Blaz’s Hasidic pal
Lure of 5,000 votes gives him special access
A Hasidic political power broker was so deep inside Mayor de Blasio’s inner circle that he got VIP treatment from top City Hall staffers and regularly corresponded with Hizzoner — and he even had the First Lady’s cell phone number, newly released emails show.
Yitzchok (Jules) Fleischer, a gatekeeper in the Bobov Hasidic community, called in favors from the mayor for a job and a handicap parking placard. He offered de Blasio advice on dealing with the police union and repeatedly texted Chirlane McCray on her cell.
The 90 pages of emails obtained by the Daily News through a Freedom of Information Law request show Fleischer was regularly in the mayor’s ear — sometimes asking for help, other times serving as an ad hoc political consultant.
His role as an important gobetween for de Blasio and 5,000 votes he could deliver in his Orthodox community allowed him to be a nudge to the mayor and sometimes McCray.
Sometimes he got to be too much, emails show.
“Chirlane says you keep texting her and wanting to meet,” de Blasio emailed Fleischer on Jan. 13, 2015. “Unless that is specific to some of the work she is doing, you should stop reaching out to her and tell me what’s on your mind.
“Then I will tell you if I can help or not,” the mayor adds. “Deal with me, not her.”
Email records show Fleischer wasn’t shy about offering advice on how to handle de Blasio’s ongoing dispute with the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association.
The wannabe adviser suggested that de Blasio apologize just like President John F. Kennedy did after the Bay of Pigs disaster.
“I think U should do the ‘same’, explain on air that U stand with the PD, & slowly distance yourself from Al (Sharpton) it will help U a lot,” Fleischer wrote Jan. 8, 2015.
“I saw this and appreciate your thought,” de Blasio replied the next day. ened enough to ask the mayor for an undisclosed job in the administration. The position — which went to someone else — is redacted from the email exchange for privacy reasons.
Days after de Blasio was elected mayor in 2013, Fleischer bragged to Tablet magazine that he could get anything he wanted from City Hall.
“He owes me everything,” Fleischer said. “Without me he wouldn’t be anyplace.”
Fleischer is one of the few pp the grand rabbi of the Bobov dynasty, the largest Hasidic group in Borough Park, Brooklyn.
Most recently, Fleischer sent an email on Nov. 1, 2017, to a mayoral staffer detailing his plight in order to get the handicap parking placard.
The city Department of Transportation initially rejected Fleischer’s request for the parking perk. The department concluded Fleischer did not have a “permanent disability seriously impairing mobility,” records show.
Fleischer, who had a knee replaced, appealed.
He flagged the case for Simcha Eichenstein, a Hasidic Jew serving on de Blasio’s legislative affairs team at the time.
“I reached out to DOT and DOHMH,” Eichenstein replied a day later, referring to the city Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.
The push from his pal in City Hall was successful and Fleischer was ultimately granted the permit.
Mayoral spokesman Eric Phillips said Fleischer was never given special treatment.
“It’s proper City Hall role to refer constituent complaints and information to relevant agencies,” Phillips said. “Helping people navigate the city’s bureaucracy is important.”
Last November, de Blasio attended the wedding of Fleischer’s grandson in Borough Park.
But Fleischer last week downplayed his relationship with the mayor.
“I really never ask him anything special,” he said. “We have stayed friends. That’s it.”