NY State Senator Simcha Felder at a 2018 NY Senate committee discussing mayoral control.
The Forward calls New York State Senator Simcha Felder “the most powerful man In New York.” Felder has co-sponsored New York legislation against boycotting Israel and has written: “Today’s Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel is nothing less than a political Kristallnacht.”
In an article today, The Forward calls Simcha Felder “the most powerful man In New York.”
The Forward reports: “Simcha Felder, the rogue state senator who held up the entire state budget last week in a bid to end government oversight of Orthodox yeshiva curricula, just got handed a royal flush.
A reordering of the Albany political calculus on Wednesday made him the most powerful man in New York politics. The surprise dissolution of a breakaway caucus of Senate Democrats leaves Felder as the last piece the Democratic Party needs to consolidate control of the entire state government.
If he wants to make a deal, Felder has a chance to try to extract major concessions from the Democratic leadership in return for rejoining them.
“They’re empowering Simcha more than he was before,” said one Jewish New York political operative. “He’s not going to flip unless they give him a tremendous, tremendous deal.”
Felder has long been known for his strong support for Israel. In 2005 he called the presence of a renowned Palestinian American professor in a New York lecture program an “abomination.”
In January 2016 he co-sponsored legislation against boycotting Israel. He calls the boycott movement “anti-Semitic.” In September 2016 he wrote: “Today’s Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel is nothing less than a political Kristallnacht.”
