Restler Disavows Attack on Opponent As Nazi-Sympathizer Son

A Twitter account strongly supportive of Mr. Restler's candidacy - that portrays it-self as an official account "representing" the Aranite bloc-vote - attacked his opponent, Chris Olechowski, as being the son of a Nazi sympathizer. Lincoln Restler disavowed it, emailing me that he "have made multiple such tweets already against this language."

The group doesn't substantiate this charged claim, which is especially explosive in Williamsburg, base to one of the largest holocaust survivors communities. I tried to Google it, and what I found pointed to the contrary. Mr. Olechowski's father was a Polish officer arrested by the Soviets in 1939, at a time when the Stalinist forces invaded Poland under a pact with the Germans. He was later released to join the Free Polish army's (formed by former polish troops) fight against the Nazis alongside the allied forces. Still, being Polish makes it easy to paint one as a Nazi sympathizer.

I wrote that I would have expected from an uber-progressive candidate as Mr. Restler to disavow and condemn such a blatant attack by his supporters, based on one's nationality. It is especially worth condemning when the other side is said to have a positive campaign, free from personal attacks. Gatemouth joined my call, a day after endorsing Restler, writing: "I must say that the leadership of the Aroni Satmar community who support him continues to engage in tactics which are beneath contempt. I join Orthodox Pundit in hoping that Lincoln disavows such disgraceful tactics."

As I said, Restler is pointing to tweets against such language. He indeed sent reply tweets in that manner, but since they weren't public tweets (they are public when accessing his page, but aren't showing up in text alerts) I missed them.

Meanwhile, Restler wrote me that I'm "not being accurate that the other side is running a positive campaign." He points to supposed claims that "I need to be defeated to save the camps and that I'm opposed to matizta bape." I haven't seen anything about Metzitzah. While it maybe on personal twitters, none of them portray it-self or seems to be legitimately "representing the bloc-vote," as it is the case with the one where the Nazi Sympathizer attack appeared. On the camps, I think it is a legitimate issue that concerns the community, and it isn't personal. I may have erred by calling it a "positive campaign," but it isn't personally negative.

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