Satmar wedding ‘ disrespectful, deceitful, illegal,’ says NY governor
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has strongly condemned a secret wedding held by the Satmar hassidic community two weeks ago where upwards of 7,000 people attended, despite the ban on such events under state and city COVID- 19 regulations.
Videos emerged over the weekend of the mass wedding showing thousands of hassidim standing shoulder to shoulder on bleachers, singing, jumping and swaying together inside the Satmar Kiryas Joel synagogue complex in Brooklyn.
The videos, obtained by
The
Jerusalem Post, show not one individual wearing a mask.
Speaking in a press conference on Sunday afternoon, Cuomo said that he had “heard the report,” about the wedding, and demanded an investigation into the incident.
“If that happened, it was blatant disregard of the law, it’s illegal, it was also disrespectful to the people of New York,” said Cuomo.
He also noted that a planned mass wedding by the Williamsburg branch of the Satmar community was called off in October when state officials intervened.
The governor implied that if the secret wedding was confirmed it would demonstrate deceit on behalf of the Satmar leadership toward him, since he held personal conversations with Satmar officials in October on the issue of mass gatherings.
“If it turns out that because we stopped that wedding the reaction was ‘ well we’ll have a secret wedding,’ that would be really shocking and totally deceitful of the conversations I had because I have personal conversations with members of the community,” said Cuomo.
“The city should do a robust investigation. If 7,000 people went to a wedding you can figure that out... then we’ll bring the full consequence of legal action to bear,” he added.