Hecht Gives GOP Invocation

By COLlive reporter
Photos by Menachem Kozlovsky / ncfje.org

Rabbi Shea Hecht, one of the most known Jewish activists in New York, knows to keep his friends close and his friends’ rivals even closer.

The Chairman of the National Committee for Furtherance of Jewish Education (NCFJE) has over the years been friendly with and endorsed both Republican and Democratic candidates, which worked well for his stature.

“We go back a long way,” Governor Andrew Cuomo recently commented referring to the long relationship between his father and former governor Mario Cuomo, Rabbi Shea and his late father Rabbi JJ Hecht OBM.

That didn’t stop Ed Cox, chairman of the New York Republican State Committee and the son-in-law of the late President Richard Nixon, from inviting Hecht to the GOP’s annual dinner.

Before Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour took the podium for his keynote address at the September 14 event, Rabbi Hecht delivered the invocation.

Accompanying him were his sons Rabbi Yitzchok Hecht of Chabad of Ulster County and Rabbi Hanoch Hecht of Chabad Dutchess and his nephew Rabbi Moshe Hecht of Chabad of Windsor Terrace – Brooklyn.

The event was especially festive following Bob Turner’s victory in the special election for the House seat this week, a race in which Orthodox Jews played a key role.

Turner’s win over Democrat David Weprin (another acquaintance of Hecht) is regarded as an upset given the Democratic history of the 9th district, which takes in portions of Brooklyn and Queens.

Duly noted was the presence of Assemblyman Dov Hikind, who backed Turner to protest President Barack Obama‘s Israeli policies.