Mazel Tov!

I’m no fan of Orthodox Judaism: not only does it deny the clear teachings of God’s Word, but its adherents are also insultingly xenophobic. They can be and usually are downright hateful to “goyim,” as I learned after living in a predominately Orthodox neighborhood for several years.

But I applaud them wholeheartedly for defying North Korea’s—sorry, New York City’s absurd and anti-Constitutional lockdowns, spectacularly and thrillingly: 

A Hasidic synagogue in Brooklyn planned the wedding of a chief rabbi’s grandson with such secrecy it was able to host thousands of maskless celebrants without the city catching on.

…[G]uests crammed shoulder-to-shoulder inside the Yetev Lev temple in Williamsburg for the Nov. 8 nuptials — stomping, dancing and singing at the top of their lungs without a mask in sight, …

“Due to the ongoing situation with government restrictions, preparations were made secretly and discreetly, so as not to draw attention from strangers,” the [Yiddish newspaper Der Blatt, the publication of the Satmar sect] reported…

“In recent weeks, organizers worked tirelessly to arrange everything in the best way possible. All notices about upcoming celebrations were passed along through word of mouth, with no notices in writing, no posters on the synagogue walls, no invitations sent through the mail, nor even a report in any publication, including this very newspaper.” …

Last month, [New York] state ordered the cancellation of another Williamsburg wedding planned for a grandson of Satmar Grand Rabbi Zalman Teitelbaum … after that publicized event was expected to draw 10,000 people. The congregation called it “an unwarranted attack.” 

They aren’t the only ones: anybody even the least bit friendly to freedom would call said “attack”  “unwarranted.” 

That crackdown led to a determination to keep plans for the Nov. 8 affair under wraps.

Ya think? Unlike Christians, these serfs don’t require a second lesson in tyranny.

The stealthy arrangements continued amid a fear that someone would blow their cover.

“The days leading up to the wedding were filled with tension, not knowing what the next day, or the next moment, will bring; which disgruntled outcast might seize this opportunity to exploit even what hasn’t been written or publicized, to create an unnecessary uproar, and to disrupt the simcha, God forbid,” Der Blatt reported.

Doesn’t that sound like something out of the Communist Eastern Bloc? Which, given that many Jews fled such tyrannies for Brooklyn, gives them practice for dealing with New York’s Marxists.

The synagogue’s stunning willingness to host a potential super-spreader event underscores what critics call the Hasidic community’s ongoing disregard and outright defiance of efforts to control the deadly coronavirus…

Sic for “controlling New Yorkers.” Thank you, New York Post, for cramming your opinion down our throats. Meanwhile, I’m sure Jonathan Nielsen, who sent me this story, would join me in saying, “Good for our heroes! May their ‘stunning willingness’ to defy dictatorship long flourish!”

…Mitch Schwartz, the mayor’s Director of Rapid Response, could not explain why the city failed to detect the enormous Nov. 8 celebration — and let it go off without a hitch.

I can: bureaucrats are to inefficiency what politicians are to corruption.

Next door to the synagogue at 14 Hooper St. is the firehouse of Engine and Ladder Cos. 211 and 119, but the FDNY said it wasn’t called to inspect the synagogue. The FDNY is one of a host of city agencies that inspect sites for COVID-19 violations…

Yeah. Why make work for only one bureaucracy when you can do so for several? But I gotta hand it to the FDNY for this next zinger of a response: 

Asked whether the firefighters noticed anything amiss next door, Dywer said, “Firehouses don’t conduct surveillance on their neighbors.”

Love it! Would that all New Yorkers emulated “firehouses.”

…Asked whether the Satmar synagogue would face any consequences for violating the restrictions, Schwartz gave no answer.

I continue to marvel that the City persecutes these folks. The old saw that Jews own New York is dismissed as anti-Semitic, but it’s factual: they account for about a third of the City’s population; they are intertwined in all aspects of its government; they run its industries, particularly publishing. Yes, Judaism’s three branches diverge politically: the modernistic (read: “atheistic”) “Reform” one tends to be outright Marxist and worships the Dimocrats now that their god is dead, while the Orthodox at the spectrum’s other end generally embrace conservative politics. And the social divisions are also glaring. The Orthodox deride the Reform as “non-Jews” while the latter laugh at the former as hopelessly old-fashioned.

But wouldn’t you think every Jew among the City’s rulers would side with his Orthodox cousins as New York’s despots tighten the noose?

The fact that they don’t, that the COVIDCon is so essential it usurps even Jewish cohesiveness, should alarm us all.

Share

9:16 am on November 23, 2020