By Reuvain Borchardt

 

US Senator Andy Kim (D-NJ) visited Agudath Israel’s Lakewood office to learn about Agudah’s Zahav program, which provides support and resources to seniors, and Yahalom, which assists families of children with special needs.

 

While organizations often invite legislators to their offices, this was a rare case of the politician actually requesting the visit (and not during an election year), for very personal reasons.

 

Last December, in his first speech on the Senate floor, Kim disclosed that his father had Alzheimer’s and related the difficulties, both emotional and financial, in caring for someone suffering from the dreaded disease.

 

As it turned out, Agudah’s New Jersey office had scheduled its annual mission to Washington for two days later. When Kim met with the mission, New Jersey Agudah Director Shlomo Schorr told the senator about Zahav and Yahalom, and Kim requested to visit the Agudah office and see these programs firsthand.

 

He made that visit to the Agudah office last week. At the hour-long event, people caring for loved ones with Alzheimer’s and similar diseases, as well as parents of special-needs children, spoke of the crushing burden involved in providing appropriate care.

 

Kim later told The Voice that this issue is “something that I think all of us, hopefully, can put aside partisan differences and be able to push forward on.”

 

Among specific points he would like to focus on, he said, are ensuring a smooth continuance of care when seniors move from one state to another (such as the many New Yorkers moving to the Lakewood area) and costs beyond medical care. Examples of that are renovations to home bathrooms to make them accessible for all and electronic trackers for those at risk of wandering off.

 

 

 

Quick Chat with Kim

 

Following the event at the Agudah office, Senator Kim’s press secretary offered The Voice a brief interview with the senator.

 

Would you like to see New Jersey opt in to the federal education tax credit? Governor Sherrill still hasn’t said whether she wants to do that.

 

Well, look, I’d have to look into that a little bit more. I’m working at the federal level, and I know there’s a lot at the state level to be able to engage.

 

What I do know is that I need to work hand in hand with the governor as well as the state legislature to make sure we’re pushing. In the meantime, I’m going to try to do as much as I can to be able to bring as much from the federal level back to New Jersey.

 

Can you address why you voted against arms sales to Israel?

 

Yeah, I have. So, look, what I’ll just say is that I do have some real concerns about how some of the actions that have been undertaken when it comes to Prime Minister Netanyahu’s…

 

While I continue to support Israel’s right to be able to defend itself, I do have some concerns about that. And I think that that was something that’s necessary between two allies, between the United States and Israel, to be able to have those types of engagements. I’ve worked in war zones before, I’ve worked with the NATO alliance before, and we need to make sure that we’re standing up for what we think is going to be best to be able to provide for the safety and security of the American people as well as our allies.

 

Is blocking the weapons not going to make it more difficult for Israel to defend itself?

No.

 

These are weapons that were not an immediate need for the defense of Israel. These are things that we should be able to engage in with about what is the right way forward. And that is something that I think is very common. We do this with every other ally that’s out there in terms of trying to identify what are the right weapons, what are the right ways to be able to defend.

 

And that’s something that we see the Trump administration doing right now as well, engaged in terms of what comes next for Israel when it comes to Lebanon. Again, Trump’s telling Israel how to be able to engage with the war in Lebanon and elsewhere. These are the types of things that allies do with one another.

 

What do you think of the recent wave of victories by the DSA candidates in the primaries?

 

Well, I also focus in on the recent victories of candidates like Rebecca Bennett here in New Jersey—someone who was a Navy helicopter pilot, someone who has served our country in uniform.

 

So, yes, we’re having all sorts of different candidates winning across. I think a main thing that I see is that it’s about who can go out and engage the communities and what it is that they can do to show that the status quo of politics is broken.

 

So if we want to see other candidates stepping out in different ways, that’s what we need to make sure that we’re lifting up. So I have concerns about candidates all over the country on both sides of the aisle. If I have those types of concerns, then what am I doing to lift up candidates like Rebecca Bennett, who I think is exemplary of what the future of the Democratic Party should be like?