmmm, interesting if true....
Dan, I won't be quite as dismissive of your post as our resident blogger.
For the record, despite my attempt at humor, I wasn't being dismissive.
I do recognize that DMRosenblum was posing a legitimate question that I too would like to see answered, but it had been asked before in this forum and had gone unanswered. I don't know if this is because the rumors are unfounded or simply because those in a position to confirm their veracity don't read this blog, but the theory Jeff Ostroth advances certainly seems plausible.
Fact: there were people who were actively spreading what they acknowledged was a rumor about "candidates running who would be happy to take down the eruv."
Fact: the folks spreading this didn't bother to verify the truth of this rumor.
Fact: the person sending the attached email felt that this rumor was sufficient to justify voting for four particular candidates
Fact: the existence of this email is not a rumor
Here's a copy of the email I received on April 25th. The email was forwarded to me by someone who passed it on to me, and was written by someone who should no better based on involvement in community service.
I expressed my objection to the individual who sent it to me. In an unusual display of spousal agreement, my wife passed her equally strenuous objections to the author.
As offensive as I find the anonymous postcards and phone calls, I am equally disturbed that someone would write this email, send it out to their mailing list and have no qualms about signing their name to this nonsense.
Decide for yourself if this constitutes responsible politics (N.B. the name and email address of the sending party have been x'ed out):
From: xxxx, xxxxx [mailto:xxxxx@xxxxxx.xxx]
Sent: Tuesday, April 25, 2006 4:40 PM
Subject: Important Teaneck Council Election Info
Fact: The Teaneck Town Council election will take place on May 9.
Fact: There are 5 open seats.
Fact: There are 17 people running.
Fact: These are the Orthodox Jews running: Katz, Gussen, Rudolph, Feit.
Opinion: It would be in our common best interest to get these guys elected.
Rumor: There are candidates running who would be happy to take down the eruv.
If you need more reasons to support the folks mentioned above, please let me know.
Request: Please forward this info to all appropriate Teaneck friends and family.
Request: Please vote on May 9.
Thanks,
XXXXXX
Here's a copy of the email I received on April 25th. The email was forwarded to me by someone who passed it on to me, and was written by someone who should no better based on involvement in community service.
I expressed my objection to the individual who sent it to me. In an unusual display of spousal agreement, my wife passed her equally strenuous objections to the author.
I guess everyone is entitled to alansohn's (and his spouse's) opinion.
Thank you, Alan, for shedding some light on this question and also for expressing an opinion that quite obviously isn't appreciated by everyone.
Alan - I want to thank you as well for taking a principled stand on this divisive issue.
I second swurgle's remarks
Referring back to the comment that it was inappropriate for Randall Day to endorse TNB in a robo call: how come you don't also condemn Yitz Stern's endless robo calls endorsing the "Frum Four?" (I got no fewer than 4.) And, not to beat a dead horse, but obviously people were supposed to vote for them based on religion: what else did they have in common? Oh, yeah--fiscal responsibility, just like every other candidate. But on the ONLY watershed issue in this campaign--rent control--two were opposed (Gussen and Rudolph), one was in favor (Feit), and one (Katz, who is a landlord) has recused himself. So, at risk of being branded an anti-Semite myself, Bokar Tov (loosely translated, wake up and smell the coffee)! Religious chauvinism played a central role in this election, like it or not.
I didn't see this until a few days ago and felt no urgency to respond right away. But for the benefit of the one or two who may revisit this weeks-old thread:
Referring back to the comment that it was inappropriate for Randall Day to endorse TNB in a robo call: how come you don't also condemn Yitz Stern's endless robo calls endorsing the "Frum Four?" (I got no fewer than 4.)
The short answer is that I don't think the two situations are analogous. Randall Day was appointed to fill a council vacancy at a time of much controversy and contention. While some people have expressed disagreement with this assessment, I think it was implicit in his commission as a unanimous council appointee that he would stay above the political fray. Had he simply urged voters to reject negative politics, he might have. But he went beyond that and took a particular side in a multi-sided election race.
Needless to say, as an elected councilman Yitz Stern did not share the same implicit obligation as Rev. Day. By the way, I am on record (see above) as saying I didn't totally agree with Mr. Stern's endorsements. That said, it must also be noted that he never mentioned the "Frum-ness" of the candidates and did express confidence that they would represent all the people.
And, not to beat a dead horse, but obviously people were supposed to vote for them based on religion: what else did they have in common?
Seeing how I, a Christian, voted for two of them and could have easily voted for three (I swapped out Kevie Feit for Adam Gussen at the last minute because I figured Feit was a shoo-in and Gussen had a good chance of stopping Ron Schwartz), I think they had more in common than just their religion.
But on the ONLY watershed issue in this campaign--rent control--two were opposed (Gussen and Rudolph), one was in favor (Feit), and one (Katz, who is a landlord) has recused himself.
Do you seriously think THAT was the ONLY watershed issue? Not property taxes, not the union revolts, not the idea that the council should take stands on national issues, not the overreaction to an article in an obscure right-wing paper, not some of the candidates themselves and their supporters? For me and I suspect a lot of people, one "watershed" issue was the spectre of a New Beginnings sweep and a Ron Schwartz mayoralty.
So, at risk of being branded an anti-Semite myself,
I wouldn't brand you or anyone who's been vocal on this issue an anti-semite. That would be as wrong as the branding of others bigots.
Bokar Tov (loosely translated, wake up and smell the coffee)! Religious chauvinism played a central role in this election, like it or not.
I suppose it did for some people, as did race and gender for some other people. (Got any theories as to why Lizette Parker outpolled her TNB running mates by 918 and 1,012 votes respectively?) But I think for most voters trying to make a decision in this 17-candidate race it was more complicated.
And, it's worth repeating that Yitz Stern did not deserve to be called a bigot.
Don't you agree?
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