(By Kareem Fahim for the NY Times) Williamsburg, NY – There are at least half a dozen ways to reach Isaac Abraham, a community advocate, which is fortunate, since he seems to love being found: to supply a quote, to solve a problem or to get in the middle of the city’s political rumbles.

He wears two cellphones on his hip along with an old black pager. In the trunk of his sport-utility vehicle, he keeps a two-way radio. A message can be left for him at the hardware store in Brooklyn where he has worked for decades, and he has a fax machine.

For about 25 years, reporters and others have sought out Mr. Abraham. He is known mostly as a spokesman for Hasidic Jews in Williamsburg, and he calls himself a tenant organizer, though he sometimes speaks on behalf of landlords, too. He is often quoted in stories about Yankel Rosenbaum, the Jewish scholar who was killed in the Crown Heights rioting in 1991. (Mr. Abraham is a friend of the Rosenbaum family.)

And he found himself in the middle of the news in 1999, when he said that a candidate to be a trustee at City University of New York, with whom he had spoken, had used slurs to describe blacks, Jews and women. (The candidate, Jeff Wiesenfeld, denied it and got the job.)

Now, Mr. Abraham, 57, is running for the City Council. “People kept selecting me,” he explained. “They’d say ‘Isaac, I have a problem.’ I was the best messenger, or the best translator. I felt it was time to do it elected.”

He is trying to replace David Yassky in District 33, which includes parts of Williamsburg, where Mr. Abraham lives, along with Greenpoint, Park Slope, Boerum Hill and Brooklyn Heights. If elected, Mr. Abraham would be the first Hasidic member of the City Council.

He said that his support among Hasidim would make him a favorite in a quickly crowding field, though some local insiders say that Hasidic backing is not assured. Mr. Yassky cannot run again because of term limits.

Mr. Abraham said his support for school vouchers and his advocacy for tenants – and not just Jewish tenants – would win votes beyond Hasidim.

He said he had spent years haggling with most of the branches of city government. The other declared candidates, he said, “don’t have the experience I have.”

He announced his candidacy in June, and said that he had been sending out mailers to gauge his support and meeting with political activists to talk strategy.

One morning this week, Mr. Abraham started his day at a legislative hobnobbing session in Borough Park for Shema Kolainu, a school for children with autism.

“I usually sit in the back,” he said. “That way, you can see everyone.”
There were plenty of people to see or, more importantly, to meet. Mr. Abraham sat and listened to a few local politicians, praising Bill de Blasio, the Brooklyn councilman who is running for borough president (”I don’t have to tell him about crime, or about housing”) and saying that Assemblyman Dov Hikind, one of many who had to shush the noisy crowd, could be a “bit too aggressive.”

Then Mr. Abraham worked the room, saying hello to Rob Ryan, an aide to John A. Catsimatidis, the supermarket magnate, who wants to be mayor, and to Councilman Eric N. Gioia, who is working with Mr. Abraham to try and clean up an old Con Edison plant in Williamsburg.

Alexander Rapaport, the director of Masbia, a soup kitchen in Borough Park, marveled as Mr. Abraham worked the room. He said that Mr. Abraham always called him after political events and insisted that Mr. Rapaport take the extra food. “We don’t take leftovers at the soup kitchen,” he said. “But somehow, I can’t refuse.”

Not everyone is such a fan. Mr. Abraham’s frequent appearances in the press have earned him resentment from some of Williamsburg’s publicity-shy Hasidim. (He claims he is resented because of his popularity.)

His volubility can also cause him problems, as it did last month, when one of Mr. Abraham’s frequent jokes fell flat at a fund-raiser when he talked about Kevin Powell, who is running for Congress.
Mr. Powell, a writer, lecturer and former cast member of “The Real World” on MTV, has written about having abused a former girlfriend. At the fund-raiser, The New York Observer reported, Mr. Abraham referred to that past and joked: “I hope when you beat the man, you won’t apologize and you won’t need rehab.”

Mr. Abraham said he was simply referring to Mr. Powell’s beating his opponent. Mr. Powell, in an interview, said he was fond of Mr. Abraham and respected him as a Hasidic elder. But, he added, “I would have said it much differently.”

Mr. Abraham may face an uphill battle in 2009. Although he insists otherwise, it is not clear that he has the support of all of Williamsburg’s divided Satmar Hasidic sect.

Jerry Skurnick, a New York political consultant, said that the Satmar Hasidim represent 3,000 to 4,000 votes in a Democratic primary. Mr. Skurnick said he believed that Mr. Abraham had the support of only one of the two Satmar camps.

His expected opponents in the 2009 Democratic primary include Evan Thies, a former senior aide to Mr. Yassky; Stephen Levin, an aide to Assemblyman Vito J. Lopez, the Brooklyn Democratic chairman; and at least three others. Mr. Levin is said to have the support of one of the Satmar camps.

While cautioning that he did not like to predict elections, Mr. Yassky said of Mr. Abraham, “He’ll be a less compelling candidate than some of the others.”

The son of Holocaust survivors, Mr. Abraham was born in Austria. He moved to Williamsburg when he was 2 years old, and says he has lived within the same five-block area there for most of his life. He makes his living running Kramer’s Hardware Store, which he owned until recently.

After the morning session in Borough Park, Mr. Abraham was back in his car, headed to work at the hardware store. His phones took turns ringing. One call was about new housing developments in Greenpoint. “Is everything market or is something affordable?” he asked, adding, “No problem whatsoever” before hanging up.

Another call came, a private family matter he was helping to resolve, he said.

Another call: “You smoked something, or it’s your coffee, because what you’re telling me is ridiculous!” Mr. Abraham said.

He took a break at a Borough Park coffee shop, the Side Dish, where his son, Jacob, 20, has a summer job. Customers stopped by to say hello, and Mr. Abraham admitted he did not recall everyone’s name. “It’s not that I’m bad with names,” he said. But he was better, he said, at remembering their problems.

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