Jewish Vote in New York Primaries

Daniel P. Moynihan, the former United States Ambassador to the United Nations, won the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate yesterday by gathering a bare one percent more of the votes than his chief rival in the five-way contest. Rep. Bella Abzug.

Abzug, one of two Jews in a race that was marked by strong appeals to Jewish voters, demanded a recount of the vote. With 99 percent of the vote in by early afternoon, Moynihan had 326,432 votes, 36 percent, and Abzug had 317,259. votes, 35 percent. Moynihan will now face incumbent Sen. James Buckley, who won a clear-cut 3-1 victory in the Republican primary contest against Rep. Peter A. Peyser. Buckley, like Peyser, is a supporter of Israel and the struggle of Soviet Jewry.

Moynihan, Abzug, and two other Democratic contenders, City Council President Paul O’Dwyer and Abraham Hirschfeld, an Israeli immigrant who builds parking garages, campaigned heavily in Jewish areas and stressed issues of Jewish concern in their campaigns. The other candidate former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark, who finished third in the race with 11 percent of the vote, while seeking Jewish votes, did not stress Jewish issues.

Moynihan’s television advertisements showed him attacking the resolution linking Zionism with racism at last year’s General Assembly session. Abzug stressed her votes in support of Israel and her attack on the Arab boycott. O’Dwyer. pointed to his long record in support of Israel going back to the time he helped the Irgun during the War of Independence. Hirschfeld, who vied with O’Dwyer for last place, each taking only nine percent of the vote, had campaign material that always noted that he had fought in the Hagana during Israel’s War of Independence.

JEWISH ISSUES APPROACH RAPPED

The reason for the stress on the Jewish vote is that New York’s Jewish voters traditionally vote in primaries in larger numbers than any other group. This proved to be important in a race where less than 25 percent of the registered Democrats turned out at the polls yesterday. However, some Jews criticized what they considered a blatant appeal to Jews on Jewish issues alone. They charged this was a parochial attitude which they said made it appear that Jews were not concerned with the many other issues facing the country.

But, it apparently paid off for both Moynihan and Abzug who together won 70 percent of the Jewish vote, and especially for Moynihan, who has won a great deal of popularity in the Jewish community because of his support of Israel at the UN.

Moynihan’s largest plurality in New York City was in Borough Park which has the largest concentration of Orthodox Jews in the world and where he was 55 percent of the vote. Citywide. Moynihan won about 40 percent of the Jewish vote and Abzug some 30 percent. Abzug lost, narrowly in the Riverdale section of the Bronx. Among the Jewish voters of the West Side, whom she represents in Congress, she apparently was the top vote getter.

In another primary battle, Don Friedman, a Colorado state legislator for a number of years, won the Republican nomination for the U.S. House of Representatives from Colorado’s First District and will oppose the incumbent, Mrs. Patricia Schroeder, a Democrat in her second term in the House. Friedman, who is of an old Denver Jewish family, is in real estate and investments in Denver. He is a member of Temple Micah.