Mike Bloomberg

A City Council campaign in one of the city’s fastest-growing Jewish neighborhoods has led to charges of anti-Semitism as long-shot Republican Gene Berardelli has attacked incumbent Brooklyn Democrat Lewis Fidler for “advocating one group over another.”

Long-shot Democrat mayoral candidate Tony Avella is hoping to cash in on some bad publicity for frontrunner William Thompson in the run-up to next Tuesday’s primary.

Thompson, the city comptroller, has taken some hits for his management of the city pension system since a New York Times article found the performance of four of the five funds dropped under his tenure.

Have you heard about the chasidic guy who’s running for City Council in Williamsburg? Of course you have. He’s gotten a fair amount of press, including the front page of this paper.

What about the Council candidate who said some nasty things about Israel at his son’s bris and now wants to represent, of all places, part of Borough Park? Yeah, we did that one, too.

At 24, Mark Botnick is in charge of outreach to the Jewish community for Mike Bloomberg’s third mayoral campaign. The Yonkers native, an alumnus of Westchester Day School and Westchester Hebrew High School, worked on Bloomberg’s last campaign while still at Queens College and afterward went to work at the city’s Community Assistance Unit until this year. A Democrat, he lives on the Upper West Side.

Q: How does it look for the re-election? Do you think the mayor will pull it off?

With Betsy Gotbaum declining to seek re-election, there is no incumbent in this year’s heated race for public advocate. Or is there?
Mark Green, the Democrat who narrowly lost the mayoral race in 2001 after two terms as public advocate, is looking for his old job back. In 1997, Green won more votes in his re-election bid in that job than did Mayor Rudy Giuliani in his.