Hasidic Jew Wins Council Seat, and Vote for Diversity, in Iowa

Chalking up what he called a victory for diversity, Aaron Goldsmith won election to the City Council of tiny Postville, Iowa, this week.

Goldsmith became the first elected Jewish representative of a town that has struggled to reconcile its all-white, all-Christian heritage with an influx of immigrants from around the world.

Turnout was so heavy that Postville ran out of ballots midway through Tuesday’s election as Goldsmith, a Hasidic Jew originally from Los Angeles, beat Tracey Schager, whose family has long roots in Postville. The unofficial tally showed Goldsmith winning 325 votes to Schager’s 216.

Goldsmith had been appointed to a council seat earlier this year, to fill a midterm vacancy. But more than 100 residents signed a petition to boot him off, some expressing fear that the sizable Jewish community in town was angling for a power grab and would, as one woman put it, “push the rest of us out.”

The petition triggered Tuesday’s balloting, which Goldsmith portrayed as a referendum on Postville’s commitment to embracing the multiethnic population that has moved in to work at a kosher slaughterhouse and turkey processing plant. “This was a vote about are we going forward or are we going back,” Goldsmith said.