Imagine being trapped in a small New York City apartment with a bunch of kids for months. No school, parks, playgrounds, or access to a car to escape to the suburbs like millions of other New Yorkers. When videos circulated of Hasidic Jews in Williamsburg and Boro Park breaking open the locks on park fences, a friend remarked how surprised she was to see it was the Hasidic Jews who snapped and took matters into their own hands. I couldn’t help but laugh. If you had that many kids cooped up at home with nothing to do for months, wouldn’t you?
Being cooped up with a bunch of kids wasn’t what drove Brooklyn’s Jewish community to break the locks and fight the city’s closure of the parks. They broke the law because they realized not just how meaningless and arbitrary the law has become, but how discriminatory it has become as well.
The effort to break into the parks was led by Heshy Tischler, whom one community member described as a “character.” Tischler, a radio host, was soon joined by local city council members.
We’ve asked nicely and waited patiently. We’ve made every logical argument. The people have spoken and they’re running out of patience. If @nycmayor won’t open ALL our playgrounds @SEichenstein @KalmanYeger and I will cut the locks open ourselves.
— Senator Simcha Felder (@NYSenatorFelder) June 15, 2020
For weeks, the Jewish community of Brooklyn tried to play by the rules. They’ve gone to local politicians and reasoned with them about children needing space to play, about the safety of the outdoors, and about the community’s understanding of the dangers of COVID-19. Not only did their arguments fall on deaf ears, but they were also repeatedly the victims of what can be described as nothing else but discrimination.
In one incident, Mayor Bill de Blasio rhetorically opened fire on the Jewish community on Twitter for daring to hold a funeral for a revered rabbi. Despite the gathering having the green light from the New York Police Department, it was sent to break up the memorial. While tens of thousands have marched through the streets of New York protesting the police, the Jewish community has repeatedly been the target of harassment.
What seems to have broken members of the community about compliance was the clear double standard at play. At first, the civil disobedience was a bit tongue in cheek, with Hasidic children in Williamsburg holding a “Justice for George Floyd” carnival in order to skirt rules about gatherings.
These clever Hasidic kids decided to turn their carnival into a “Justice for George Floyd” rally and now the NYPD cannot break it up.
Tonight’s Justice for George Floyd Shabbat Services are sure to be interesting as well.
H/t @kippahunited pic.twitter.com/pN1JvII0wx
— Dr. Jake K. Turx, NhD (not an actual doctor) (@JakeTurx) June 5, 2020
But after thronging crowds made their way through Brooklyn last week for a “Black Trans Lives Matter” rally, the gloves came off. In one video of Tischler debating with the Parks Department and a representative of the NYPD, he explains exasperatedly: “This thing is over. You and I know it, officer. You work for us. You’re my neighbor. They protest, they stand thousands in your park, in Camden Park. They stand thousands in Central Park. If you close Central Park, I will personally put the locks on there.”
While New York City children have been denied school, summer camp, and more, politicians have unevenly enforced the laws regarding social distancing across the city in the most egregious of manners. Looters and rioters tore apart Macy’s in Herald Square and ransacked stores in midtown, but the lawlessness of Jewish children playing on the swings is what the mayor stands up against.
Tischler’s efforts weren’t met kindly by the mayor’s office. He told the Washington Examiner he received a call from a liaison in the mayor’s office, and soon, the conversation devolved into shouting and threats on Tischler’s part before the liaison hung up. Tischler laughed, “I probably shouldn’t have done that.”
On day two of the playground liberation, de Blasio sent in the NYPD.
? According to a source on the scene, @BilldeBlasio has now dispatched police officers who are threatening Jewish elected officials with arrest for opening the parks in Jewish neighborhoods.
— Reagan Battalion (@ReaganBattalion) June 16, 2020
De Blasio told reporters:
Playgrounds will not reopen until at least phase 2, de Blasio said – which could start June 22 at the earliest but likely early July.
— Erin Durkin (@erinmdurkin) June 16, 2020
But therein lies the problem: When the law is capriciously enforced, one cannot expect citizens to submit themselves to it. New York is opening itself up not just to actions of civil disobedience, but to lawsuits related to its discriminatory treatment of the Jewish community. By taking crowbars to the locks, the Jewish community is sending an important message about its willingness to withstand it anymore.
Thankfully, it seems these civil disobedience efforts have resulted in an about-face from the city government.
Update on playground drama in NYC pic.twitter.com/2booP2nv8t
— Mordechai Lightstone (@Mottel) June 17, 2020
The official reopening of the playgrounds is coming early next week.
The activism of New York’s Jewish community shouldn’t stop there. The uneven enforcement of the law, with the scales always being tipped against the Jewish community, highlights a real bigotry problem for Bill de Blasio. The forcible reopening of playgrounds should only be the first step in the Jewish community’s fight against the power of government being used to discriminate. The fight may have started on the playgrounds, but it should end in the courtroom.
Bethany Mandel (@bethanyshondark) is a stay-at-home and homeschooling mother of four and a freelance writer. She is an editor at Ricochet.com, a columnist at the Forward, and a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog.
