Jewish Queens Dem nominee for NY State Assembly says its not the party we have grown up with

Pesach Osina, an Orthodox Jew who won the Democratic primary for a state Assembly seat to represent parts of Queens on Tuesday, doesn’t think that the party whose nomination he secured, which has embraced some politicians with antisemitic and anti-Israel views, is the same party that he has known his whole life.“That’s not the party that we have grown up with,” he told JNS, after securing the nomination for Assembly District 23, which includes parts of the Rockaways which have large Jewish populations.“The Democratic Party as a whole—the party that we’ve known, that we’ve grown up with—is not an anti-Jewish party,” Osina said.“It’s a party that reflects our values.”Osina received 3,329 votes (60.6%), compared to attorney Mike Scala’s 2,136 (38.9%), with about 81.59% of the vote counted.

He is backed by incumbent Stacey Pheffer Amato, the Democratic Assembly member, who has held the seat since 2017 and announced in 2025 that she would not seek reelection.He will face Tom Sullivan, a Republican, in November’s general election.Osina, an active member of the Jewish Community Council of the Rockaway Peninsula, told JNS that if elected, he would be willing to decry members of his own party who he thinks have crossed the line on Israel or Jew-hatred.“My job right now is to find a common denominator and work with my colleagues to ensure that resources are coming back to the community,” he said.“Of course, if a colleague disagrees with members of the community, then we would have to call out that person.”For Orthodox Jews, “you have no one better to advocate for the needs of the community than someone who understands the community and can advocate for its needs,” he said, of himself.“It’s better to have one of your own in the Assembly,” he said.Osina, who grew up in the Bensonhurst neighborhood of Brooklyn and later in Chicago, knew from a young age that he wanted to be a public servant.“There was a time when, in my father...