It’s Jew vs. Jew.
Nobody will be inhaling tonight’s debate featuring gubernatorial candidates Carl Paladino and Andrew Cuomo, plus five lesser lights, more intensely than Rabbi Herschel Kurzrock.
As chief justice of New York’s rabbinical court, Kurzrock has settled hundreds of Jewish divorces, saving his flock “a fortune on lawyers.” As pastoral guide to Orthodox residents of Brooklyn, Kurzrock has a duty to side with the man who best upholds family values.
But calls flooded in from The Bronx to Los Angeles after Republican Paladino, posing with bearded rabbis, accused homosexuals of “brainwashing” kids. It’s not that they didn’t agree with him. On the contrary. Kurzrock’s friends and followers were obsessed with an age-old type of question: “Is Carl Paladino good for the Jews?”
“Regarding the gay business,” he’s 100 percent right,” Kurzrock told me. “No doubt about it. It’s an abomination. Prohibited. A cardinal sin.
“Andrew Cuomo is too liberal. But Paladino is a wild man, and that’s the problem. I’m waiting for the debate. That will tell the difference.”
When Paladino blundered like a bull onto the gay scene, angering his family and the gay elite with inartful, to say the least, pronouncements about pride parades, he may not have realized the rift he created.
A fault line has erupted between ultraconservative voters chafing at New York’s ultraliberal rule. Nowhere is this division more evident than in the Hasidic community, where some residents cringe at the annual gyrations of dancers in the Gay Pride Parade.
“It’s over the top,” said Joel, who manages a children’s clothing store in Borough Park. He said bringing his baby son to the pride bacchanal is “difficult to even think about.”
“The entire community will be behind Paladino, no question about it,” he said.
“We appreciate moral people,” echoed a young woman.
But will they vote for him?
Some Orthodox Jews confess they’ll hold their noses and vote for Democrat Cuomo, but not because they like him. They figure the politically connected war horse is more apt to bring home the kosher bacon, though they can’t understand how a father would drag his daughters to parades featuring men in jockstraps, an event that makes even some of my gay friends uncomfortable.
“He’s not running for rabbi,” shrugged Lubavitcher Rabbi Shea Hecht.
Hecht says he’d befriend a homosexual, rent him an apartments and maybe vote for one. But on the subject of parades, he sounds exactly like his colleague.
“The problem of the people in the gay community is they have to flaunt their lifestyle. They’re shoving it in our faces. It’s a chutzpah. That drives me crazy. They do not have tolerance for people who don’t agree with them.”
Assemblyman Dov Hikind, an Orthodox Jew, said, “There’s a lot of underlying anger in our community.
“I’ve never been to one of those parades,” he said. “But one thing about Andrew Cuomo, I’ve dealt with his office these last years and we have a great relationship. Do I disagree with him on some issues? Absolutely.”
Truth is, New York is prime for a right-leaning leader, just as blue-state Massachusetts voters installed Scott Brown in Teddy Kennedy’s old Senate seat. But Paladino is as far from the polished Brown as you can get within the species.
“He’s crude,” said Catholic League President Bill Donohue, who nonetheless calls the gay parade a “freak show.”
“Personally, I’m not a Cuomo fan. But if you’re running for the state’s highest office, you would expect to behave with a certain degree of decorum,” he said.
“Now he won’t like me either!”
Oddly, Rabbi Yehuda Levin, who penned the speech on gays read by Paladino, rescinded his support after the candidate apologized for the speech.
But, he said he’s “keeping the light on,” should Paladino return to the fold.
Tonight, maybe we’ll find out who he is.
CALL THE PENALTY ON GALS
Whatever Brett Favre’s shortcomings, observers want to know why curvy sideline reporter Jenn Sterger waited two years to embarrass the former New York Jet quarterback with claims that he sexted photos of his mini manhood.
“I know he’s not an angel (and why has his wife tolerated this for so long) but . . . Does anyone find it funny, whether it be [Jenn Sterger] or the Citibank worker [Debrahlee Lorenzana], claiming mistreatment, these women have pictures of themselves posing, provocatively or scantily clad, instantaneously?” observed one reader. Don’t forget Mexican reporter and Jet magnet/publicity hound Ines Sainz.
“Perhaps it’s not so much about the men who think with regions below their necks as it is about the preying con artists looking for notoriety, publicity and a big payday down the road.”
By crying wolf in pursuit of attention or a payoff, some women will set back the clock in the fight for sexual equality. Who will believe a genuinely wronged woman now?
She deserves a gold mine, but he should get the shaft
The entire planet breathed a sigh of relief as 33 Chilean miners were brought to the earth’s surface after 69 days trapped underground. That is, with the possible exception of miner Yonni Barrios.
He was greeted in the daylight not by his wife, Marta, but by his lusty mistress, Susana Valenzuela. While his brethren enjoy lavish meals and the comfort of family, he’s got the mother of all divorces to look forward to.
Let that be a lesson to cheating spouses: You never know when you might get caught a half-mile underground with billions watching your every breath. Barrios may be the only man alive who misses the darkness.
Bedbugs can thank all the eco pests
Now that bloodsucking bedbugs have crept into the high-rent precincts of Lincoln Center and the Waldorf, a move is afoot to compel the government to take another look at the environmentalists’ bogeyman — DDT.
The feds banned the chemical in 1972 based on claims that it was unkind to bald eagles. We’ve been scratching ever since. In Africa, the World Health Organization endorsed its return four years ago, but the WHO has since succumbed to pressure and is snatching it back. Millions die of malaria as a result.
Now there’s a chance to pressure the Environmental Protection Agency to eradicate bedbugs before they head to Park Avenue — or to your bed.
Bring back DDT. Save the mansions. Save the world.
The good Dr. Quinn
Forever searching for a reason to exist, the City Council tried to mandate paid sick leave for employees of small businesses, a guaranteed job-killer in a recession. But Speaker Christine Quinn scotched the deal. I don’t believe it was due to her desire to be mayor.
She killed the sick bill because it was the right thing to do. If only the rest of the council had citizens’ best interests at heart.