Meet Assemblyman Alec Brook-Krasny July 11, 2007

Join us to meet the first elected official from the city's 350,000-strong Russian-speaking Jewish community.

This event is cosponsored by the New York State Young Democrats, Manhattan Young Democrats, the National Jewish Democratic Council, and the Be Proud Foundation...

From The New Republic (10/9/06):

Between 1990 and 2000, the Russian community more than doubled in size; today, some 500,000 Russian-speakers live in the New York area. They are one of the city's highest-earning and most educated groups. By the late '90s, two-thirds of Russians in New York were registered as Democrats.

In 2000, Brook-Krasny ran against a former teacher named Adele Cohen, but he was disqualified by a clubhouse judge appointed by the machine backing Cohen. The following year, Brook-Krasny lost a City Council Democratic primary to a school board member named Domenic Recchia, but another Russian speaker, a gynecologist and longtime Republican activist named Oleg Gutnik, managed to take 43 percent in the general election... Startled by the community's voting power and indifference to party allegiance, Recchia managed to redistrict 5,000 Russian-speakers out of his jurisdiction.

This year, however, in an acknowledgment of the Russian community's growing influence, Recchia campaigned with Brook-Krasny. "The existing powers realized they have to let a Russian get elected so that the community doesn't start to resent them," Gutnik explained. "According to my sources, there was a meeting between the local Democratic politicians, and a decision was made to allow Russians to run and win."

Event submitted by Eventful.com on behalf of octane097.