Borough Park

Yoni Hikind announces run for City Council seat

Son of assembly member starts ‘Our Neighborhood’ party

August 3, 2017 By Paula Katinas Brooklyn Daily Eagle
Yoni Hikind is busy collecting petition signatures to get his name on the ballot for the November 7 election. Photo courtesy of Hikind’s campaign
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Longtime Brooklyn Assemblymember Dov Hikind may not be the only member of his family to hold public office now that his son is setting his sights on running for the City Council seat to be vacated by David Greenfield.

Yoni Hikind, a social worker, announced this week that he is running for the seat in the 44th Council District (Borough Park-Midwood-Bensonhurst) and that he has established a new political party called Our Neighborhood to run under.

In July, Greenfield, a Democrat, announced that he would not be running for re-election and that he would be supporting Kalman Yeger, a Midwood community activist, to run for the seat. Yeger is a longtime member of Community Board 14 and has worked an aide to several elected officials, including Greenfield. “Kalman understands the struggles of regular people. He rents an apartment, rides the subway, pays yeshiva tuition and works hard for his family.  He’s the best candidate to replace me in City Hall and I wholeheartedly endorse him,” said Greenfield said in a statement.

A Hikind-Yeger race could be seen as a proxy war between Dov Hikind and David Greenfield, two men who have often been at odds with each other.

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The timing of Greenfield’s announcement, mid-July, left no chance for any candidate to file petition signatures to mount a primary challenge to Yeger, thus leading Hikind to try to get on the general election ballot with a new political party.

Hikind is currently circulating petitions under the Our Neighborhood banner to qualify for the ballot.

Hikind is a graduate of Yeshiva University’s Wurzweiler’s School of Social Work and has been a social worker and therapist for more than a decade, according to his campaign.

“I’ve always listened, cared and tried to give my all to help those most in need. I understand how government works and how it works best when people cooperate and build bridges. More, I have a deep desire to help people. It’s in my DNA,” Hikind said in a statement.

His father Dov Hikind has served in the New York State Assembly, representing Borough Park and Midwood, since 1983.

The younger Hikind said he sees the City Council position as a “job opening” that his constituents have to fill. He is looking forward to being interviewed by local residents for the job, he stated.

Greenfield, who was first elected to the City Council in 2010, had originally planned to run for re-election in November. But he shocked the New York political scene by announcing that he had decided not to run for another term. Instead, he is leaving politics at the end of his current term on Dec. 31 to become the executive director of the Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty.

 


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