The Jewish Week Guide to Ranked Choice Voting
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THEJEWISHWEEK.COM JUNE 18, 2021 end YOUR DOWNLOADABLE, PRINTER-READY SHABBAT READ FROM THE NEW YORK JEWISH WEEK (guitarfish/Flickr Commons) NEWS Must read The Jewish Week Guide to Where the NYC Mayoral Candidates Stand on Four Top Jewish Issues / Ranked Choice Voting — with Page 3 How Naftali Bennett’s Kippah Bagels Stays on His Bald Head and Why it Matters / Page 7 Poppy, sesame or plain? We asked readers, and the Lively Jewish Festival in New York results help explain NYC’s new way of picking a Suburbs Signals the Comeback of mayor. In-Person Jewish Life / Page 9 Editor’s Desk / Page 10 By Andrew Silow-Carroll Opinion / Page 12 The everything bagel ruined everything. Father’s Day / Page 15 Sabbath Week / Page 16 In order to help our readers understand ranked choice voting (RCV), which Musings, David Wolpe / Page 17 will be used in next week’s NYC elections, we asked them to rank their favorite bagels in an online poll. The Nosher / Page 18 Events / Page 19 In ranked choice voting, voters do the same thing: rank candidates in order of their preference. If a candidate wins 50% of first choice votes, they win. If THE NEW YORK JEWISH WEEK JUNE 18, 2021 not, counting goes to another round, only this time the lowest-performing candidate is eliminated; if your favor- ite. candidate is eliminated, your vote goes to the next highest ranked candidate on your ballot, until someone crosses the 50 percent threshold. Using the bagel analogy: If you really wanted sesame but the shop ran out, what would be your next choice, and your choice after that? Of course, you could decide that if they don’t have sesame, you’d rather not have a bagel, but that’s not how elections work: Somebody has to win. The advantage of ranked choice voting is that it gives you more say in bagel flavors — that is, who gets elect- ed. “Even if your top choice candidate does not win, you On Tuesday, June 15, 2021, Yeshivat Maharat ordained can still help choose who does,” according to a helpful six extraordinary Orthodox women in their 9th annual explainer by NYC Votes. Semikha ceremony. By contrast, in the typical “plurality winner” system with CORE SEMIKHA multiple candidates, a candidate can win with a minority of votes — even if the plurality leader is unacceptable to the majority. We’d all be stuck eating a cinnamon raisin bagel, let’s say, when the majority of us could have lived with our second or third choice — the consensus “back- up” choice. In the first round of voting in the Jewish Week Bagel Bal- Tanya Farber Dr. Elizabeth Shayne Yael Smooha lot, nearly 400 people voted. That means the winning ADVANCED KOLLEL: EXECUTIVE ORDINATION bagel needed to cross a 195-vote threshold. In an ideal demonstration, the race would have been close. But apparently, everyone loves a bagel with everything. The winner: Everything, with 244 votes, followed by ses- ame (65), plain (37), cinnamon raisin (a shocking 22) and poppy seed (21). Dr. Lindsey Lisa Schlaff Taylor-Guthartz Dr. Wendy Zierler But just to give you an idea how RCV might have worked, we experimented with a subsequent “round.” In round 6 two, poppyseed finished dead last with only 21 votes, MORE ORTHODOX WOMEN RECEIVING SEMIKHA so we distributed those voters’ second-place choices 43 among the remaining candidates. WOMEN ALREADY LEADING COMMUNITIES 49 As a result, cinnamon raisin gained 3 votes, plain picked WOMEN SERVING AS RABBIS, EDUCATORS, EXECUTIVE DIRECTORS, up 4, sesame got 8 and everything got 6 (3+4+8+6=21). CHAPLAINS, AND INNOVATORS ACROSS NORTH AMERICA, ISRAEL, EUROPE, AND AUSTRALIA It didn’t change the outcome, but it suggested that at the very least, six more voters had a say in picking the Watch the Semikha Ceremony at winner. And if the race were close, more people would www.wizevents.com/yeshivatmaharat2021/?id=5709 have been satisfied — or at least less disappointed — in www.yeshivatmaharat.org the outcome. thejewishweek.com 2 THE NEW YORK JEWISH WEEK JUNE 18, 2021 As Rob Richie, president and CEO of FairVote, told Vox: the most recent wave — have Jews across the spectrum “Fundamentally, what a ranked-choice ballot as we pro- looking for answers. pose it does is give a voter a backup to their first choice. Meanwhile, haredi Orthodox voters are looking care- From that, it creates really positive incentives for how fully at where candidates stand on city oversight of candidates act and how voters act.” yeshiva education. State law requires that nonpublic For more on RCV, there are helpful primers from The schools offer students a basic education in secular New York Times and The Gothamist. subjects that is “substantially equivalent” to what pub- lic schools offer. Orthodox leaders see state monitor- And for the history of the everything bagel, visit https:// ing of their curricula as interference in their religious www.atlasobscura.com/articles/who-invented-the-ev- rights, and look favorably on candidates who take a erything-bagel. hands-off approach. With the state’s Board of Regents expected release re- NEWS vised regulations by the end of the year, the issue is forefront in the minds of haredi educators and activists Where the NYC who say the schools are failing their students. In April, The Jewish Week published the candidates Mayoral Candidates responses on five other issues (https://jewishweek. timesofisrael.com/where-the-nyc-mayoral-candidates- Stand on Four Top stand-on-six-jewish-issues). Jewish Issues To help you become better informed, here’s a guide to where the current leading candidates stand on key “Jew- A crowded field’s positions on BDS, ish issues.” hate crimes, travel to Israel and yeshiva schooling. ERIC ADAMS, BROOKLYN BOROUGH PRESIDENT Eric Adams, born in Brownsville and raised in South Ja- By Shira Hanau maica, Queens, was elected Brooklyn Borough President in 2013. Prior to that he served in the State Senate, represent- Early voting is already underway, but the Democratic pri- ing sections of central and Brownstone Brooklyn, and is a mary in New York is officially Tuesday, June 22. former member of the NYPD. The race for mayor is unusually crowded, and the polling BDS: Rejects it, telling the Forward in February, “I do not has been inconclusive. Quality-of-life issues, especially support the BDS movement.” the city’s recovery after the pandemic, have been fore- most in the minds of voters and candidates. Economic TRAVEL TO ISRAEL: Would travel to Israel as mayor and recovery, homelessness, the return of mass transit and touted his 2016 trip to Israel with NYPD representatives, — following last summer’s protests — crime and policing “developing transatlantic partnerships in public safety are the most heavily debated issues. and economic development.” These also appear to be the issues most important to SECULAR STUDIES AT YESHIVAS: A campaign spokes- most Jewish voters — conservatives, moderates and person told JTA Adams believes “cultural sensitivity is progressives. Still, there are a number of particular “Jew- how you meet educational standards.” Adams visited ish” issues that inform their choice. The Israel Boycott, a Brooklyn yeshiva in March and praised the school’s known as BDS, is a marker of where a candidate stands academics but refused to tell JTA the name of the on Israel, as is the candidate’s willingness to travel to the school. Adams has picked up the endorsement of a country despite calls from some progressives that they number of important haredi leaders, in part because decline. The spike in antisemitic hate crimes — including his answer on this issue suggests he won’t make thejewishweek.com 3 THE NEW YORK JEWISH WEEK JUNE 18, 2021 equivalency a priority. Read Donovan’s full response to the Jewish Week’s can- didate questionnaire at https://jewishweek.timesofisra- An Adams administration will have a HATE CRIMES: el.com/where-nyc-mayoral-candidate-shaun-donovan- zero tolerance policy toward hate crimes, and that in- stands-on-six-jewish-issues. cludes anti-Semitic attacks, Adams told the Jewish Week in April. The former NYPD officer said he would direct KATHRYN GARCIA more resources to the Office for the Prevention of Hate Kathryn Garcia, who grew up and still lives in Park Slope, Crimes, including support for “rapid graffiti removal,” was appointed as the 43rd Sanitation Commissioner for and expand anti-hate education in NYC schools. New York City in 2014 by Mayor Bill de Blasio, and served as Read Adams’ full response to the Jewish Week’s candi- “COVID-19 emergency food czar” to the five boroughs at the date questionnaire at https://jewishweek.timesofisrael. start of the pandemic — stepping down to run for mayor. com/where-eric-adams-stands-on-six-jewish-issues. Previously, she served as Interim Chair and CEO of the New York City Housing Authority. SHAUN DONOVAN BDS: Is against BDS and hopes to expand “opportunities Shaun Donovan, who was born and raised in New York for economic partnerships and knowledge sharing” with City and lives in Brooklyn, served as Secretary of Housing Israel, especially on wastewater management, accord- and Urban Development in the Obama Cabinet. In 2014 ing to the Forward. he became director of the U.S. Office of Management and Budget. Prior to joining the Obama Administration, he was TRAVEL TO ISRAEL: Would travel to Israel, if she leaves commissioner of the New York City Department of Hous- the country as mayor. ing Preservation and Development under Mayor Michael SECULAR STUDIES AT YESHIVAS: In an interview with Bloomberg, and served in the Clinton administration as Orthodox newspaper Hamodia in January, Garcia said Deputy Assistant Secretary for Multi-family Housing at HUD she would not seek “to extend my jurisdiction beyond and as acting FHA Commissioner.