reported<\/a> that Abe Osina, owner of the Sherwin Manor Nursing Center on the North Side of Chicago, accepted a $250,000 judgement in U.S. District Court in Chicago against the state of Illinois.<\/p>\nInspectors for the state\u2019s public health department had \u201cspewed a barrage of antisemitic remarks at the staff of the largely Jewish home, including criticizing the staff for not giving residents a choice of eating pork, and cited the facility for an array of violations,\u201d according to Osina, the paper reported.<\/p>\n
\u201cOsina, whose family has owned the home for four decades, said his legal expenses from the suit he filed in federal court against the state employees will eat up all the judgment money,\u201d the Tribune reported.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut he said the judgment is a victory in principle,\u201d the paper added. \u201cHis parents are Holocaust survivors, and he felt honor-bound to make the state pay for the inspection team\u2019s blatant religious prejudice.\u201d<\/p>\n
The paper added that after a lower court dismissed it, the state appealed the case to the U.S. Supreme Court, which declined to hear the appeal.<\/p>\n
\u2018People don\u2019t understand diversity\u2019<\/p>\n
Osina said the New York state Assembly\u2019s 23rd district, which includes much of the Orthodox neighborhood of Far Rockaway, has long been treated as the \u201cstepchild\u201d of city and state government.<\/p>\n
If elected, he said, he would prioritize bringing resources back to the district, including support for children and seniors.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have a district that was 90% destroyed by Hurricane Sandy, that received resources last from the city and has always been the stepchild of city and state government,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The district is one of the most diverse in Queens, with Jewish, black, Irish, Bengali, Hindu and Sikh communities, according to Osina.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople don\u2019t understand diversity,\u201d he told JNS. \u201cIt\u2019s my job to work together with everyone to make sure all their needs are being met.\u201d<\/p>\n
Since the start of his campaign on Jan. 13, Osina said that public safety and cost of living were among the top concerns he heard from voters across the district.<\/p>\n
Orthodox constituents, he said, were especially concerned about yeshiva education and ensuring \u201cthat the state does not take away their ability to educate their children in the right form.\u201d<\/p>\n
JNS asked Osina if Democratic leaders have done enough to address Jew-hatred. He did not respond with a \u201cyes\u201d or \u201cno.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is always more work to be done,\u201d he said. \u201cWe find that with any bill.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cEven once bills are passed, down the line, they always need to be tweaked,\u201d he told JNS. \u201cHate, in general, as the world progresses, is something where we always need to find ways to tweak how we work to counteract it and fight hate in all forms.\u201d<\/p>\n
Still combatting Jew-hatred would be a priority for him in Albany.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn one part of the district, I had a constituent walking along Mott Avenue who had antisemitic things hurled at her, calling her a Nazi and other things,\u201d he told JNS.<\/p>\n
The same day, a group of Muslims in the district had eggs thrown at them outside a mosque, he said.<\/p>\n
One problem facing the city, according to Osina, is that hate crimes are \u201cextremely underreported.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of the reasons is because there are so many ways to report hate, whether it\u2019s to the NYPD, the city Commission on Human Rights, the state Commission on Human Rights or the ADL,\u201d he told JNS. \u201cThere are so many different ways to report hate, and each one has its own definitions.\u201d<\/p>\n
If elected, Osina told JNS that he wants to fund community-based liaisons, who can help residents report hate incidents and bring complaints to the proper agencies.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy job as a state legislator is to ensure that every one of my constituents feels safe and heard, no matter where the hate is coming from,\u201d he said. \u201cWhether it\u2019s antisemitic hate coming to the community, whether it\u2019s hate directed at someone\u2019s hijab.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo matter the type of hate,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(June 26, 2026 \/ JNS) Pesach Osina, an Orthodox Jew who won the Democratic primary for a state…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":279022,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[9,24,63,122,124,123],"class_list":["post-279021","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279021","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=279021"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279021\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/279022"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=279021"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=279021"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=279021"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}