From Capital New York:
Yossi Gestetner, a Hasidic operative who worked for the New York State G.O.P. as a liaison to religious Jewish voters, resigned from his position today, writing on Twitter that his job had become a “distraction” to the party.
Shortly after that, The Jewish Channel wrote, “Prior to our airing an investigation and interview tonight, @nygop official @yossigestetner has resigned.”
A source familiar with the situation said Gestetner’s resignation was the result of that interview, in which, according to the source, Gestetner suggested that he himself was not a Zionist. The source said Gestetner also contended in the interview that the G.O.P. was actually the party of big government, and defended his association with a Orthodox Brooklyn man who was accused of sexual abuse*.
For his part, Gestetner says his anti-Zionism has nothing to do with it, and instead he’s just the victim of an old fashioned political deal cut between Democratic state senate candidate Simcha Felder and Republican State Senate leader Dean Skelos.
Some reports, based on a Jewish Channel that has less views in a busy week than what I have on a slow day, suggest I resigned because I didn’t pledge loyally to the Israeli flag in a recent interview. This is nuts because I am more pragmatic on the Israeli issue than Satmar; a community that Skelos and the GOP is more than happy to work with. (In fact, at age 21 my op-ed ran in the Rockland Journal News ripping the Neturei Karta; a public stance that few Israeli-flag-waving Americans have done at age forty). Some claim that my personal stance how to approach the abuse cases in the Orthodox Jewish Community was an issue with the GOP. This too is crap, since my opinion is similar to the one taken by Agudath Israel; an Orthodox Jewish organization that Mr. Skelos and the GOP work with all the time. Therefore, I do maintain again that Skelos’ boys and my work to push fair and balanced treatment of Orthodox Jews in the public arena, has been a distraction to the State Committee, and as such I stepped aside.
Religion when combined with politics, when combined with pro or anti zionism……what a can of worms.
At Fallen Angel the consensus seems to be that Gestetner’s chief misfortune was being a paid PR person for a “community demonstration” at a DA office to assert the rights of accused against vilification in the press preceding their trials and thus undermining impartiality of those trials. Which is fine.
The problem is that these issues are explosive any which way — accusations of sexual crimes against children, and in this particular case the “community speakers” — not Gestetner — call the accusers “a guided missile directed at Hassidic community”.
How difficult those issues are one can see in another case that made newspaper titles, a 22 year old Hassidic girl accusing some Blacks that they raped and pimped her since she was 13, but she also recalled her accusation and the cases are total mess that lead, among others, to resignations in the same DA office. How the family did not notice that the daughter’s livestyle was unorthodox in more than one sense of the word? Of course, it is not always easy.
Concerning the Zionism angle, it is a bit hard to tell. Asked by a Jewish reporter, Gestetner basically said that he is neither Zionist nor anti-Zionist (like some OTHER Hasidim). Does it pass political kashrut test in NYC?
This was a GOP shafting…….they can’t have a guy who defends in any way, rightly or wrongly, accused/suspected child abusers……plus one that is not totally on board with zio Israel first……doesn’t fit their political strategy for this election.
Yep, American, your take strikes me as most probable.
For the record, Failed Messiah makes the essential point about Gestetner’s job.
“Gestetner’s job title was, in fact, “Director of Jewish Outreach.” Note the title says nothing about what type of Jews, Orthodox or not, haredi or not, Gestetner was supposed to reach out to. His job title implies all Jews, and that’s how the GOP itself presented it last week.”
link to failedmessiah.typepad.com