Noach Dear an American attorney, politician, and jurist who served as a New York Supreme Court judge died on April 19, 2020, aged 66.[21]
Dear was elected in 2008 as a civil court judge, in 2010 as an Acting Supreme Court Justice, and in 2015 for a 15-year term as a Permanent Justice on the New York Supreme Court. Prior to his appointment, he served as a member of the New York City Council from 1983 to 2001. He died during the COVID-19 pandemic due to complications of COVID-19.
Dear was born in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Joan (Lipins) and Sidney Dear. As a child, Dear was in Eli Lipsker’s Pirchei Agudath Israel Choir, and sang on the first New York Pirchei album Pirchei Sings אליך ה’ אקרא. He attended Yeshiva Torah Vodaas.
Dear received a B.S. from Brooklyn College (1975), a master’s degree in social work from Wurzweiler School of Social Work at Yeshiva University (1975), and a JD from Brooklyn Law School (1991).
His public service career began as a district leader and as district manager of Brooklyn’s Community Board 12.[10][11]
Dear served as a member of the New York City Council from 1983–2001. He headed the Transportation Committee and opposed commuter vans, otherwise known as “dollar vans,” as a transportation alternative while in office.[12] Council member Dear also served on “the Finance and Land Use Committees as well.”[13]
He advocated support for the State of Israel and concern for the issues impacting the primarily Jewish-and heavily Orthodox Jewish-residents in his community, which included Midwood, as well as large swaths of Borough Park and Bensonhurst, all in Brooklyn. In 1986, Dear voted against a civil rights bill prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in employment, housing, and public accommodation.[14] In 1987 he introduced a bill, supported by “about 30 members of the City Council,” to push permission for “more Jews .. to leave the Soivet Union.”[15]
Dear was appointed Commissioner of the New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission in 2002 for a seven-year term.
Dear was widely seen as a political rival of Assemblyman Dov Hikind, who represented many of the same constituents that Dear once represented while in office, and comes from an Orthodox Jewish background.[16]
Term-limited out of office, Dear launched an uphill campaign for the New York State Senate seat now held by Kevin Parker in 2002. In a five-candidate field, Dear narrowly lost to Parker by a margin of 909 votes.[17] Dear also ran in a Democratic congressional primary that chose the successor to Charles Schumer in 1998, which saw him face three other candidates, including the eventual winner, Anthony Weiner.[18][19]
Dear was a New York Supreme Court judge, elected in 2008 as a civil court judge, in 2010 as an Acting Supreme Court Justice, and in 2015 for a 15-year term as a Permanent Justice on the Supreme Court.[20]
Dear contracted COVID-19, during the coronavirus pandemic in the United States, had been sick for weeks, and was on a ventilator.Dear is the second Brooklyn judge to have died as a result of COVID-19.[22