Tuesday’s elections to the Poverty Board in the Rockaways resulted in Jews winning two seats. But three other Jewish candidates were disqualified on a technicality and are challenging the elections in court. The Jewish winners are Joseph Koenigsberg and Bernard Fuchs.
Jerome Hipscher, Murray Goldstein and Rabbi Herschel Solnica of the Young Israel of Rockaway were informed by telegram last Saturday, three days before the elections, that they were disqualified because they lived outside the designated poverty area in Arverne, a heavily Jewish-populated area with a large percentage of elderly Jewish poor.
Backed by the Jewish Community Council of Rockaway, the three, who live directly across the street from the poverty demarcation line, obtained a show cause order Tuesday morning from the State Supreme Court in Queens to stay the elections, which were scheduled to begin 10 o’clock that morning.
Justice Daniel E. Fitzpatrick ordered that the court ruling be immediately dispatched to the Rockaway Community Corporation and to the headquarters of the Council Against Poverty (CAP). The elections took place nevertheless, minus the names of the three candidates, who charge that they were illegal because the election bylaws require five days to elapse between a disqualification notice and the day of election in order to give the disqualified candidates an opportunity to challenge the board’s decision.
Rabbi Solnica called the decision an “outrage” in view of CAP’s election master plan which, he said, stipulates that all major ethnic groups may supply an alternate candidate to the one disqualified. “We were disqualified unconstitutionally without a hearing and without due process,” he claimed. “Furthermore,” he said, “the results give the Jewish community in Arverne absolutely no representation.”
The three candidates charged their disqualification was illegal in view of a letter they had received June 20 from Corinthia Shaw, chairman of the CAP’s Central Board of Elections. The letter stated, “It is my pleasure to inform you that the Central Board of Elections has reviewed your petition and has certified it. You are listed as an official candidate.”
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.
