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BRIDGEBROOKLYN

New York City Councilman

David Greenfield is arguably one of

Americas most powerful Orthodox

Jewish elected officials. His Brooklyn district is home to more than

120,000 Jews, but if you ask him, he insists

the best way to serve them is to exert broad

influence for the benefit of all his constituents. As Mishpachas news

editor Binyamin Rose shadowed Greenfield for a full working day,

Councilman Greenfield shared the political

wisdom of a spiritual gadol, and disclosed how his yarmulke almost set

off a Mideast crisis

BY Binyamin Rose, New York PHOTOS Marko Dashev

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reverse restrictions slapped on the bris mi-lah metzitzah bpeh rite by the previous ad-ministration under former mayor Michael Bloomberg, and Greenfield wants to get in a good word.

Greenfield, who has held his seat since his victory in a March 2010 special election, opines that the the last Board of Health was out of control while Dr. Raju, a native of India, re-plies that cultural sensitivity is my middle name.

Next, Greenfield spies Polly Trottenberg, commissioner of the Department of Trans-portation, whom he snags for a few minutes to protest the recent speed-limit reduction from 30 to 25 mph on Brooklyns Ocean Parkway. The unexpected measure raised the ire of local drivers, and Greenfield identified with their displeasure.

This was an irony of sorts, as Greenfield is considered the author of Vision Zero, the law passed under the new administration of Mayor Bill de Blasio that reduced speed limits citywide. Traffic deaths are down to levels we havent seen since 1910, Greenfield tells me, which has to be a major accomplishment considering that back then, there were prob-ably more horses and buggies than minivans commanding the streets of New York. Why then the disapproval of the lower speed limits?

Greenfields complaint to Trottenberg is that thoroughfares such as Ocean Parkway, which already had signs demarcating higher speed limits, were supposed to be exempt from the reduction unless a local community board gave its okay, which it didnt. Trottenberg lis-tens carefully and then moves on.

Next, a lobbyist catches Greenfield in an un-accompanied moment and hands him some information on his pet project. Greenfield accepts it politely and says he will review it.

Greenfield then approaches some fellow Council members who have just exited a meet-ing, urging them to show their support for a noon rally he has organized at the steps of City Hall to lobby for funding of school-safety of-ficers at parochial schools.

They promise to show up, as canny politi-cians fully aware of the unspoken rule you do for me and I do for you. A skilled politician

As a child, he played in one of Brooklyns most crowded and run-down playgroundsin the 18th Avenue Park losing patience with the long lines for the one and only swing set. When he got elected to the New York City Council in 2010, at age 31, he decided to make park renovation his top priority. It took the next five years, dozens of meetings, and cutting through copious quantities of red tape before he secured $5.45 million to renovate the park.

When I broke ground on the project just a few weeks ago and thought about the tens of thou-sands of children who will enjoy the same park that disappointed me as a child some 30 years ago, I was elated, Greenfield says, looking forward to the day when the park will boast not just two new swing sets, but four new playgrounds, brand-new basketball and paddle-ball courts, a new baseball field, new benches, trees, and lighting.

As a member of the City Council, the Big Apples lawmaking body, Greenfield considers the $23 million he has already obtained for parks funding as his most significant accomplishment to date. City and State, a bimonthly magazine devoted solely to covering New York government and politics, ranks Greenfield as the 69th most powerful New Yorker, a position from which he should be able to make more of his and his constituents dreams come true.

I catch up with David Greenfield on the steps of City Hall, after he emerges from an emer-gency session to negotiate the citys $78 billion budget for Fiscal Year 2016. And although Im a bit jet-lagged following the flight from Tel Aviv to New York the day before, Greenfields energy and enthusiasm level is contagious.

While big political decisions are made behind closed doors, it is the informal political chatter that greases the wheels behind the scenes. With his black velvet yarmulke, Greenfield is one of the most influential members of a political culture that seats representatives of every ethnic and religious community under one domed roof.

My personal glimpses of Greenfields hallway diplomacy show that he is both a master of the genre and highly sought after by his colleagues. If he doesnt seek them out, they will look for him.

Soon after I get my bearings, I watch Greenfield chap a shmooze with Dr. Ramanathan Raju, president of the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation, to congratulate him on his appointment that morning to the city health commission. The commission may soon

All little boys have big dreams, but only a few ever work their way into a position to make those dreams come true. David Greenfield did.

With his black velvet yarmulke, Greenfield is one of the most influential members of a political culture that seats representatives of every ethnic and religious community under one domed roof

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himself, Greenfield stops by a rally in prog-ress for more parks funding, a topic near and dear to his heart.

The atmosphere is downright clubby, I venture.

The first thing to know, Greenfield says, is that everyone on the council respects each other. Later that day, it gets even club-bier at the regularly scheduled City Council meeting, where good bits of the two-hour session seem to be taken up with members profusely complimenting each other. Yet Greenfield assures me that theres plenty of tough talk in the committee hearings. By the time we get to the council chambers, everything has already been worked out.

Mid m or n i n g , a s Greenfield hud-dles with staffers to review last-min-ute logistics for the school-safety rally, he breaks away to confer with and intro-duce me to Gerald Walsh, one of seven bishops in the Archdiocese of New York. Walsh is one of his allies when it comes to school safety. In fact, Jews, Muslims, and Christians are on the same page today in requesting approximately $50 million in funding for the school-safety officers.

Weve got 46 out of 51 City Council members who want to make this happen,

Greenfield says. This is very important be-cause 80% of the yeshivos dont even have the security to see whos coming in the front door. This would cost parents an extra $200 a month, and they cant afford it on top of the tuition of $6,000 to $9,000 a year.

I watch as the stone steps steadily fill up with a colorful cadre of hundreds of youths gathering for the rally. The medias turning out too to take in the unusual sight: Mus-lim students in hijabs, on the same steps as Orthodox Jewish girls in their traditional Bais Yaakov garb, alongside students from the Catholic, African-American, and His-panic parochial school communities. The students dont mingle with each other, but

Jewish teachers and principals, and repre-sentatives from the Agudah and the OU, use the opportunity to formulate strategy with their coreligionists.

Its one of these drippy New York days, where the sun cant seem to break out of the sky, but humidity seeps through the clouds and beelines to ones brows and oozes down ones back. The ruddy-complexioned Green-field gets even redder as he leads the students in a spirited chant.

What do we want? he shouts.School safety! they shout back.When do we want it?Now!As the rally breaks up, Greenfield chaps

another shmooze, if you will, with Rafeek Mohamed, principal of Al-Ihsan Academy on Rockaway Boulevard in South Ozone Park, a comrade in arms on a Board of Education standing committee. The mutual respect is apparent, and in response to my inquiry, Mohamed explains that unauthorized entries are a worry for Muslim schools too: We also have problems with vandalism and graffiti, he says. Looking back at the dispersing crowd, he adds: This is a very unique gathering and there should be lots more like this going on among us.

So where do we go from here? I ask Green-field, with a glance at my watch and a nod to my stomach, which is grumbling for lunch, even though my body clock says its supper time.

That turns out to be a silly question, and a few hours premature as well, because when youre David Greenfield, and your typical day begins with an 8 a.m. breakfast meeting, and dinner is probably at a community event or a chasunah that doesnt end until midnight, lunch can consist of kosher pretzel sticks and coffee standard fare in the private lounge

for council members.Later that afternoon, as Im seated in the

media gallery in the back of the chamber for that days City Council meeting, one of Green-fields staff members approaches and hands me a brown bag, which is hot to the touch.

The Councilman figured you must be hun-gry by now, so he asked me to go out and bring you a falafel sandwich, the aide says.

When I ask Greenfield later that day about the highly appreciated breach of protocol, as food and drink are banned from the council chamber (I slipped back into the private lounge to eat it and watch the remainder of the council meeting on closed-circuit television), he says, Youre my guest and I want to make sure I take care of you.

T aking care of guests, as well as his constituents, keeps David Greenfield busy 18 hours a day.I represent more Jews than any other elected of-ficial in the world, he says. A typical Knes-set member represents a little over 50,000 to 60,000 people. I represent 175,000 people, of which 120,000 are Jewish.

Greenfield serves New Yorks 44th Council District, which includes the neighborhoods of Midwood, Boro Park, and Bensonhurst. He grew up on Avenue I in Flatbush which today is the heart of his council district. A product of Torah Vodaath, Touro College, and George-town University Law Center, Greenfield is not the only Jewish member of the New York City Council (14 of New Yorks 51 council members belong to the councils Jewish Caucus) nor is he the only Orthodox member (there are at least 3), but he is arguably the most influential.

He is chairman of the Land Use Committee at a critical time in city history, and is expected

to play a key role in helping to execute Mayor de Blasios plan to create 200,000 affordable housing units by 2025 in one of the worlds most expensive cities.

Greenfields Brooklyn council colleagues elected him as their representative on the budget negotiating team, and Greenfield is also a mayoral appointee to the New York Non-Public School Standing Committee, a liaison between the New York government and the non-public school community.

This multicultured community is typical of a city council in the worlds most diverse metropolis. Yet Greenfield says diversity is no ones enemy. Its very rare to see incidents where council members attack each other based on their beliefs, ethnicity, or religion, he tells me as we sit down in his office for an extended conversation following that days council meeting. Diversity is a strength, and its my strength also. It forces you to hear peo-ples different perspectives and to reach out and work with someone else. No one gives me funny looks because I have a yarmulke on, because everybody has their own pekele, shall we say, the package that theyre carrying that makes them unique.

Greenfield got a close-up view of the chal-lenges of life as a prominent Orthodox Jewish politician when he worked as a regional finance director in the 2004 presidential campaign of former US Senator Joseph Lieberman.

Joe Lieberman is my political mentor be-cause he is a man of great integrity and I saw it every day firsthand. He was willing to lose his seat in the US Senate rather than compro-mise on his principles. Of course, he won and I was proud to help him get reelected in his final race, Greenfield says.

Greenfield was Liebermans frum advance man. If he was traveling somewhere for Shab-bos, I would visit there the Shabbos before to find out things like what time Shacharis was and make sure everything ran smoothly, Greenfield says, crediting Senator Lieberman as his main political mentor.

His ability to operate beyond his sphere was instructive, and for him, it wasnt just a strat-egy, it was who he was. His perspective was

Diversity is a strength, and its my strength also. It forces you to hear peoples different perspectives and to reach out and work with someone else

Eighty percent of yeshivos cant even see whos coming in the front door. David Greenfield goes all out for Jewish, Muslim, Catholic, and other ethnic stu-dents demanding safety officers

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that your job is not to be the most influential Jewish leader, but to be the most influential political leader that you can, and then, obvi-ously, your constituency benefits from that.

Lieberman may have been Greenfields political mentor, but it was a gadol hador who gave the city councilman the guidance that finally pushed him to run for elective office.Once the Lieberman campaign wound

down, it was time for Greenfield to move on. He was newly married, and was working as executive vice president for the Sephardic Community Federation advocacy group, when Simcha Felder, today a state senator, suggested Greenfield run for the New York City Council seat he was vacating.

After consulting with his wife Dina, Green-field visited Israel to seek advice from one of the gedolei hador, whom he declined to identi-fy, although he willingly discloses the counsel he received, which remains with him until today: Point number one for an Orthodox Jewish elected official is dont make a chillul Hashem, he tells me. Only after youre done with point one can you then focus on making a kiddush Hashem.

And how does Greenfield apply that guid-ance?

When I do or say something publicly, I think ten times before I do it or say it, even when its not complicated, because besides getting it right, I also consider whether the impact will be positive or negative, Greenfield says.

Greenfield was put to that test this past January, when anti-Israel demonstrators un-furled a Palestinian flag when protesting both a City Council commemoration of the 1.1 mil-lion people including 1 million Jews who were killed in Auschwitz, and an upcoming visit by 11 council members to Israel.

Seated in his assigned location at the end of the second row in the semicircle of council seats, Greenfield lashed out in a verbal riposte that soon went viral.

Shame on them. Shame on them for hat-ing Jews, shame on them for hating people, and shame on them for disrespecting the most diverse democratically elected body in the United States of America, Greenfield proclaimed. Thats why we go to Israel. We go to Israel to make a message that is clear, that we will not be cowed by fear and hatred.

Round two came the following month during the council members trip to Israel, when in the interests of balance, they decided to visit Ramallah, the seat of government of the Palestinian Authority.

The story made the headlines, and I ask Greenfield to retell it as one of his staffers drives us from City Hall to Brooklyn to catch Minchah before the weekly radio show that he hosts on Davidzon Radio, 620 AM on your radio dial.

Greenfield admits he was worried about visiting Ramallah, but a joint contingent of New York, federal, and Israeli security officials assured him he would be safe. So Greenfield headed off to the PA city, which

he described as resembling any middle-class Israeli city, noticing the local Fiat dealership, a Coca-Cola bottling plant, and some mod-ern new apartment buildings Ramallahs version of affordable housing.

At the American Friendship House, which unofficially functions as the US consulate to the PA, Greenfield verbally jousted with the PAs chief negotiator, Saeb Erekat, telling him that terrorism, and not Israel, is to blame for lack of progress in the peace process.

A little later, American security people ap-proached Greenfield with a request that had been passed along to them by their Palestin-ian hosts: Remove your yarmulke.

I dont take it off for anyone, Greenfield responded. When the security people be-came insistent, Greenfield asked them if either he, or his group, were in danger. They said no, it was just a vague threat, and then explained that someone had seen him enter the building, called Palestinian police, who called higher-ups in the PAs political eche-lon, who lodged a complaint with officials in

Washington.So I told them, Listen, you told me I would

be safe here. Im an elected official of the city of New York, and its your job to protect me, Greenfield recounts. They bristled, but they left me alone. When we were ready to leave, though, they parked our bus as close to the exit of the building as they could without knocking over the security barrier, and one of the security people literally shoved me in.

F or David Greenfield, that shrewd know-how of when to pick and when not to pick fights is a family tradition.Greenfields mother is a 14th-generation Yerushal-mi. Her grandfather was Rabbi Yisroel Zev Mintzberg, a leader of the Ashkenazic community in Jerusalems Old City in the pre-statehood era. During the 1948 War of Independence, Jordanian troops captured the Old City, home to some 2,000 Jews at the time. Fearing the small community would

Can you tick off two or three of your major legislative goals?My number one goal is to pass legislation providing security for yeshivos and other non-public schools. My number two goal is to secure funding for community organizations and increase funding for after-school vouchers for yeshivos. My final goal, of the three, is to build affordable housing in the communities I represent and throughout New York City.

Do you have a personal motto that you live by?We have to do our hishtadlus and have bitachon that Hashem will do the rest.

You mentioned Joe Lieberman as a political mentor, but do you have a personal mentor?My father zl. He passed away when I was only 22. He was really an extraordinary baal chesed who went out of his way to help people. After he was niftar, I heard countless stories of people I did not know and he barely knew, but he knew their problems and helped and advised them. He had a unique ability to see through complicated issues and help you reach the appropriate conclusion. Most importantly, he taught me by example that its our achrayus to help everyone but that we must always make time for family. He was the busiest man I knew, but whenever I needed him he was always there for me.

Whats your favorite book, and why?Im an avid reader. I have literally read thousands of books and cant pick a favorite. Mostly, though, I lean toward nonfiction, history, policy, and law.

What are the biggest barriers facing New Yorks Jews?Our biggest strength is our biggest barrier. We are a very tight-knit community. However, New York is a collection of different ethnic communities. In order to get things done we need to do a better job of building bridges with other communities.

What are the greatest opportunities for New Yorks Jews?If the community can come together in a cohesive way and really act as a bloc, there is nothing that we cant accomplish.

What tools and skills do you use to gain support for your agenda and make allies?The most important tool in gaining support for your projects is to be honest. There is so much sheker in politics that when you are honest its genuinely respected. While not everyone in the broad political spectrum may agree with me all the time, they know that my word is my bond. That reputation is the most important tool that I have to get things done.

7 Questions for David Greenfield Point number one for an Orthodox Jewish elected official is dont make a chillul Hashem. Only after youre done with point one can you then focus on making a kiddush Hashem

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be wiped out, Rabbi Mintzberg and Sephardi Rabbi Ben Zion Chazan together negotiated a truce with the Jordanians.

The Zionists were not happy about it at the time, Greenfield says, but they [the rabbis] had ruled that it was more important to save the lives of their Jewish constituents than to simply fight to the death.

Greenfields father was born in Prague, made his way to Israel via Australia after World WarII, and studied in Yeshivas Chevron be-fore getting married. The Greenfields eventu-ally came to America, settling in Brooklyns Midwood section.

David was working at a Manhattan legal firm when his father died from a rare disease at age 54, a watershed event that changed the young attorneys outlook on life.

It helped me determine that life was too short to just be a corporate lawyer and try and make a lot of money. I wanted to actually make a difference, Greenfield says.

The staffers at his Brooklyn office are living the effects of that decision. Greenfield says his constituent office in Brooklyn handles ap-proximately 5,000 citizen requests per year, ranging from pleas for assistance in navigat-ing through governmental red tape, requests for services such as occupational and physical therapy, legal aid in mortgage and foreclosure cases, fixing potholes and addressing road hazards, and even special education.

Special education is one of our subspecial-ties. Its a very complicated area of government, and not everyone knows how to maneuver, Greenfield says.

Greenfield says he personally receives an e-mail describing every problem that comes in.

Im a little bit obsessed. I want to make sure Im on top of it. We have spreadsheets and we track cases by objective measures: When was the case opened, how long did it take to close, what was the outcome, was it successful, and if so, is there anything else we need to do, and if not, why wasnt it successful? We will go as high as we can to fight for someone if we think there is merit to that case, and to advocate on someones behalf.

Yet the nature of politics is that you cant

make all of the people happy all of the time, and Greenfield has also come to realize the limitations of political power, and of his own influence as well.

What people sometimes forget is that pol-iticians are humans, like everyone else. Hu-mans are not perfect. They make mistakes. Politicians have the same issues and challeng-es as everybody else. Sometimes your friend will promise you that hell do something for you and he wont come through. Sometimes an elected official says hell do something for you and he wont come through. And thats a disappointment but its part of the process.

Besides the requests from in-dividuals, Greenfields dis-trict includes an ever-grow-ing and competitive list of organizations, both Jewish and non-Jewish, clamoring for help. The ceaseless flow of such appeals forced the Greenfield team to develop some ground rules.

My first rule is we dont take sides, and my second is we dont play favorites, he says, re-ferring me back to the school-safety rally he led earlier that afternoon.

What we saw today was a positive exam-ple. We had the OU, the UJA, Teach NYS, the Sephardic Federation, and Agudath Israel all at the same rally, all working with us on the same project. When we work on a proj-ect, everyone is invited. The benefit of doing that is that when you work with everyone, you hopefully get more done.

As an elected official, Greenfield under-stands the complexity of the relationship

between elected officials and organizations; on the other side, his experience in the nonprofit world has granted him a deeper understanding of what the organizations are thinking, how they operate and what their needs are. We really cant get things done unless we have support from organizations, and they cant get anything done unless they have help from elected officials, Greenfield says. I want peo-ple to understand that they have an achrayus to be part of that as well. The biggest problem we have in politics is that people think oh, its not my problem, David Greenfield is going to take care of it, or Simcha Felder will take care of it. We elected officials do have some tools at our disposal, but we need buy-in and participation from the community.

Part of that buy-in comes from upping the voter-participation rate, which rarely tops 30% in the Orthodox bastions of Brooklyn. Another crucial element is keeping a two-way conversation going between the politician and constituent.

Its not that every single vote matters because every single vote doesnt always mat-ter but its the collective vote that matters. I sometimes ask people, why do you put 25 cents in the pushke for Hatzolah when youre in the grocery store? Your 25 cents matters? No. Its because your 25 cents and the next persons 25 cents, and the next persons 25 cents, add up to hundreds of thousands of dollars and sudden-ly you have new ambulances and life-saving equipment. Its the same thing when you vote. Youre doing it as part of a collective effort for the community.

What will it take to get the message across?From my own perspective, I spend a fair

amount of time reaching out. I do a radio show every week. I readily grant interviews. There are other things that could be done to make the message more effective. In the more lit-vish communities its harder to get the mes-sage across than in chassidic communities. Because in the chassidic communities you have a top-down structure. The rebbe says you have to vote and generally people vote. In the litvish community in America we dont have a clearly defined leader who says X and everyone says okay.

But Greenfield feels theres another reason for the lack of political engagement: People are pretty happy. Yes, people have complaints and things they want to improve, but when youre relatively happy, you tend not to be that involved in politics and government. Its when youre disaffected or when youre up-set that you go to the polls, and thats part of our challenge. So from a certain perspective

it sounds bizarre, but were actually doing a little too well.

Greenfield, who was reelected in an 82%-18% landslide victory in November 2013, is considered to have one of the safest seats on the City Council, yet there are always whispers that he will sacrifice a safe position on the altar of higher political ambitions.

I really dont have higher political ambi-tions, Greenfield says. The one thing Ive learned in life, and it certainly applies in pol-itics, is that, as the saying goes, man plans and G-d laughs. In this business you certainly cant have future plans because you dont know what the political landscape is going to look like.

Yet plenty of politicians plan ahead for years to run for higher office, and manage to adjust to the changes in topography.

Greenfield ticks off the various options for me, and dismisses them, one by one.

Going to Albany is not very appealing to

me. I have a young family. I dont see them at night, but at least I see them in the morning. I dont want to be separated from my family five days a week, and the trend in Albany is that a lot of state officeholders are now re-turning and running for city offices.

Washington has a similar challenge. Youre literally gone the whole week and youre only back home on weekends. New York is the fi-nancial, cultural, media, real estate capital of the world. I have a say in day-to-day ac-tivities, because of my position on the land use committee, or as a member of the budget negotiating team, whereas if I showed up in Washington tomorrow it would take me 30 years to get to that level, if ever.

So at this particular stage I am, baruch Hashem, fortunate in that Im able to get things done every day for 8.5 million people, right here in New York City.

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The biggest problem we have in politics is that people think oh, its not my problem, David Greenfield is going to take care of it, or Simcha Felder will take care of it but we need buy-in and participation from the community