The leaders of over a dozen tzedakahs in the Jewish community were shocked yesterday by a flyer circulating through the streets of Boro Park proclaiming that these groups support Joseph Hayon for City Council. Hayon fabricated a letter with the unauthorized use of the logos belonging to more than a dozen of the most prominent Jewish community groups, putting them directly in harm’s way from the Internal Revenue Service. Especially offensive is that these groups have seen unprecedented support from the government in the past few years thanks to the leadership of New York City Councilman David Greenfield who secured over $2 million in funds for dozens of worthy charitable groups.
The leaders of these community groups blasted Council Candidate Joseph Hayon for advertising a claim that he has their support, when in fact all of these groups are prohibited by Internal Revenue Service regulations from endorsing candidates. If the IRS were to determine that these groups used their logos or organizations to support a political candidate, these worthy organizations could chas v’shalom lose their “tax-exempt” status.
“You cannot imagine how upset I was to learn that Joseph Hayon would blatantly lie about having Chaveirim’s support. What kind of person would do that?” asked Aaron Yitzchok Cohen the chairman of Chaveirim. “Chaveirim has never endorsed a candidate for office. What makes it even more offensive is that on a personal level I will be voting for Councilman David Greenfield because I know first-hand that nobody works harder for our community than him.”
“We strongly disprove of the use of our logo without our permission. It is also reckless behavior to use not-for-profits as signatories on a political flyer since any adult in America knows that 501(c)(3) organizations can not be involved in politics. So how can anyone who clams to care about our organizations do something like this? And let the record be clear, none of our organizations even met with this challenger and we have a great working relationship with Councilman David Greenfield who cares about the well-being of our clients through out the year. And David is a great friend of mine!” said Alexander Rapaport, Executive Director of Masbia.
Ohel’s Chief Executive, David Mandel, was similarly distressed about the fabricated endorsement by Joseph Hayon. “We saw a flyer today listing OHEL alongside other local community organizations as seemingly endorsing several persons in the November 5th elections. OHEL, as a not-for-profit organization, does not endorse any individual running for office,” Mr. Mandel emphatically stated.
“One of the campaigns in our neighborhood has falsely used the Mekimi logo as an endorsement to that candidate,” said Shlomo Reichberg of the Mekimi organization. “We did not endorse any candidate for the campaign as it is against the rules of our organization!”
This is the not the first time that Hayon has lied in his campaign. Most recently, he circulated a forged letter from Senator Simcha Felder claiming to support Hayon, when in fact Felder very strongly endorsed Councilman Greenfield in an open letter to the community stating, “the fact is that David Greenfield is the hardest working Councilman I know.”
Finally, Hayon has falsely claimed that Greenfield has supported groups that do not support the torah lifestyle, another claim that has been debunked.
Kalman Yeger of the Greenfield campaign said, “Joeph Hayon is a congenital liar. This is his fourth mud-slinging campaign in three years, and it’s always the same story—he lies about the people he runs against and he lies about his own past. He lies about where he’s from and what he’s done, and he lies about who supports him. Even for someone who regularly lies, it was still shocking to learn that he would put our community’s most cherished tzedakahs and mosdos at risk to score some cheap political points. Sadly, that tells us exactly who Joseph Hayon is.”
(YWN Desk – NYC)
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One Response
i in fact did voted for greenfield but i have personally spoke to THREE of the names that are on the posters today saying to vote greenfield and they denied giving their endorsement one way or the other,
my point is that both sides say lies