Jewish Group Fights Sabbath Schedules for Poverty Agency Elections

The New York Association of Jewish Community and Anti-Poverty Workers said today it had won a “major victory” in its fight against the setting of elections on the Jewish Sabbath for anti-poverty agencies in the city’s poverty areas. Dates for the annual elections are set by the Council Against Poverty, the city’s policy-making body for anti-poverty programs. David Farber, executive director of the 100-member association, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that his group had protested to the Council Against Poverty when it announced that elections this year in 15 of the 25 poverty areas for boards of Community Corporations, as the locally-elected poverty agencies are called, had been scheduled for Saturday. Sept. 19. The Council Against Poverty said it had chosen that date “to insure that poor people would come out and vote.” The community corporations study and make recommendations on outlays of about $43 million in federal and city funds for anti-poverty programs in their areas. The operating arm of the Council Against Poverty is the Community Development Agency. Two of the community corporations, those of Crown Heights and Williamsburg, have Jewish representation on their boards.

The Council Against Poverty made two concessions on the complaints by the Association, Mr. Farber said. One was that elections for four of the community corporations were set for Sept. 15. Three of these–Crown Heights, the Lower East Side and Williamsburg–were listed for the mid-week balloting because they have large numbers of Jewish residents. The Crown Heights election was postponed indefinitely, purportedly because of rising tensions between Jews and blacks in the area over distribution of anti-poverty funds there. The Lower East Side and the Williamsburg elections were held on Sept. 15. The initial results in the Williamsburg elections election, subject to validation, indicated a drop of Jewish board members from five to three. Mr. Farber said the other concession was that the voting hours for the Sept. 19 elections were ordered extended to 10:30 p.m. to permit observant Jews to vote at the end of the Sabbath period. In a letter to Mayor John V. Lindsay on Sept. 11, the Association protested the special arrangements, declaring that it was opposed to “any government-mandated or sponsored election on a Sabbath day.”

The Association told the Mayor that there were other areas in the city containing “significant” numbers of Jewish residents, citing the Upper West Side, the Middle West Side, the Lower West Side, East New York and the Rockaways. In addition, the Association said that other community-oriented elections, such as for district leaders, councilmen, state senators and other elective offices. could–by the precedent for the poverty area elections–also be held on the Jewish Sabbath to achieve “maximum participation” in the city’s poverty areas. The Association subsequently filed a petition for an injunction for that purpose in the New York State Supreme Court before Justice Arnold Fein. At a hearing on Sept. 17, Herbert Kramer, a former U.S. assistant district attorney, appeared for the association. The plaintiff was Susan Tanenbaum, a resident of the Middle West Side poverty area, who contended that the extended Sabbath voting hours did not give her sufficient time.

The attorney contended that when one group was permitted to vote during the day hours for a total of 12 hours, while another group, the observant Jews, could vote only at night for two hours, the arrangement constituted “blatant discrimination.” He also argued that the observant Jews could not act as poll watchers for most of the balloting. Justice Fein denied the application because it had been filed so close to the election but warned that the city was “treading on grave constitutional grounds” in ordering elections on a Saturday. Mr. Farber said the association held an emergency session last Sunday and decided against a legal effort to have the elections declared invalid because it could create “serious turmoil” in the poverty areas. The association meanwhile praised Jules Sugarman, administrator of the city’s Human Resources Administration. The city poverty agencies are divisions of the HRA. After an association-sponsored protest meeting at City Hall on Sept. 10, Mr. Sugarman arranged to provide city funds for announcements in the Yiddish press and on Yiddish-language radio programs on poverty elections. The association had complained that the CDA had ignored repeated requests from Jewish delegate agencies for such funds.