Can you say “power hungry commie bastard”?
I knew ya could!
New York Mayor Bill de Blasio was so floored Tuesday night by a report of a large funeral gathering in Brooklyn during the coronavirus pandemic that he said he had to see it for himself.
When the Democratic mayor arrived in the Williamsburg neighborhood, he did indeed see hundreds of Orthodox Jewish mourners flooding the sidewalks and intersection of Bedford Avenue and Rutledge Street, honoring the memory of a rabbi who recently died of coronavirus.
The sounds of police sirens blaring through the streets and cops ordering people to go home did little to disperse the crowd, defying social-distancing orders. The mourners, dressed in traditional black garments and hats and forced to yell over the piercing sirens, stood nearly shoulder-to-shoulder, some with, others without masks in a city with almost 158,000 coronavirus cases and nearly 12,000 deaths.
De Blasio was furious. While denouncing the “absolutely unacceptable” large gathering, he said that he had instructed police to institute a “zero tolerance” standard on such gatherings, stressing that people could be subject to arrest as part of the effort to prevent the disease from spreading even more through big groups.
“When I heard, I went there myself to ensure the crowd was dispersed. And what I saw WILL NOT be tolerated so long as we are fighting the Coronavirus.”
Bill De Blasio
Mayor, NYC
“My message to the Jewish community, and all communities, is this simple: the time for warnings has passed. I have instructed the NYPD to proceed immediately to summons or even arrest those who gather in large groups. This is about stopping this disease and saving lives. Period.”
Bill De Blasio
Mayor, NYC
The mayor’s warnings elicited a torrent of criticism. How come, some asked, he not objected earlier in the day when crowds gathered across the city to watch the military flyover to honor essential workers? Much like the funeral scene in Brooklyn, photos and videos on social media of those watching the Navy’s Blue Angels and the Air Force’s Thunderbirds showed people standing close to each other with many not wearing masks. Critics wondered: Was this not hypocritical?
De Blasio, who was shown watching the flyover in photos and videos standing too close to people and not following his own social-distancing orders, was also criticized by local and national leaders for specifically calling out Jewish people when other groups of people are doing the same thing sans the condemning tweets.
“This has to be a joke………Every neighborhood has people who are being noncompliant. To speak to an entire ethnic group as though we are all flagrantly violating precautions is offensive, it’s stereotyping, and it’s inviting anti-Semitism. I’m truly stunned.”
Chaim Deutsch
New York City Councilman
De Blasio breaks up a rabbi’s crowded funeral, gets slammed by critics for singling out Jews
Calamity Jane