In politics, cultivating relationships is key. Eric Dinowitz says teaching taught him that early in his career. In 2007, at 21, he tried out for a position at John F. Kennedy High School in Marble Hill giving a demo to a class on how to create a PowerPoint presentation.

“I go to the principal’s office afterwards,” he said. “I go over the lesson and she’s like, ‘Well, the lesson was okay, but you memorized all their names, so you have a good personality’.” He got the job.

Now, having taught “thousands of students over 13 years,” Dinowitz said building relationships, and social and emotional learning are the cornerstones of good education, and good policy. “You got to remember their names – day one, day two,” he said. “It’s super important in developing that relationship.”

One of six remaining candidates in the City Council race in District 11, Dinowitz believes, perhaps now more than ever before, history has shown us that education is key to fostering greater understanding among people. To illustrate this, he recounted a story about a high school student who once, innocently, called him a Nazi.

“Mr Dinowitz, you have those nice eyes,” he said she told him. “You look like a Nazi.” Dinowitz, whose eyes are a sparkly blue, said there was nothing either malicious or comical in her voice. “She meant it as a compliment,” he said, adding that he initially thought he might have misheard her, but she said it again in exactly the same way.

Reassuring the student that she was not in any trouble, Dinowitz said he took her aside and explained to her how what she said could be deemed offensive. After some initial shock and confusion, the student asked why the Jewish people hadn’t resisted. “I didn’t have a good answer,” he said, and so, he said he just explained to her that by the time people really understood what was happening, it was kind of too late.

“The extra layer on top of that is that this student didn’t know what the Holocaust was,” he said. Asked if it was not taught in school, Dinowitz said, “It’s taught in middle school but, you know, if the takeaway is Nazis are all those people with the blue eyes…”

It was two or three years later when Dinowitz said he started to see swastikas in the school and other staff members started seeing them on test papers, on desks, and on the walls. “I was upset. I was mad,” he said. “And while some people wanted to say, ‘Let’s find who did this,’ and ‘We’ll have detention, suspend them,’ I was like, ‘No, let’s educate our staff, and let’s educate our children’.”

Working with a Black female colleague, he said they carried out anti-bias training that covered a variety of cultures, religions and symbols of hate, asking the students as they did so what bias looks like. “It was very successful,” he said.

Staying on the topic of education, Dinowitz referenced a recent survey provided by the New York Chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) to New York City Council candidates in July 2020. According to reports by both the Jerusalem Post, and New York Post, New York City Council candidates were asked, “Do you pledge not to travel to Israel if elected to City Council in solidarity with Palestinians living under occupation?” A follow-up question asked the candidates if they would support a boycott.

Following the Arab-Israeli War in 1948, the Aida Palestinian refugee camp in Israel’s West Bank was established. Later, the UN passed Resolution 194. Article 11 of that resolution, “resolves that the [Palestinian] refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbors should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return, and for loss of or damage to property which, under principles of international law or in equity, should be made good by the Governments or authorities responsible.”

The Palestinian refugees have been waiting to return to their original homes since 1948. According to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, Aida camp is located near two large Israeli settlements that are deemed illegal under international law. The camp is segregated by an 8-meter-high, concrete wall, and clashes between the camp’s residents and the Israeli Security Forces (ISF) have caused numerous injuries.

The camps’ proximity to the main checkpoint between Jerusalem and Bethlehem means residents have limited access to water, and job opportunities, and there is no hospital in the camp either. We asked Dinowitz if he could see how organizations such as the DSA might have legitimate concerns about Israeli government policy in this regard, without being considered antisemitic. “Yeah, I do,” he said.

He highlighted, nonetheless, that the question about Israel in the DSA survey was the only foreign policy question included, and its phraseology bothered him. “It wasn’t, ‘Do you disagree with the way the Israeli government is?’” he said. “When you weight a question, and word it so heavily like that, it’s hard not to think it’s antisemitic,” he said. “But, regardless of the way the question is worded, as an educator, it is hard for me to conceptualize this idea that less experience, less exposure, and less education is better.”

Norwood News reached out to the DSA and asked if the questions formed part of their membership process. Chris Kutalik Cauthern, communications director, responded, saying, “Such a question has never been used in a national endorsement process by our organization. I can reach out to the NYC chapter for the wording for whatever question might have appeared like that on one of their candidate questionnaires for exact details.” We did follow up but so far, did not receive further comment. For his part, Dinowitz said he doesn’t plan on filling out the questionnaire.

As part of a Jewish acapella group called 613, Dinowitz travels the country and the world singing to audiences. He said helping communities around the world build their Jewish community is one of the great joys and great experiences that he gets to have in his life. He also sees how Jewish people are not a monolithic group, and can disagree about the governance of Israel.

He said he can also even see in the classroom, every day, the way the policies of the U.S. and New York City have failed children, and seniors, and working families, and the ways they’re hurting. “It doesn’t mean I boycott New York and New Yorkers and people who like New York, right?” he said. “And so, if you take that idea, it’s the same idea for me with Israel.”

“When I think of Israel, with all the faults that there may be in the governance of Israel, the basic idea, to me, is that Jewish people should have a homeland, a place they can call home, and should have the right to defend themselves, and to me, it’s just heartbreaking the fact that we have to debate that, because we know what happens when we, kind of, sit back and just, like, let bad things happen to the Jewish people,” he said.

As a committee chair on Bronx Community Board 8, and as a District Leader in the Bronx Democratic Party, Dinowitz is already familiar with the issues that affect the community. From housing to healthcare and from transit to accessibility, he is a fierce advocate for equality, especially when it comes to seniors and people with disabilities.

“We need to make sure to fight for our children, for our working families, and for our seniors,” he said. “I want to make sure seniors are able to live independently, without fear, because that’s what they want, right?” he said. “That’s the number one thing I hear from seniors. Sometimes, that fear is a crack in the sidewalk. I talked about how quality of life is important, so cracks in the sidewalks may be annoying to people like me, but they could spell the end of independence for a senior.”

Dinowitz also wants to keep seniors in their homes, by making sure rents and maintenance remain low, that rent control laws work for them, and that they have access to SCRIE (Senior Citizen Rent Increase Exemption) and DRIE (Disability Rent Increase Exemption) and other programs.

The need for greater accessibility in District 11 for both seniors and people with disabilities is also part of his campaign platform. He said he brought together a coalition of elected leaders, business leaders, and residential leaders, who recognized that an elevator at Mosholu subway station was badly needed.

“With two hospitals there, a business district, Tracy Towers, Clinton High School, Bronx Science, all of our subways and trains should be accessible,” he said. “We collected over 2,000 signatures from people using that train, people in the neighborhood. I went down to the MTA meetings. I testified there. I spoke on behalf of their vital need for this elevator. A year later, the MTA came back and said, ‘Okay.’ It’s part of their next capital plan. They’re going to install elevators at this train station,” he said.

When, later, the MTA wanted to cut a local, express bus service, Dinowitz said he recognized this service was the only accessible means of transportation for seniors and people with disabilities in the area, precisely because the local train station didn’t have an elevator or because the residents lived too far from the station.

Again, he said he attended multiple public meetings to support community members who rely on the express bus service, including those who don’t have regular nine to five jobs, and need to travel during off-peak hours. During the pandemic, he said all of these inequalities were exacerbated. “Not everyone works nine to five in Manhattan, but that’s the mentality of so many decision makers,” he said.

Dinowitz plans to be a different lawmaker. “That’s what I’ve been for our community,” he added. Whether it’s with transit, on the trains, whether it’s with the express bus speaking out, whether it’s with absentee ballot voting, whether it’s for our children, I’ve been the voice for so many people, and that’s what I want to do, is be our voice in City Hall, so we can reimagine the way we do things.”

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Welcome to the Norwood News, a bi-weekly community newspaper that primarily serves the northwest Bronx communities of Norwood, Bedford Park, Fordham and University Heights. Through our Breaking Bronx blog, we focus on news and information for those neighborhoods, but aim to cover as much Bronx-related news as possible. Founded in 1988 by Mosholu Preservation Corporation, a not-for-profit affiliate of Montefiore Medical Center, the Norwood News began as a monthly and grew to a bi-weekly in 1994. In September 2003 the paper expanded to cover University Heights and now covers all the neighborhoods of Community District 7. The Norwood News exists to foster communication among citizens and organizations and to be a tool for neighborhood development efforts. The Norwood News runs the Bronx Youth Journalism Heard, a journalism training program for Bronx high school students. As you navigate this website, please let us know if you discover any glitches or if you have any suggestions. We’d love to hear from you. You can send e-mails to norwoodnews@norwoodnews.org or call us anytime (718) 324-4998.