New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, who oversaw a major surge in anti-Semitic attacks before presiding over the worst coronavirus outbreak in the United States, on Tuesday night singled out the “Jewish community” in warning against large gatherings.
De Blasio took to social media after ordering a crowd of Orthodox Jews to be dispersed in Brooklyn, where they had been gathering for a rabbi’s funeral in violation of the city’s social distancing orders. As part of his series of tweets, de Blasio then directed a stern message toward the “Jewish community.”
There is simply no way that if this were any other religious, racial, or ethnic group that de Blasio would have singled them out for special rebuke during a pandemic. And it’s especially egregious that he would do so given his own leadership failures during the crisis and the anti-Semitic attacks that have exploded with him as mayor.
Between 2017 and 2019, complaints of hate crimes targeting Jews in New York City rose by 52%, according to police data, reaching a modern record of 229 as last year came to a close with a flurry of attacks. De Blasio either ignored the problem or tried to blame the attacks on the “right wing” even though police officials made clear that perpetrators “‘run the gamut’ from teens, to people with mental illness, to first-time offenders, and career criminals.”
As the coronavirus hit New York, de Blasio has established himself as the most inept local leader in the nation. As late as March 11, de Blasio urged New Yorkers “to not avoid restaurants, not avoid normal things that people do. … If you’re not sick, you should be going about your life.”
Tom Frieden, the CDC director under President Barack Obama, said that, had New York City acted 10 days earlier, it could have reduced deaths by 50%-80%. As of this writing, COVID-19 has killed nearly 18,000 in New York City.
Though he’s now scolding Jews, de Blasio himself has been setting a bad personal example, including when he snuck out to get a last-minute workout at his gym just before fitness center closures went into effect. While urging New Yorkers to stay home, de Blasio and his wife traveled 11 miles from the mayor’s residence in Manhattan to Brooklyn for the nonessential purpose of taking a walk in Prospect Park (when he could have taken a walk closer to his home).
Yet, de Blasio sees no problem in sending out a tweet chastising a specific religious group that has been historically used as a scapegoat, including specifically for spreading plague. Given his statements and actions as mayor, no wonder anti-Semitic violence has skyrocketed and that his city has seen one of the worst coronavirus outbreaks in the world.
