Police in New York City on Monday shut down a Hasidic Jewish school in Brooklyn after neighbors complained that more than 60 people had gathered inside.
The incident, the latest in a series of clashes between the NYPD and Orthodox Jewish communities, prompted a response from Mayor Bill de Blasio on Tuesday. De Blasio defended the decision to break up the school day, noting that no one had been issued a summons because once police arrived, school administrators had complied in sending the students home.
“Summonses are there for anyone who resists,” de Blasio told PIX11 News. “So in this case, as I understand it, they immediately dispersed.”
After criticism of unequal enforcement from minority communities, de Blasio issued an order last week instructing police not to issue summonses unless people violating social distancing requirements resisted police intervention. Police Commissioner Dermot Shea said summonses would have been warranted in this case.
“If the local commander had issued a summons yesterday,” Shea told on NY1 Tuesday. “I think that would have been appropriate.”
De Blasio has frequently clashed with Orthodox Jewish communities during the coronavirus pandemic, culminating in an incident in late April in which the mayor claimed to have personally shut down a funeral that more than 2,000 Orthodox Jews attended. De Blasio later tweeted about the event and said that further violations of social distancing would not “be tolerated.”
“My message to the Jewish community, and all communities, is this simple: the time for warnings has passed,” he wrote. “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.”
After backlash, de Blasio apologized the next morning, saying that his tweet was “said with love” but “tough love.”
A study released in May by the Anti-Defamation League, a Jewish activism group, found that in 2019 and early 2020, anti-Semitism in New York City surged to a 40-year high.
