Defiant Orthodox Jews gather to burn masks
Renewed virus restrictions met with anger
Jacob Kornbluh was just three blocks from his home in Brooklyn, documenting a protest against coronavirus restrictions on Wednesday evening, when demonstrators turned toward him.
The 39- year- old journalist found himself pinned to the wall of a store, he said, as dozens of fellow Orthodox Jews began yelling and calling him a “moyser” — Yiddish for “snitch” — in a confrontation captured on video. Then, a few maskless men spit onto his face.
“These were members of my own community with hatred in their eyes, flipping the finger toward me, calling me a Nazi, saying I deserve to die,” Kornbluh, a politics reporter for Jewish Insider, told The Washington Post. “All these months I keep a distance, wear a mask not to get sick, advocate for measures that save lives, they disrespect my space and do something horrifying.”
The attack underscores the escalating tensions playing out this week in many of Brooklyn’s Orthodox Jewish neighbourhoods. As a surge in coronavirus cases has prompted government authorities to issue new lockdown orders, including restrictions on houses of worship, some in this mostly insular community have turned their skepticism of public health measures into open defiance.
For three consecutive nights, hundreds of men have congregated on the streets of Brooklyn, dancing, clashing with police and burning face masks. They have also physically attacked journalists and others documenting the scenes, including one Hasidic man who ended up in the hospital early Wednesday.
Kornbluh said the reasons fuelling the community’s defiance are difficult to untangle: There’s a history of government mistrust, a sense the pandemic has passed and a feeling that lawmakers should stay out of their religious activities. New York Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo and New York Democratic Mayor Bill de Blasio, meanwhile, have singled out Orthodox Jews while failing to conduct proper outreach, he said.
Heshy Tischler, an activist behind some demonstrations, has claimed the uptick in infections is a hoax, but Cuomo said it is the direct consequence of sloppy adherence to measures like masks and social distancing.
“To the extent there are communities that are upset, that’s because they haven’t been following the original rules,” he said at a news conference on Tuesday. “That’s why the infection spread.”
In New York’s Orthodox neighbourhoods, the pandemic hit early — and hard. These areas were some of the first to report cases in March, and during the peak of the city’s outbreak soon after, dozens of Orthodox funerals took place day after day, Kornbluh said.
But after years of growing tensions with health authorities, the pandemic only made things worse. In April, many said de Blasio unfairly singled out their community when he publicly made an example of social distancing violations at the funeral for an influential Hasidic rabbi.
Following a steep drop in cases this summer, some started to act against public health rules: Flyers have instructed families not to get their children tested, according to the New York Times, warning that doing so could bring the positivity rate up and risk a shutdown of in-person celebrations for the High Holidays.
Kornbluh added that city health officials had failed to properly encourage — or enforce — public health guidelines in the area, with only five Yiddish- speaking contact tracers working for the state and little presence in Orthodox neighbourhoods in Brooklyn, Queens and suburbs further upstate.
With positivity rates on the rise recently in neighbourhoods across Brooklyn and Queens — all of which are home to large Orthodox populations — city and state lawmakers moved to take action. On Tuesday, Cuomo ordered schools to close, shut down non- essential businesses and imposed strict capacity limits on religious gatherings. That drew almost immediate blowback from the community’s elected officials, who said the governor lied to them in a “duplicitous bait and switch” and had made “irresponsible and pejorative” comments targeting Jews.
“We are appalled by Governor Cuomo’s words and actions today,” Simcha Eichenstein, a New York state assemblyman representing the area, and three other Orthodox Jewish lawmakers wrote in a statement on Tuesday. “He has chosen to pursue a scientifically and constitutionally questionable shutdown of our communities.”