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JARRAD SAFFREN | STAFF WRITER
I lya Breyman is a Russian immigrant; he came to the United States
with his family in 2001, just two weeks before 9/11, and found
the American unity in response to the tragedy to be profoundly
inspiring. But today, he says, that unity is gone. Instead, the political culture
is more like the one his parents grew up with in the Soviet Union:
polarized and divided according to certain classifications, like ethnic
group or political affiliation.

In response, Breyman, 37, is running for the open seat in
Pennsylvania’s 178th House district.

With a victory, the Jewish Holland resident would represent
his neighbors in New Hope, Northampton Township, Solebury
Township, Upper Makefield Township and Wrightstown Township.

14 APRIL 7, 2022 | JEWISHEXPONENT.COM
The Democrat is running unopposed
in the May 17 primary but will have to
flip a seat held by Republican Wendi
Thomas. Thomas herself, though, is not
running for reelection.

“We want to run a positive campaign
focusing on practical issues,” Breyman
said. “We want to engage everybody on
the left and the right and in the middle
in a discussion on how we can make
our community better.”
In a campaign announcement,
Breyman listed several legislative pri-
orities, all of which are practical, every-
day issues that impact most everybody:
opening access to quality education for
children, creating good jobs, invest-
ing in infrastructure, conserving the
natural world and supporting police
officers, firefighters and emergency
medical technicians.

“We are Americans first, and
Republicans, Democrats or indepen-
dents second,” Breyman said in his
campaign announcement.

This strategy, according to the candi-
date, is a step past the divisive, culture
war politics that defined the 2010s.

People are tired of that, he said.

“We’ve got people on the extremes
pulling us in different directions,”
Breyman added. “Imposing an agenda
that doesn’t really benefit anybody.”
“They’re not talking about real
things,” he concluded.

Breyman’s focus on “real things”
didn’t start with this campaign,
according to his sister Maria
Shamkalian, a Langhorne resident
who is helping him run. As a kid, “he
always was thinking of how to change
the world,” she said.

But the Holland resident’s first expo-
sure to politics didn’t come until 1999
when, at 14, Breyman accompanied
his parents to a protest over then-Rus-
sian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s
attempt to take over the independent
television channel NTV.

After the protest, Breyman and his
parents could sense that the initial
openness in Russia after the Soviet
Union’s fall was starting to close again.

Two years later, they left for the United
States. Today, the family runs a couple of
early childhood centers in Northeast
Philadelphia called Ann Kids, named
for Breyman’s mother. Breyman him-
self founded an educational tech
startup called Coursalytics.

Neither endeavor would have been
possible in Russia, Breyman said.

“The Russian economy was domi-
nated by oligarchs. It was very hard to
do business without getting involved
in the government,” he added. “Here
you can run a small business and be
successful.” Through his first 15 years in the U.S.,
the immigrant voted Republican like
many of his fellow Russians. They hated
communism, the candidate explained.

But in 2016, Breyman recognized
what he saw as another political
threat in the form of Donald Trump,
who reminded him of Putin and
other authoritarian Russian leaders.

So he changed his affiliation to the
Democratic Party.

“We also forget we ran away from a
cult of personality, corrupt leadership,”
he said. “That not only applies to the
communist regime but to the regime
that replaced it and is in power now.”
As a moderate who believes he
understands perspectives from both
sides, Breyman said he can talk to
anyone on the trail, a quality that may
serve him well in a county often recog-
nized as a political bellwether that can
go either way.

Dan Siegel, a consultant for the
Dover Strategy Group, which helps
Democratic campaigns and is advising
Breyman, thinks that the candidate’s
focus on practical issues reflects that
bipartisan skill. It’s also what voters
want to hear at the moment.

“You don’t have to see confidential
polling to know that the most import-
ant issues to people right now are infla-
tion, jobs,” Siegel said. “We’re starting
to turn a corner on the toxic culture of
the last five years.”
Breyman has filed to run for the seat
and is still in the process of planning
events. But he is driving around to
neighborhoods and knocking on doors.

“People are very friendly,” said
Shamkalian, who has accompanied her
brother on some rounds. “People are
just sharing how they’d like to make
the community better.” JE
jsaffren@midatlanticmedia.com Photo by Maria Shamkalian
Ilya Breyman