During a forum on Jewish Issues hosted by the ‘Flatbush Jewish Community Coalition’ and COJO of Flatbush, Mr. Weiner seemed to portray himself as Heimish enough to the Orthodox community to be considered as a viable candidate to succeed Mayor Bloomberg come January. Mr. Weiner plead that while he cannot “promise you that milk and honey will flow through the streets of Flatbush, one thing you will never feel is that I don’t understand you, that I don’t get it.”

“You know, back in the days when I was a city councilman, when they opened the mikvah and they put 20-minute parking meters all around it, I understood you can’t do that and I changed it. I understand the idea that when Hatzolah wants to move into a place, you have to have slightly different parking restrictions around that as well,” he added.

“If I become mayor, with your help, you are not going to have to explain to City Hall what a yeshiva is and what their challenges are,” he said during a Q&A about vouchers, touting his support for security enhancement funding for non-for-profits and yeshivas. “I understand that if every yeshiva closed their doors tomorrow for a week or a month and sent all their kids to the public schools, we would be drowning in expenses. You don’t want to do that,” he explained.

Bill de Blasio and Bill Thompson also touted their warm relationship with the Jewish community. All of the candidates, with the exception of conservative Erick Salgado, opposed the idea of school vouchers or tax credits. Nonetheless, they all expressed support for Yeshiva funding in some way or another. From promising to reinstate Priority-7 and priority-5 vouchers to security enhancements and hi-tech advancements, all of the Democratic candidates on stage vowed to be more sympathetic to the Jewish community’s needs.

Mr. Thompson recalled his 2009 election campaign warning to voters not to trust Mayor Bloomberg when he announced a 6-month extension to prioirty-7 vouchers. “Those vouchers were lost at a certain point,” said Mr. Thompson. “We need to fix it and bring them back.”

On the issue of Metzitzah B’peh, council speaker Christine Quinn was the only candidate on stage to support the Bloomberg policy. Bill de Blasio and Bill Thompson were not clear about their position on the practice of Metzitzah B’peh, but were very clear that it should have been done in a different way and further promised to sit down with community leaders and rabbis to discuss the issue.

In addition to Erick Salgado’s strong support of the practice, Liu and Weiner, respectfully,  expressed their view that government had to be left out from deciding on such an important issue. “I believe that there is a liberal elitist condescension when it comes to the religious community,” Mr. Weiner said. “This is thousands of years of tradition.” Comptroller John C. Liu joined in. “I say, let’s leave it to the rabbis,” Mr. Liu said. “Let’s not have city government interfere with something that has worked for thousands of years.”

During his closing statement, Mr. Weiner reminded the audience of his strong support of Israel and hardline views on the peace process. “When I had the opportunity to stand up for Eretz Israel I did, at the top of my lungs,” Mr. Weiner said. He also noted his support for the release of Jonathan Pollard and Sholom Rubashkin.