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Home » Jews can demonstrate, too

Jews can demonstrate, too

The New Neo Posted on by

I wonder whether they will get a dispensation from the rules against large gatherings, too, because it’s a protest march:

Hundreds of members of the Borough Park Orthodox community took to the streets Tuesday night, defying orders to disperse and lighting a fire in protest of new state-mandated restrictions imposed on area synagogues, schools and non-essential businesses over a COVID-19 surge.

One large crowd huddled closely together at the corner of 50th Street and 15th Avenue at about 9 p.m. as community activist Heshy Tischler ripped Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio over the order that shuts down schools completely and limits houses of worship to 10 people in certain COVID-19 hot spots.

One complaint was that they had not even been consulted or informed prior to Governor Cuomo’s press conference. And the crowd also chanted “Jewish Lives Matter!”

Cuomo’s presentation was especially offensive to the demonstrators:

“His language was dangerous and divisive, and left the implication that Orthodox Jews alone are responsible for rising COVID cases in New York State,” the elected officials said.

Exactly.

There is a long and terrible history of scapegoating Jews for pestilence. I am going to assume that Cuomo is aware of it. If he isn’t, he should be.

[NOTE: By the way, those who read yesterday’s thread on Cuomo’s presentation probably have noticed that the exact community and sect involved isn’t named here, either.]

Comments

Jews can demonstrate, too — 22 Comments

  1. There is a long and terrible history of scapegoating Jews for pestilence. I am going to assume that Cuomo is aware of it. If he isn’t, he should be.

    You shouldn’t. His father was a bibliophile who sought to extend his liberal education through his own efforts. He was also married to the same woman from 1958 until his death. Regression to the mud in that family.

  2. Of course he is aware. Like the rest of the left he hates Jews. It’s the new cool for the in crowd.

  3. It’s simple triangulation. The Top of the Tree Chuck Schumer Clones don’t care if anyone dumps on the Ultra-Orthodox whose mere existence embarrasses the hell out of them anyway. A rung or two down the ladder, many of the solidly well off New York Jews are decamping for points further South after the latest BLM riots and Covid Shutdowns so they will count less in future. Meanwhile, Black and Hispanic voters generally detest Jews and won’t have the slightest problem with these measures, to put it mildly.

    As for Cuomo Fils, he’s a race-baiting specialist in internecine warfare — what else do you expect in a Melting (It is to laugh) Pot?

    1900: Melting Pot —>
    2030: Pol Pot, if we’re not careful.

  4. Interesting and apt article today by the Z Man on how even the more sensible Left refuses to see Upper Case R Reality.

    https://thezman.com/wordpress/?p=21459

    Ideology as a unifying concept is Deader than Dead. And that includes the USA that many readers here were born into. To some degree, post 1865 and certainly by the end of the Wilson Administration the USA was an Ideological Construct.

    I feel just a little bit sorry for the Bret and Eric Weinsteins of this world. They’re not Bad People. But they just don’t and indeed *won’t* get it. Ever.

  5. I have nothing to do with any long history of scapegoating. The plain fact is that the OJ communities (if you wish, the U-O communities) of Greater New York have elevated rates of COVID infection, because they refuse to follow social distancing rules. (Similarly, the black communities of Greater New York have elevated rates of criminality, but that’s a topic for another day.) If you can’t recognize ethnic and racial statistical differences when they are this stark, then you are truly blind.

  6. Careful now, y81…. Noticing objective factual stuff in Base Level Reality (assuming we’re not living in a Simulation) makes Boomer bow ties spin and eyeballs pop out.

    We can take it as a given that if they possessed an ounce of self-awareness and historical nous, these strangely-tailored and whimsically-barbered folks would tone it down for the Great Covid Fear of 2020 Duration. But they pretty much live in their own universe according to their own rules — best not to enquire too closely into how they see US — but that’s another tale for another day.

    All the above granted, it is a low blow for Cuomo to pick on them and them only. I have tried to explain in an earlier post why I think he felt he could get away with doing so.

  7. y81:

    If you went to my post yesterday, and followed the link there to the post on measles in the same groups, and the rumors that they had a measles outbreak because they didn’t vaccinate, you would see that that was not the case. So I am skeptical that anyone knows for a fact that their higher rates of COVID are because that they won’t follow social distancing rules. Also, did you read this link, about the funeral? It was also in yesterday’s post. They were following the rules for that funeral and made major efforts to do so:

    Organizers said that they thought the procession would conform with social distancing guidelines because they asked everyone to stay six feet away from each other. The police department cooperated by barricading streets and putting up street lights, according to David Greenfield, the CEO of a Jewish anti-poverty organization and a former city councilman.

    Video of the event showed that funeral marchers were also guided by members of Shomrim, the Jewish community security organization. A Hasidic source who is familiar with the Shomrim’s preparations for the funeral, but not authorized to speak publicly, told the Forward that the Shomrim and NYPD had worked together in planning the funeral.

    “The plan was to have a specific number of people who could go into one street, then close it down, and have the car go to the next street,” the source explained. The source added that in addition to lights and barricades, the police had also approved having a sound system so that attendees could hear eulogies, but that at the last minute, officers ordered organizers not to use the speaker system.

    Doesn’t sound like some sort of cavalier refusal to do social distancing. Nor is it at all clear that these particular Jewish groups defy social distancing rules more than other groups, although there’s certainly a lot of chatter about it. See this:

    There is no data indicating religious Jews are violating social distancing rules at a greater rate than other demographic groups. While there have been high-profile incidents of police disrupting Jewish gatherings, the NYPD has also made arrests of various sorts for failing to practice social distancing, like at a Brooklyn barbershop and at a Manhattan “marijuana party.” And pictures of throngs hanging out at parks and closely congregating for the Navy Blue Angels and Air Force Thunderbirds flyovers indicated that not social distancing isn’t a problem specific to a particular religious group…

    By some accounts, religious Jews in certain neighborhoods of New York City have been stricken by the virus at high rates. At the same time, Jews who have recovered from the virus have donated plasma in extraordinary numbers in an effort to save others.

    In early March, Yaacov Behrman, a community leader and Hasidic Jewish activist, rushed to get ahead of the virus by marrying his bride, Shevi Katzman, after an engagement of just a week-and-a-half. They had a socially distanced wedding across two Brooklyn backyards — with a few siblings, no cousins, two witnesses and a rabbi, and 2,500 people watching on Facebook Live.

    “I think that’s what’s so painful and upsetting about it, about the mayor’s tweet, [is] the vast majority of Orthodox Jews have given up [something] — I gave up a wedding,” Behrman said. “What are you generalizing for, Mr. Mayor? It’s like going to the park and saying, ‘My message to the yuppies,’ you know?”…

    Yet there’s a pattern of specifically highlighting Jewish offenders. In Lakewood, N.J., where early on in the pandemic police made arrests at large Jewish gatherings, a local news station reported that a school bus was carrying children to a Jewish school that was open, illegally. The reporter later acknowledged that the bus was just delivering food to homebound families.

    And in Rockland County, N.Y., where there are large communities of Orthodox Jews, the county executive’s Facebook post about police breaking up a large Passover service was met by anti-Semitic comments.

    Violations of health regulations by Orthodox Jews have been documented by public officials and media at a level of scrutiny that Jews say others don’t face. Eli Steinberg, an Orthodox Jewish writer in Lakewood, N.J., says it’s easier to generalize about those who wear traditional garb.

    “We’re, ya know, we’re the guys dressed in black and white and we wear the hats, so it becomes a sort of more interesting story” when Jews violate health rules, he said. “But it’s not — it’s a story about people….People do dumb stuff.”

    The problem, he said, is when it is made to seem as though the few who violate the rules are more widespread in a particular community.

    “In a time of such uncertainty, which we’re going through now, when you can effectively scapegoat somebody or scapegoat a group of people about the issue that people are scared of…that’s a part of it that concerns me,” Steinberg said. “This moment where there’s the vehicle of Covid19 to use to spread hate, it just becomes that much more scary.” …

    Already a New Jersey man was arrested for using Facebook to threaten to assault Lakewood’s Jews for spreading the virus. He was charged with making terrorist threats during a state of emergency. A county deputy fire marshall in New Jersey was investigated for similar Facebook comments. And in Queens, a couple was charged with hate crimes after attacking a group of Orthodox Jews — ripping their masks off and punching them in the face — for supposedly not social distancing.

    “You Jews are all getting us sick,” the couple allegedly yelled.

    I would want to be tremendously sure of my facts before making categorical statements about the rates of COVID in these groups and the cause of those rates, and how they differ from other communities with high rates. Just to take one example – Jews in these groups have very very large families. Therefore, their households are much larger than usual. That means there are more exposures for each household. What effect does that have? I imagine it has the effect of possibly raising rates of infection.

    Other areas of New York have even higher rates, apparently, but no one’s talking about them.

  11. “There is a long and terrible history of scapegoating Jews for pestilence. I am going to assume that Cuomo is aware of it. If he isn’t, he should be.”

    you’re talking about a governor whose nursing home extermination policies showed that he never heard of Typhoid Mary

  12. It appears that human beings have an innate, a deep-seated need for a system of thought that orients human beings in their social and physical environment, a need for guidance, for rules and boundaries, a need for a higher purpose, for some form of philosophy or religion.

    For the West, and for the majority of it’s people, Christianity served this purpose up until, say, the late 19th century, when its influence started to wane, as the findings of science gradually weakened religion’s credibility and power.

    Nietzsche argued that Christianity had died, and he foresaw that various man-made ideologies would, of necessity, have to arise to fill the void that that death had created–as indeed the 20th century saw the rise and ultimate failure of Nazism, of Fascism and, in terms of practical results, of Communism.

    But people still need to believe, need some target for their fervor, and for the Left, their political ideology has occupied the place that Christian religion used to fill.

    Many on on the Right still look to Christianity but–wish as they might–as faith and belief in Christianity just keeps on fading, on losing ground, we are rapidly on the road to becoming a post-Christian world.

    Since the need for religion, for orientation, and for belief—for a point to Life–is innate in human beings, and very, very powerful, some new reformulation, some new philosophy or religion, is essential, and I would anticipate that one will inevitably have to coalesce out of the current dissolution, bewilderment, disorientation, dissatisfaction, and chaos.

  13. I often read in the left/liberal media that their favored minorities (not Jews) have a higher rate of COVID-19 infection than the general population, proving healthcare discrimination or something. If they really believe this, their stooges in government should be inflicting their wonderful edicts on these minorities’ neighborhoods, which, of course, won’t happen.

    Moreover, the lack of perfect compliance with edicts has caused no recent death wave in the Jewish neighborhoods, proving how worthless the edicts now are in general.

  14. P.S.—I don’t know about you, but as for me, a “scientific” viewpoint, one which sees the Universe as solely composed of soulless matter, of molecules and atoms which arose as the result of random chance.

    “Life” merely the lucky result of trillions of random combinations of those atoms and molecules, those chemicals over billions of years, and us with no ultimate purpose.

    Well, then, such a view of the Universe, of us, and of our place in that Universe is a bleak and extremely unsatisfying one, one which I reject.

  16. AppleBetty–Don’t you mean, “amor voluntatis Dei,” the love of the will of God?

  17. Neo – I completely agree that DeBlasio is scapegoating Jews here. Totally!

    And I do agree with your point about some groups have larger families; in fact, many of those larger families often have more than one kid sharing a bedroom. So, when one gets sick, the whole gang in that bedroom gets sick. They also often have their elderly grandparents living in the same house.

    It is ironic that there was no claim about Black or Latin communities disobeying rules even when those communities had higher infection rates!

    On the local news (here in NYC area) they showed video clips of “protesters” in the orthodox neighborhood – not protesting the shutdowns or anything like that. But, protesting being made into scapegoats.

    Now, in my opinion that is truly “voicing ones grievance with government.” No one likes to be blamed for something they didn’t do.

    And, yes, there were some who rioted. So, NOW, the mayor talks about not rioting, not doing damage, not attacking police. Just where was this kind of talk for the last several months? More “blame the Jews” as far as I am concerned. Others riot because they have “legitimate” grievances; but, Jews riot when some try to make them into scapegoats and that some how or other is not okay? Does the mayor and his supporters not know history? Does he not know where making Jews into scapegoats led to during WWII?

    Shameful, just shameful on the part of mayor DeBlasio.

  18. What is happening to the Chasidim in Boro Park is very similar to what happened and will happen to Amy Coney Barrett at her inquisition, oops, I meant confirmation, hearing. It is so unfathomable to the Left that there are still people around who actually practice their religion that it throws people like Cuomo into a rage.

    Snow on Pine — there’s a story about that “scientific” view —

    Scientists declare that they can make a man out of dust; that they are now the equal of God. They announce that they will carry out their creation, and invite God to come and observe. So, God comes to the laboratory where this great event is to take place. He observes the scientists bustling around, setting up their equipment, their chemicals, their cameras. Finally, everything is in place.
    The lead scientist orders, “Alright, Johnson, sweep up some dust and bring it over here!”

    And God says, “Uhn-uhn. Make your own dust.”

  19. Pingback:Is this the | gregormendelblog.com

  20. In my old age I am coming around to the suspicion that the Universe is, first, in some sense alive, and, to one degree or the other, in some sense aware, and far more complex than we can directly perceive it to be.

    Moreover, the suspicion that the Universe is actually a thing of many dimensions (our perceptual limitations limit us to being aware of, and we live in a 3 dimensional world, but current day Quantum physics posits ten or more dimensions) and realms of being—picture something akin to the many levels or spheres of being in the Buddhist or Hindu conceptions of the Universe.

    Next, the suspicion that absolutely everything in the Universe is illuminated by, has within it—however small–a little bit of God or Mind.

    Finally, the suspicion that everything—all originating from the same source/Big Bang–is ultimately connected to and influences—however minutely or invisibly–everything else.

    (I note that Quantum Physic’s famous “double slit experiment” yields the surprising and counter-intuitive result that observation/our minds can influence things on the quantum level. Then, of course, there is “quantum entanglement.” to explain.)

    The ancient Chinese, for instance, believed that the divination system of the “I Ching” could provide a picture of the current situation at a particular moment in time because everything was–underneath it all, and at base–connected to and influenced everything else.

    Thus, thrown sticks or coins did not arrange themselves into random patterns but–because they were ultimately connected to everything else in the Universe—they, instead, fell in patterns that were part of and, thus, reflective of the current state of that Universe.

  21. y81: “The plain fact is that the OJ communities (if you wish, the U-O communities) of Greater New York have elevated rates of COVID infection,”

    I don’t exactly know about these plain facts. And, especially, don’t know if they are dying in greater percentages than others of similar age, obesity, Vitamin D status, and other co-morbidities. Plus I don’t trust most “statistics” about differentiated populations as being representative of more general populations.

    I do trust death rates, and ages of dead.

    It also seems that kids are both at lower risk of dying, but higher risk of spreading the disease.
    The plain facts I know about are about who dies more:
    Older folk
    Vit. D deficient people
    Obese folk
    Patients with other co-morbidities: heart problems, breathing problems.

    Most older people, including me, have some co-morbidity and are taking medicine for one thing or another. I think, not fully sure, that almost all of those on long-term medication are at higher risk. I think I read, tho not sure, that even adjusting for co-morbidities, older folk (over 70 certainly, maybe over 55) were at greater risk.

    It might also be that those with more kids will more quickly get “herd immunity”, and go thru a phase of higher infection, followed by higher immunity and lower infection. With death rates more related to co-morbidity rates. This is what I currently expect.

    If there are other plain facts out there, I’d be interested in a link. We watch world of meters: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
    37 million cases, 1 million deaths, 27 million recovered.
    After hitting about 8k world deaths per day, it’s now around 5.5k per day.

    NOT an existential crisis.
    There are more abortions each day, for instance.
    “According to WHO, every year in the world there are an estimated 40-50 million abortions. This corresponds to approximately 125,000 abortions per day. In the USA, where nearly half of pregnancies are unintended and four in 10 of these are terminated by abortion [1] , there are over 3,000 abortions per day”

    Less deaths than abortions per day, per week, per month means no crisis.

    I still wear a mask, and support mask wearing, limited social distancing, and ending lockdowns. As long as there are more abortions than coronavirus deaths, the lockdowns are excessive.

  22. Richard Saunders on October 9, 2020 at 12:53 am said: “Get your own dust.”

    I love that story!

    In re the Jews in Brooklyn, Cuomo is officially oblivious to the double standard he is supporting, although he certainly knows he’s doing it:
    https://www.breitbart.com/health/2020/10/09/watch-black-lives-matter-protesters-accost-diners-in-manhattan-orthodox-jews-sue-cuomo-over-brooklyn-restrictions/

    Black Lives Matter protesters roamed through Greenwich Village in Manhattan on Thursday night, as state and local authorities continued a crackdown on public religious gatherings in Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods in Brooklyn, citing the threat of coronavirus.

    A video stream of the Black Lives Matter demonstrator showed hundreds of protesters chanting and singing “Black Lives Matter,” and waving transgender and Gay Pride rainbow flags, before marching down the streets of the West Village.
    …
    Meanwhile, in Brooklyn, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and Governor Andrew Cuomo continued to enforce restrictions in Jewish neighborhoods, owing to an uptick in coronavirus infections.

    A group of Orthodox Jewish synagogues sued the governor — and were promptly followed by the Catholic diocese of Brooklyn, which filed its own lawsuit.

    Cuomo told CNN on Friday morning: “This is not a matter of religious freedom, right? I don’t care if you’re a Roman Catholic, you’re Jewish, you’re Muslim, you’re an atheist, you have to follow the rules of the state, the laws of the state.”

    You would think that “atheist” would cover BLM and Antifa, but obviously not.

    And then there is the story Neo posted today. Fortunately, no one is haranguing these protesters.
    Yet.

    https://pagetwo.completecolorado.com/2020/10/08/greeley-nursing-home-residents-protest-pandemic-lockdown-id-rather-die-of-covid-than-loneliness/

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