Ari Kagan

Ari Kagan (born Arkadiy Kagan in 1967) is an American politician who was a member of the New York City Council from the 47th district, representing Bensonhurst, Coney Island, Gravesend, and Sea Gate. Elected in November 2021, he assumed office on January 1, 2022. After being elected as a Democrat, he switched his party membership to the Republican Party during his City Council term. Kagan lost his re-election bid to Democrat Justin Brannan in 2023.

Early life and education

Kagan was born in Minsk in 1967. His parents were survivors of the Holocaust. His paternal grandmother Sofiya was killed in the Minsk ghetto in 1942 while his father Mikhail survived.

After graduating Secondary School No. 20 in Minsk, he attended the Leningrad Suvorov School until the Spring of 1984 after which he joined the Soviet Army and in the Fall of 1984, he was admitted to the Journalism Department at Lviv Higher Military-Political School, from which he graduated in Spring 1988.

In 1991, Kagan left the Soviet Army and the Soviet Communist Party. He said he "became disillusioned with the Soviet-Communist ideology". He immigrated as a refugee to the United States with his family in May 1993, after the collapse of the Soviet Union. In the U.S., he attended Zicklin School of Business at Baruch College and graduated with a Bachelor of Business Administration in Marketing and Advertising in 1999.

In 2002, he legally changed his name from "Arkadiy" to "Ari" when he became naturalized as a U.S. citizen. In a 2010 interview, Kagan said of the name change: "Firstly, Ari is shorter than Arkadiy, and Americans do not distort my name, and secondly, I like my new name because it resembles the abbreviation of the words "America - Russia - Israel"."

Career

Journalism

As a military journalist, Kagan worked in Soviet Latvia with the newspapers ''Sovetskiy Tankist'' in Dobele ''and Dlya Rodiny!'' in Riga. Kagan said that he was "lucky to work in various papers during the Gorbachev era of Glasnost and Perestroika when criticism of authorities was allowed and sometimes even encouraged". He told TabletMag that "I was not a dissident. But I was honest with myself, with my family, with my readers." After resigning from the Soviet Army in 1991, Kagan worked for two anti-Communist papers: "Independent Baltic Newspaper" (Riga) and "Byelorussian Enterprener" (Minsk).

In Brooklyn, Kagan worked as a writer for the Russian-language newspapers ''Yevreiski Mir'' and ''Vecherniy New York''. He also presented a weekly television program on the Brooklyn-based ''Russian Television Network of America'' (RTN). From 2005 to 2021, Kagan hosted the morning Radio Show "New York City News" on Russian language Davidzon Radio (620 AM).

Democratic Party politics

In 2012, Kagan was elected as a Democratic District Leader in the 45th New York State Assembly District. He founded the political club Bay Democrats in 2014. In December 2022, Kagan became a Republican and stepped down from his District Leader post.

Work for elected officials

Kagan worked as a community liaison for Comptrollers John Liu and Scott Stringer, as an assistant to Congressman Michael McMahon and later as Director of District Operations to Council Member Mark Treyger.

New York City Council

In November 2021, Kagan was elected to the New York City Council as a Democrat, succeeding Mark Treyger.

After switching his party affiliation to Republican due to his strong disagreements with Democrats on public safety, school education and taxation, Kagan joined the City Council's Republican conference. Council Speaker Adrienne Adams suggested that Kagan might lose his position as Chair of the Council's Committee on Resiliency and Waterfronts. "Voters sent Council member Kagan to the Council as a member of the majority conference and this drastic about-face seriously calls into question his commitment to the policy priorities of our conference that will impact his committee roles, particularly his chairmanship given the fact that he is joining a party that denies climate change," Adams said. Kagan resigned from the Committee Chairmanship shortly thereafter, telling the ''Daily News'' that he "resigned rather than to wait until being expelled by the Council leadership".

Kagan announced that he would run for re-election in the newly re-drawn 47th district. The 47th district was heavily panned as one of the most significant gerrymanders in modern NYC politics, as it connected Bay Ridge to Coney Island through a one-block stretch and divided a Coney Island housing complex between two districts.

In his 2023 re-election bid, Kagan won the Republican primary. He lost to Democrat Justin Brannan in the general election.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kagan, Ari
1967 births
Living people
21st-century American Jews
21st-century New York (state) politicians
American people of Belarusian-Jewish descent
American politicians who switched parties
Baruch College alumni
Belarusian emigrants to the United States
Candidates in the 2025 United States elections
Jewish American people in New York (state) politics
Minsk Suvorov Military School alumni
New York (state) Democrats
New York (state) Republicans
Politicians from Brooklyn
Politicians from Minsk
Resigned Communist Party of the Soviet Union members
Soviet Army personnel
Soviet Jews in the military