De Blasio Vows Law and Order... After Chassidic Jewish Protests
Wed Oct 7, 2020 Daniel Greenfield
(Photo above shows Bill de Blasio joining in an illegal mass gathering for BLM street vandalism outside Trump Tower.)
Good news.
Democrats can totally get behind a crackdown on mostly peaceful protests. As long as the mostly peaceful protesters are members of a conservative religious group.
Mayor Bill de Blasio has gotten behind Law and Order. For Chassidic Jews protesting his selective targeting of their communities.
Mayor Bill de Blasio warned people protesting new COVID lockdown restrictions in parts of Brooklyn and Queens that the NYPD “will not tolerate” assaults, property damage or fires.
Really?
Black Lives Matter would beg to differ. And BLM did a whole lot more than burn masks in the street or shove back when they were shoved. Actual arson, mayhem, and looting is fine.
Burning masks though? Nein, says Mayor Wilhelm.
The warning came hours after hundreds of members of Orthodox Jewish communities protested in Brooklyn overnight Tuesday. Debris was burned in the street at one point during the protests and there was some pushing and shoving between demonstrators and police officers.
This would be a very slow and peaceful rally for Black Lives Matter. And Mayor Bill de Blasio has tolerated it. What he's really saying is that his white and minority supporters can engage in assaults, property damage, and fires, but not a minority group he dislikes.
“And when the NYPD makes clear to anybody that they need to act in a way that is appropriate given the challenge we’re facing, you must adhere to the instructions of the NYPD,” de Blasio said. “If you don’t, as in every other situation in this city, there will be consequences.”
De Blasio said he spoke with NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea and made it clear that this was a health emergency. “The state has laid down very clear rules. Everyone must follow those rules. The NYPD will be enforcing those rules,” he said.
Under new rules, violators face $15,000-a-day fines for mass gatherings, as well as $1,000-a-day fines for not wearing face coverings or practicing social distancing.
Will those rules apply to BLM? We know they don't and won't.
That means these rules are racial and religious discrimination and ought to be met with DOJ action and lawsuits. This is as blatant as a civil rights violation gets.
“People in the community have lost a lot of trust in the government, be it because people were told they can’t pray but thousands of people can gather in the streets to protest, or because rules kept changing from minute to minute without rhyme or reason,” Borough Park Community Board leader Barry Spitzer told me. It made no sense to community members that in the city’s view, “going to a funeral is bad but protesting is good.”
Spitzer also alleged that the city is insensitive to how much Orthodox Jews have sacrificed since March. “Do they understand what it means that 98% of our synagogues were closed all through Passover? Do they understand what it means that people didn’t go to synagogue on Passover? Do they understand what it means that people sat for the seder alone? ... They didn’t pray, they didn't go to the mikvah, they didn't make weddings, they closed their shops.”
But... but a guy who robbed a pregnant woman at gunpoint must be venerated with riots and looting. How do you backward religious folk not understand that?
“Every patient became a prisoner,” Indig said. “We begged them, let volunteers in ... No patient should be left alone, no patient should be neglected.” The Floyd protests took place with this indignity fresh in the community’s minds. “They had no issue with the demonstrations, with the protests with thousands of people in the streets,” Indig said of city authorities.
As Josh Hammer at Newsweek notes,
Albany and City Hall best prepare for litigation: The situation is fluid, but there will assuredly be a flurry of lawsuits filed on behalf of New York City's Jews. The Constitution's federalist structure does provide states and localities with so-called "police power" over emergency health-related regulatory measures, but anti-religious discrimination is verboten under the First Amendment and relevant federal statutes, such as the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act.
But litigation, whether real or threatened, is insufficient. Attorney General William Barr should immediately open a Department of Justice Civil Rights Division investigation as to whether Cuomo and de Blasio are violating federal law by discriminating against New York City's Jewish community in such transparent fashion.
It's about time there was pushback, when it comes to Jewish and Christian religious gatherings.
If Republicans don't mobilize around issues that people care about, they're going to lose.
(I'm not going to repost the tabloid Jew-baiting coverage from the New York Post and the Daily Mail, tabloids that conservatives occasionally rely on, but that have issues. The Post's hostility to Orthodox Jews is a longstanding and ugly affair. The Daily Mail is opportunistically happy to run whatever gets it the most clicks.)
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