New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said that allowing protests is “not the same question” as allowing religious services.
“400 years of American racism, I’m sorry, that is not the same question as the understandably aggrieved store owner or the devout religious person who wants to go back to services,” de Blasio said during a press conference Tuesday.
De Blasio received criticism in March for threatening to shut down churches and synagogues “permanently” that did not comply with his stay-at-home order.
De Blasio, in late April, said he personally shut down an Orthodox Jewish funeral where hundreds of people had gathered. De Blasio later tweeted about the incident in a way that was widely criticized as encouraging anti-Semitism.
De Blasio later walked back with tweets, saying that his words were meant with “tough love.”
Multiple groups have reported that since the coronavirus pandemic began, New York has become a place where anti-Semitism has thrived.
