The recent Student Government Association elections have resulted in four of the top seven SGA positions being filled by Jewish students, including three of the six vice-presidential positions and the Action Party’s Aaron Kraus as the new SGA president.

Andrew Rose, Noah Elkrief and Joshua Berman were the Jewish students elected to the vice-presidential offices. Rose, Elkrief and Berman are the Vice President of Administrative Affairs, Vice President of Student Group Affairs and Vice President of Campus Affairs, respectively.

With more than half of the top seven spots in the SGA going to Jewish students, it is very likely that issues important to the Jewish community will be addressed.

“We can’t be biased toward any organization, but I feel that cultural organizations, such as the Jewish Student Union and Black Student Union, should be addressed because they are such a positive influence on our campus,” Kraus said.

Kraus has put his presidency on the line by promising to resign by Dec. 1 if his team cannot attract a big-name musical act to perform at the university, instead of going to the University of Maryland, Baltimore County or Towson University. He estimates it will cost between $80,000 and $100,000 to bring in a big name act.

“We have been working many hours on this difficult task, even before officially taking office, but we feel the typical student will respond to this as an act that SGA has personally done for them,” Kraus said.

Kraus said the majority of work on the concert and other tasks will be done during the summer when the top SGA officials aren’t in class.

After losing the election last year to SGA President Tim Daly by 5 percent, Kraus praised Daly for giving the SGA a voice in Annapolis and is looking forward to continuing where Daly leaves off, lobbying for students’ rights.

“Tim is possibly the most politically brilliant student this campus has ever seen,” Kraus said.

Kraus is hoping to take the idea of political action and bring it closer to home. He said students are disenfranchised in College Park because they are realistically unable to vote in the city.

“I think it is unethical to have students without cars to go somewhere off-campus to vote,” Kraus said. “I don’t even know where Davis Hall [the voting location for College Park] is exactly.”

Kraus plans to make the SGA more visible on the campus by holding meetings and events in various locations across campus with the belief that the SGA’s credibility increases when its visibility increases.

“We need to shift how the average student views SGA; our only power is our credibility, and we have to build that up by growing and mobilizing,” Kraus said.

Kraus grew up in a Jewish home and attended Huntington Jewish Center, a Conservative synagogue, in Huntington, N.Y. He went to Israel for two months in the summer of 2000 and is an avid supporter of Israel, both nationally and politically.

Kraus is the first student to be elected president without any prior SGA experience since 1985.