New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio will issue a Cease and Desist order closing down the city’s Jewish day schools.
This isn’t the first time the Democratic mayor has cracked down on Jewish groups during his city’s Wuhan virus shutdown.
De Blasio announced his latest threat via Twitter because that’s what all serious people do when targeting religious minorities.
Earlier today the NYPD shut down a Yeshiva conducting classes with as many as 70 children. I can’t stress how dangerous this is for our young people. We’re issuing a Cease and Desist Order and will make sure we keep our communities and our kids safe.
— Mayor Bill de Blasio (@NYCMayor) May 18, 2020
New York has suffered a full third of the country’s COVID-19 related deaths, despite some of the strictest shutdown rules in the nation.
De Blasio talks about keeping “kids safe,” despite acknowledging himself on a recent news appearance that the Wuhan virus is a threat mostly to people in their 70s and 80s. Here’s the clip, along with some Twitter reaction:
He himself said this: pic.twitter.com/S7h5RQHOCe
— Jewish Deplorable 🇺🇸 (@TrumpJew) May 19, 2020
Another unknown is how many of those Yeshiva students might have been previously infected.
Just three weeks ago, de Blasio caused outrage across the nation for threatening to arrest mourners at the funeral of an elderly rabbi who died of the coronavirus.
The day before the rabbi’s funeral, de Blasio issued a stern warning — again via Twitter.
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.
— Mayor Bill de Blasio (@NYCMayor) April 29, 2020
De Blasio himself took part in the police effort to disperse the mourners.
Five days prior to his threat to arrest Jewish funeralgoers, de Blasio promised to serve half a million free halal meals to the city’s Muslim residents during Ramadan.
As Muslim New Yorkers prepare to start the holy month of Ramadan tonight, Mayor Bill de Blasio says the city is taking steps to support the Muslim community with Halal food programs.
“Over half a million meals will be distributed during Ramadan” for Muslim New Yorkers in need pic.twitter.com/d4PbFtGMa5
— CBS News (@CBSNews) April 23, 2020
While I was unable to find any stories about de Blasio providing free kosher meals to the city’s hard-hit Orthodox Jewish community, I did stumble across his threat back in March to “permanently close” churches and synagogs found to be in noncompliance.
At a press conference on March 27, de Blasio warned worshippers that the “NYPD, Fire Department, Buildings Department, and everyone has been instructed that if they see worship services going on, they will go to the officials of that congregation, they’ll inform them they need to stop the services and disperse.”
“If that does not happen,” the mayor went on, “they will take additional action up to the point of fines and potentially closing the building permanently.”
Back then, New York City had 33,000 reported cases and around 800 deaths. Today the city reports over 191,000 COVID-19 cases, nearly 16,000 deaths, and another 4,823 “suspected” Wuhan virus-related deaths.
But if you thought those numbers might cause de Blasio to question the efficacy of his city’s lockdown, you’re sorely disappointed.
Tuesday morning on WINS radio in New York, de Blasio doubled down on his beach closures even during the upcoming Memorial Day weekend.
He claimed, “It’s a different reality in Long Island. It’s a different reality in New Jersey. And I think the concern there is to follow the state rules and keep beach attendance limited, and I’m sure they’ll be able to do it.”
“We can’t open our beaches. We cannot take the chance of a huge number of people congregating together,” de Blasio insisted despite evidence to the contrary coming out of Florida and even California.
In California, beaches are being reopened in stages while maintaining social distancing rules.
Florida never fully closed its beaches, many beachgoers ignored the closures that were in effect, and Florida has a mere one-seventh of the COVID-19 infections New York state has, and one-tenth the deaths. This, despite a much more open Wuhan virus policy and a larger, more elderly population.
Perhaps if New York spent less time shutting down Christian and Jewish worship and education, and spent even less time shoving the infected in with the most vulnerable in nursing homes, the situation there would be less dire.
But I guess we’ll never know, because Mayor de Blasio refuses to learn from his own experience or from the experiences of others.
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