{"id":238292,"date":"2026-05-20T18:15:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-20T18:15:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/238292\/"},"modified":"2026-05-20T18:15:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-20T18:15:11","slug":"manhattan-race-to-replace-cong-nadler-heats-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/238292\/","title":{"rendered":"Manhattan Race to Replace Cong. Nadler Heats Up"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\"\"Onstage (l-r) are Assemblyman Micah Lasher; moderator Josh Kraushaar, editor-in-chief of the newsletter Jewish Insider; Assemblyman Alex Bores; and constitutional attorney George Conway. (Credit Marc Gronich)<\/p>\n

Next month, enrolled Manhattan voters in the Democratic party will be going to the polls to take the first step deciding which one of six candidates will succeed the retiring 78-year-old Rep. Jerrold Nadler, who has represented the borough in Congress since 1992. Prior to that he was a member of the New York State Assembly.<\/p>\n

Six Democratic hopefuls have emerged as contenders for the seat, which Nadler described to The Jewish Link as the safest Democratic seat in the country. \u201cIf my district ever went Republican then there isn\u2019t a congressional district in the country that would be safe,\u201d Nadler said.<\/p>\n

The six contenders are constitutional lawyer George Conway, 62; two members of the New York State Assembly \u2014 Micah Lasher, 44, and Alex Bores, 35; attorney, writer and political commentator Jack Schlossberg, 33; Nina Schwalbe, 60; a public health researcher who holds a Ph.D. in public health and Laura Dunn, 40, a civil and victim rights attorney.<\/p>\n

\"\"Prior to beginning the congressional candidate forum, Rabbi Daniel Sherman, spiritual leader of the West Side Institutional Synagogue, warms up the crowd. In the background is Assemblyman Alex Bores (left) and attorney George Conway. (Credit: Marc Gronich)<\/p>\n

Earlier this month the latest of 12 planned panel discussions took place at the West Side Institutional Synagogue, a modern Orthodox congregation on West 76th Street. The evening was moderated by Josh Kraushaar, editor-in-chief of the online newsletter Jewish Insider. Only Conway, Lasher and Bores attended the forum. Schlossberg, Schwalbe and Dunn did not attend.<\/p>\n

\u201cI approached the candidates. The community wants to be incredibly engaged or has become incredibly engaged with politics. It was important for us to have this venue to be able to have a relationship and to hear from the candidates themselves,\u201d WSIS Rabbi Daniel Sherman told The Jewish Link. \u201cIt\u2019s incredibly important for the community to be engaged in a very serious way with the issues and the candidates at all levels and all parties. It was a Jewish community forum. The questions were all heavily tilted toward a concern and priority to our community.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Assemblyman Micah Lasher waits to be called upon to kick off the forum with the first answer to a question.
(Credit: Marc Gronich)<\/p>\n

The debate seemed, at times, to be a lovefest between Lasher, Bores and Conway as they agreed on every issue pertaining to Israel, antisemitism, new federal education tax credit for private and public schools, Iran policy, Block the Bombs, buffer zone legislation around houses of worship and Artificial Intelligence (AI). The one issue they differed on was how they would communicate with President Donald Trump if elected to Congress.<\/p>\n

Kraushaar wanted to know from the candidates their reaction to Trump\u2019s policies as it pertains to antisemitism on college campuses and what specific steps would they support as a member of Congress to protect Jewish students and the harassment that\u2019s been taking place.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we saw the anti-Israel rhetoric at Columbia University, I called that out. I have repeatedly spoken out. And more than that, it\u2019s the power of righteousness,\u201d Lasher said. \u201cThere are a bunch of pieces where you have to speak out with moral clarity, build up governmental power in ways that are effective and build political strength for people in the Jewish community or to elect people to office who are willing to stand up, speak out and act likewise. I am personally motivated to do that as a member of Congress.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Assemblyman Alex Bores explains his position to the audience.
(Credit: Marc Gronich)<\/p>\n

Bores took a wider approach: \u201cThere are other organizations that collect this data and call it out. The ADL for one. We need to be clear and unambiguous on antisemitism coming from either party. We need to be taking strong actions to fight it,\u201d he said. \u201cIn New York City alone, as of January, year over year from the year before, antisemitic incidents in New York were up 182%. This is not a one party problem. This is a societal problem and we need to address it equally.\u201d<\/p>\n

Conway said, \u201cWe live in an era where our president is encouraging hatred among groups against smaller identifiable groups, against immigrants. He has given a permission structure for people to be their worst selves. One major step that we will have to take as a nation to get beyond antisemitism and all the other hatreds is to remove Donald Trump.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lasher is carrying the bill in the state assembly to add buffer zones around houses of worship.<\/p>\n

\u201cRight now, we are in the middle of trying to pass a state law to establish a buffer zone around houses of worship,\u201d Lasher said, to which Bores added: \u201cWe can protect the right to express speech, to express political opinions. We can also express disapproval of expanded settlements in the West Bank and say that trying to intimidate people entering a house of worship should be out of bounds,\u201d Bores told the audience of approximately 100. \u201cBoth of those things can and should be true. I support Micah\u2019s bill on buffer zones. I\u2019m a proud co-sponsor of it. I think we should pass it and we could look at things like that federally.<\/p>\n

\"\"One-issue candidate, attorney George Conway, repeatedly said during the forum that he wants to get rid of President Donald Trump. (Credit: Marc Gronich)<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to be able to protect everyone\u2019s ability to worship while we\u2019re protecting everyone\u2019s free speech. Everyone can be safe. We should change what the security grant funds can be used for. We should be expanding the amount of money that we are giving to security grants. Then everyone can be safe and we should change what that money can be used for. Right now, it can only be used for infrastructure and not for people. A lot of the costs of protecting these spaces are people. We can make those amendments.\u201d<\/p>\n

Conway echoed the sentiments of his two opponents. \u201cWe need protections like my fellow candidates have advocated for to create buffer zones around places of worship and other mechanisms to prevent violence. That being said, it doesn\u2019t excuse any violence anywhere, inside, outside a buffer. We have to call that out. People who engage in that kind of violence and engage in that kind of rhetoric that encourages violence must be punished to the extent permissible in the Constitution.\u201d<\/p>\n

The candidates also weighed in on the future of Israel.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would speak from my heart as someone who shares the pain and the anxiety of everyone in this room about what is going to happen to Israel and what is going to happen to the Jewish community in America,\u201d Lasher said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would show that you can be someone who can get support from progressive groups and still stand for supporting our allies, supporting a safe, democratic Jewish state,\u201d Bores said. \u201cYou need to be able to engage in all of the communities in order to do that. I would be very happy to play that role in Congress.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI would stand up against singling out Israel in an effort by some people to score political points. It\u2019s just wrong, it\u2019s destructive and it promotes division and antisemitism so I will stand up against that in the Democratic party,\u201d Conway said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI enjoyed the questions and the answers and it\u2019s given me a lot to think about,\u201d Sherman told The Jewish Link. \u201cThere was definitely a lot of agreement but there were things that they disagreed upon and there\u2019s what to think about for all of us in terms of figuring things out. I thought the answers overall were coherent to what the community wants and needs.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Democratic primary is Tuesday, June 23.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Onstage (l-r) are Assemblyman Micah Lasher; moderator Josh Kraushaar, editor-in-chief of the newsletter Jewish Insider; Assemblyman Alex Bores;…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":238293,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[75,84,83,9,24,63],"class_list":["post-238292","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-manhattan","tag-manhattan","tag-manhattan-headlines","tag-manhattan-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238292","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=238292"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238292\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/238293"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=238292"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=238292"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=238292"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}