I wrote this same post in another thread.
I am Jewish, and life a few blocks form the district. There was more to this election than is being reported.
Many of the jews in this district are Orthodox Jews, who are by nature very conservative, and only vote democrat because 90% of this city is democrat, and they "go with the flow" in order to stay connected to the broader political culture in the city. The democratic candidate was a Orthodox Jew, who nevertheless voted for gay marriage in the new york state legislature, where he was a member. His vote was one of the deciding votes that caused the law to pass. This did not go over well with the Orthodox Jewish population in NYC. The republican candidate was a Conservative Irish Catholic, who was against gay marriage.
Except for Ed Koch, the former mayor of NYC, endorsing the republican, I did not see many advertisements mentioning Israel as a reason to vote republican. But I saw many ads in predominately jewish media in the days before the election urging jews to vote republican over the gay marriage issue. Those ads were signed by many rabbis.