The Jewish Press endorses Republican Party candidate Mazie Melesa Pilip in the Feb. 13 special election to succeed George Santos as the representative of parts of eastern Queens and Nassau County. Santos was recently expelled from Congress over allegations of serious misrepresentations to his constituents and financial wrongdoing. Ms. Pilip currently serves in the Nassau County Legislature representing Nassau County, Long Island’s 10th district.
According to Wikipedia, Ms. Pilip is an Orthodox Ethiopian Jew who immigrated to Israel when she was 12 years old as part of Operation Solomon in which Israel covertly airlifted over 1,000 Ethiopian Jews to Israel in a day and a half. She later served in the Israel Defense Force’s Paratroopers Brigade. She also studied at the University of Haifa where she earned a bachelor’s degree in occupational therapy and at Tel Aviv University, where she earned a master’s degree in diplomacy and security.
In 2021 and again in 2023, Pilip was elected to the Nassau County legislature. Throughout her political career as a local elected official her priorities have included combatting rising crime rates, fighting antisemitism and serving as a voice for Israel. As she now moves to the national scene, she says she will be able to fight on those issues in a more hands-on capacity.
Someone with Ms. Pilip’s background is certainly welcome if only in terms of her policy positions which we share. But this is now even more urgent with the growing influence of the woke, liberal, “Squad,” wing of the Democratic Party in Congress. They champion watered down law enforcement, a weakened relationship between Israel and the United States and unrestricted immigration.
Indeed, her opponent unavailingly argues that the solution for the immigration problem is more federal money to defray the costs localities are incurring by virtue of migrant arrival here. But he doesn’t call on the federal government to get to the obvious source of the immigration problem by shutting down the unrestricted immigration spigot.
As we see the Feb. 13 special election, it is a choice between another vote for the liberal agenda and one against it. Even as we speak, Democrats are pursuing a redistricting plan to gerrymander congressional districts in order to ensure that they recapture the House. And we can only imagine what our country would look like if they take the House while retaining the Presidency and Senate.
The election of Mazie Pilip in the 3rd congressional district on Feb. 13 is emerging as more and more of a political imperative.
