Mayor John V. Lindsay signed into law yesterday a bill he personally sponsored to ban elections to boards of city anti-poverty agencies in response to persistent complaints that such scheduling disfranchised observant Jews from voting in such elections. The bill generally prohibits local community elections to all quasi-official or official offices from sundown Friday through Sunday.
In signing the measure, the Mayor said there was a critical need for such legislation because it would permit “the widest community participation of the electorate” in choosing members of boards of anti-poverty agencies and local school districts.
The bill, approved by the City Council two weeks ago by a vote of 33 to 2, was introduced by Councilmen Theodore Silverman and Kenneth Haber, both of Brooklyn. The elections, originally scheduled for April, have been postponed to July.
Currently, Jews have substantial representation on the boards of only two of the city’s 26 local community anti-poverty agencies–Crown Heights and Williamsburg–the only two agencies which did not conduct their last elections on the Jewish Sabbath. A similar bill, passed by the State Legislature, is now awaiting the signature of Gov. Nelson A. Rockefeller.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
