New York’s Orthodox Jewish community has taken to the streets for a second night to demand an end to Governor Andrew Cuomo’s lockdown policies, insisting the pandemic does not override their right to freely worship.
Brooklyn’s Borough Park saw a flurry of colorful signs and banners on Wednesday night going into Thursday morning, as scores of Orthodox Jews gathered to call for a lifting of Cuomo’s shutdown orders, which have closed synagogues, schools and ‘non-essential’ businesses around the state, particularly in the densely populated boroughs of New York City.
Footage of the event made the rounds on social media, showing a festive atmosphere as a crowd demonstrators sang and danced to lively music, with one netizen adding a caption: “They don’t let us celebrate in the synagogue, so we celebrate in the street,” while dubbing the action a “peaceful protest.”
A number of Trump flags were seen flying over the crowd, suggesting strong support for the president among the group. The Republican leader has often voiced skepticism about the stricter lockdown policies brought by Democratic mayors and governors, and has himself been reluctant to mandate nationwide restrictions, instead allowing localities to decide for themselves. Some banners carried more strident slogans, one reading “We will not comply.”
At one point during the protest, tensions between demonstrators and law enforcement devolved into a shoving match. It’s unclear what prompted the fracas, but it appears to have blown over without escalating into more significant violence. As police prepared to leave the event, a local reporter noted overhearing an officer state “We stayed way too f**king long,” while another said “No way we were breaking that s**t up.”
Wednesday was the second consecutive night of protests around Borough Park, the first of which saw Orthodox demonstrators torching piles of face masks as a symbolic repudiation of the ongoing lockdowns, which have wrought economic devastation on New York businesses in addition to cracking down on public worship. The city fire department was called to extinguish the blaze, though that did little to quell the demonstrators.
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