Fed up with socialism and anti-Semitism, attorney seeks to clean up New York City

(JNS) — Inna Vernikov remembers what life was like for families in the former Soviet Union when she was a child.

“I remember standing in very long lines with my grandfather—he’d have a ticket so we could get one loaf of bread and one bottle of milk for the entire family,” said Vernikov, who was born in Czernovitz, Ukraine, and immigrated with her family to the United States at the age of 12.

Memories like this, the desire to effect change on issues related to crime and New York’s economy, as well as her perception of a parallel between the former Soviet Union’s collectivism and anti-Semitism,...