Last March, with little political experience, and running as a Republican in a traditionally Democratic section of Brooklyn, David Storobin narrowly won a special election to replace the disgraced State Senator Carl Kruger in District 27. Now, barely six months later, he is already running for re-election, in the restructured District 17, dubbed by the media as the “Super Jewish” District.
In both of his campaigns, Storobin has relied on the same backbone: his fellow Russian Jews. He has counted on them for votes and campaign contributions, and he has used advertising and strategic partnerships with Russian-language media to reach them.
The majority of Russians in District 27 are Jewish, like Storobin. Russians, and other immigrants from the Eastern Bloc, easily relate to his background; in 1991, he moved with his mother from Russia to Brooklyn with little to their name and he made his way into the middle class by becoming a successful criminal defense, bankruptcy and divorce lawyer.
“It was tremendous poverty growing up, couldn’t afford to take the bus,” Storobin recalled. “I would walk everywhere in Brooklyn if I needed to go to Brooklyn Heights from Borough Park, I would walk.”
Storobin appealed to the broader Orthodox Jewish community by bringing conservative values to the campaign trail with promises to repeal the gay marriage law that passed in 2011, and to seek publicly funded vouchers for religious schools. At the same time, Russian Jews also saw value in Storobin’s support of small business owners. Speaking Russian in television and radio commercials, he often reminded them where he came from and where he is today.
The New York State Board of Elections Campaign Financial Disclosure website reveals that there was a high percentage of persons with last names from Russia – or other parts of the former Soviet Union countries from the beginning of Storobin’s special election campaign up to the most recent July and 32 Day Pre-Primary disclosures. The combined contributions reveal that Storobin has raised $174,244 while his opponent Felder has raised $230,099. Russian first and/or last names contributed $42,850 of Storobin’s contributions this summer, so far.
One of the first contributors, in late December 2011, was Storobin’s mother, Anna Storobinsky, who gave the maximum contribution allowed, $10,300. Ilya Galak, general manager of citizensmagazine.com, a Russian-American magazine distributed with the Staten Island Standard, and founder of the first Jewish Tea Party, contributed $1,000. Galak also received a $2,000 consulting fee from Storobin to produce articles. Michael Kaplinsky — also Russian and chief executive officer of Arecont Vision LLC, a surveillance-video company that gained wide media attention for capturing the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson, Arizona –provided the largest out-of-state donation with $10,000 in July. Vyacheslav Ripa, a Brooklyn based dentist, also donated $10,000 in July. Gregory Solovey, who moved to Brooklyn in 1989, donated $10,000. Maria Kovalyov, president of Russian-American Foundation gave a small contribution of $150. Other Russian contributions ranged from $100 to $1000.
“He is from the community, he can help us,” Solovey said, “he speaks our language.”
Russian names were also present on the New York State Board of Elections’ list of campaign donations by corporation name. Dmitry Gorelik of Access Plumbing, Edward Krutko of Bensonhurst Ride LLC and Edward Rozenthal of Rem Transportation each provided a $5000 donation in January. Smaller donations came from a number of small to medium-size businesses, such as Sotby Transatlantic Line, Eve Pharmacy, Trilini International; all have operations linked to the Russian community. Out of the initial 24 corporate contributors, 15 are either owned or run by a Russian.
Some of the Russian businesses were not based in Senator Storobin’s district, but found value in supporting Storobin. Brighton Beach and Coney Island, both in District 27, are the commercial pulse of the Russian community in the metropolitan area. Storobin’s rhetoric — geared to small businesses, with its call for less government intervention — resonated with entrepreneurs in both the Russian Jewish and Orthodox Jewish populations.
“We helped him and hope he can help us out eventually,” said
Edward Rozenthal, 46, president of Rem Transportation. “As we have same language and mentality and help business to survive, as with all pressure we are receiving from taxes, insurance, gas.”
Communicating in Russian has been a key component of Storobin’s campaign strategy, both against Lewis Fidler in March and now against Simcha Felder, his Democratic opponent in November. Besides the door-to-door introductions, one of the first steps taken by Storobin was to reach voters through traditional local media: radio, television and newspapers.
The two primary radio channels that cater to the Russian community in the tri-state area, are Davidzon Radio, 620AM, and Danu Radio, 87.7 FM. Gregory Davidzon, founder of Davidzon Radio, is an influential local Russian media businessman and was a strong supporter Lewis A. Fidler. Davidzon rejected a $10,000 advertising radio campaign for the special election from Storobin, because of his support for Storobin’s opponent, which led Storobin to file a Federal Communications Commission complaint. The complaint went nowhere, but as a consequence of Davidzon’s rejection, Storobin focused his Russian radio advertising campaign on Danu Radio, spending $18,000. Radio spots, fundraisers and discussions on Danu Radio were mainly done in Russian during the short campaign.
“He was one of our own. It was not a very hard task given his connection to the community,” Anna Pekerman, chief executive officer of Danu Radio, said. “We are a young community that is not even first generation, but immigrants where 20 years ago there was a big influx, so we are still very much very fresh off the boat community craving its own language, its own food, its own music.”
Evidence of the new relationship between Storobin and Danu Radio can be seen in the July 2012 The New York State Board of Elections campaign financial disclosure, which shows that Danu Radio provided $4000 in in-kind contributions (services provided without payment) to help with Storobin’s fundraising efforts for the upcoming election. Once the campaign gets going Danu Radio expects to get more business from Storobin. “It will be back to business,” said Pekerman.
Another focus for the Storobin campaign was the Russian television channels that are both available on cable, satellite. Many Russians do not speak English and are devoted to their channels. The campaign included Russian language television spots, that were produced by the agency Strategic Media Placement (division of Strategic Group for Media), a GOP-focused advertising agency based in Ohio. Russian TV Guide ads were purchased for $2400 on January 16. The campaign spread from February to mid-March and included television advertisements in Russian Television Network of America for $5,000 (run by Russian Media Group -the creator and CEO, Rabbi Mark S. Golub, is also head of Shalom TV), Russian Television International for $12,000 and the Gazprom Media owned NTV for $12,000.
Print advertisements in Russian media was also purchased at the beginning of March that included the Kurier, Evreysky Mir, Ruskaya Reklama, Russian Bazar, and Komsolmoka newspapers with ads ranging from $300 to $1000. New media and online campaigns in some of these magazines and social networks were also put into action. On February 9, the Storobin campaign paid $4055 to Facebook.
Appealing to both Russian Jews and Orthodox Jews, Storobin also purchased advertising spots in local Jewish media, mainly print and online publications, such as Yeshiva World for $8150, Flatbush Jewish Journal for $1150, The Jewish Press for $4000 and Jewish Voice for $3000.
Anatony Mufel, 72, voted for Storobin last March although he was a registered Democrat. After hearing of Storobin in Russian-language radio advertisements and interviews he decided to support him, “When times comes to voting I think not like a Democrat or Republican, I just choose my candidate, what I like the best,” Mufel said.
Living in the Brooklyn for the past 30 years, Svetlana Kozlovskaya, 52, was always a Democrat, but this time around she voted Republican for Storobin’s message to the small-business owners. For the national elections, she said she would vote for President Obama again, but on a local level believes that the Republican Party will support the interest of the small business that make up the Russian community.
” In Russia there was never a choice of voting.” Kozlovskaya said. “They believe that with the recent fall down of economics the Democrats are too frivolous and in their (Russians’) opinion, the party should be strict. I believe he (Storobin) would preserve the mom-and-pop stores.”
On June 26, 2012, Senator Storobin joined Democrat New York State Assembly representative Steven Cymbrowitz in front of Tatiana Restaurant on Brighton Beach to announce a new law that will make it mandatory for New York City and surrounding municipalities to offer Russian-language voting materials. Storobin was the lead sponsor of the bill and he believes this will bring out voters who did not vote due to the language barrier. Following New York State Assembly representative Alec Brook-Krasny, Storobin is the second Russian-American to join the New York State legislative and the first as senator.
Storobin has also received support from the Jewish community for the upcoming election. Nachman Carl Caller and his wife Hindy Caller maxed out their contribution limit by donating $10,300 each and another $5,000 through Caller’s law firm, N.C. Caller. Caller, an Orthodox Jewish real estate attorney, considered running for the new district until Storobin became senator. He then decided to support Storobin’s upcoming campaign.
The new District 17 will be predominantly Orthodox Jewish with pockets of Russian and Russian-Jews. “About 60 percent of the district is the same as it was last time,” Storobin said. As the November elections come around, Storobin hopes that this time he will win well beyond the 13 votes he won by last time.
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