Hikind fights back: "You can't build in Boro Park"

The turbulent elections for the seat of member of the Legislative Assembly of New York are exciting the Haredi street in Boro Park and Flatbush - nightly struggles on post notices, distribution of informational materials, with each candidate fighting mainly for the haredi vote, and so too activists on both sides.

As part of the election campaign Behadrey Haredim reporter Moshe Weisberg went out to New York to cover the more than ever tumultuous election campaign. For the first time, candidate Nachman Caller is running against member of the Legislative Assembly of New York, Dov Hikind.

Nachman Caller was interviewed last week and detailed his plans and views if elected to the coveted role. As part of the campaign, Caller is leading a Boro Park development plan in order to solve the housing crisis that exists there for more than 15 years.

Dov Hikind, an elderly Jew wearing a knitted yarmulke, sits in his simple office on 13th Avenue in Boro Park, Brooklyn, where he has provided services to all for the past 32 years faithfully and willingly.

On his office wall hangs a huge picture of Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky, indicating the closeness he has enjoyed by all Gedolei Yisroel and Rebbes.

In an interview with Behadrey Haredim, Hikind tells of the cause of his running once again - this time against a haredi candidate. Hikind teases the opposite candidate who issued a grandiose plan to build 2000 housing units in Boro Park.

• Is it really not time after 32 years that you leave the seat vacant for someone else?

"Some people give up every year that passes, I, when I get to help, feel younger to help others every day, look at the office - seven people are waiting for help, I have just one thing - to help people."

• On the street they say you didn't do enough for housing.

"I hope that only a few people say that, if I could help people build apartments I would have done it long ago," Hikind refers here to the other candidate's campaign promises to build 2000 apartments in Boro Park, "He can promise 4000, there will not be 2000 and not 1000, not that we don't want it, we want it very much, we are working on it for years.
"We have one place of Agudath Israel in Boro Park, the area belongs to the municipality and we have been waiting 13 years for permits to build and have not received them, and it comes to a hundred apartments in total. It's a very difficult thing, we are working on it, anyone looking at the plan, people laugh at it and it's just dream".

Everything he brings, I've done. We're trying to do everything we can, but there's one thing I will never do - I do not like to promise people what will not be. Every politician who wants to run promises flats, I'm waiting for the promises all the time."

"This thing will cost millions of dollars and more, where can one get it? Promising doesn't cost anything, I can promise each of my supporters an apartment, if I do that I would be called a liar."

• How did you connect with Rebbes?

"I have contacted all the Rebbes of Satmar, Bobov, Skvira, Tzanz Kloizenburg, and more, I sit with every Rebbe not only one minute or five minutes, at least half an hour, I speak Yiddish."

Hikind: "A few years ago the Satmar Rebbe asked me that the law which allows to study matriculation one gets money, while Yeshiva students who go up to yeshiva not get money from the state because they study Judaism for five years. They told me "it won't work for you, you can't do it," when they tell me that I can't do it - I work even harder, I fixed it up that yeshivas will also receive, and the institutions currently receive $ 22 million combined.

"I may be older, but I get younger by helping people. Another law that I arranged for the haredi public, is that someone who doesn't have children G-d forbid, will receive insurance money for fertility treatment, another law which I fought for was that non-Jews finish school at 3 and Jewish students at 5 o'clock, and therefore they did not receive money for buses. Since the law arranged for all Orthodox institution, no matter what time it finishes, it gets financing. Before that parents had to pay for the shuttle to return."

In conclusion, Hikind tells excitedly: "I came to Israel during the Solid Rock war, I visited the bombed places - Ashkelon, Ashdod, Beersheba, Netivot and Sderot. I wanted to feel it, I was at a hotel in Be'er Sheva and I wanted to feel the fire together with residents living in fear, I returned to the US and I told on television what it feels like in Israel".

'בחדרי' גם ברשתות החברתיות - הצטרפו!