The NY Times gives us a deeper look at the public push and pull between a Governor and Mayor trying to keep the lid on Covid-19 infections in New York City and other places in the state that are Orthodox Jewish area’s and fight among the religious groups different factions in their own political world…
The groups have supported ex-New Yorker Donald Trump and his view on the virus….
That is the basis of the problem of virus spikes within their communities while the surrounding area’s with mask usage and distancing have 5 times lower infection rates….
The groups have been able to use it’s political power in the past to its advantage with New York politicians …
But NOT this time with Cuomo who in trying to deal with the increased infections has closed down schools and businesses in their area’s and along with NYC Mayor De Blasio has levelled fines…
For months, misinformation and rumors about the virus, some inspired by Mr. Trump, have spread widely in forums like WhatsApp that are popular with ultra-Orthodox New Yorkers, according to numerous interviews with Hasidic leaders and community members.
Now, a new shutdown in Orthodox neighborhoods in Brooklyn and Queens, ordered last week by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, appears to have inflamed sentiments further. Mr. Cuomo closed nonessential business and schools, and limited attendance to 10 people at a time in houses of worship in the hardest hit areas, including synagogues.
Mr. Cuomo was spurred by spiking caseloads in the Orthodox community and concerns that health rules were not being followed. But some Orthodox voices have responded by arguing that their community’s religious life was being targeted by the government.
The Orthodox Jewish community in the New York region includes Hasidic and other ultra-Orthodox groups. There are as many as 500,000 ultra-Orthodox Jews in the New York region, and they have long tended toward conservative politics. In 2016, Hasidic neighborhoods in Brooklyn voted overwhelmingly for Mr. Trump….
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After the virus devastated Hasidic neighborhoods in the early days of the pandemic, many residents began to believe that safety precautions were unnecessary because they had developed herd immunity, according to community leaders.
That attitude, which health officials say has no basis in fact, has been a primary reason for a recent surge of cases in Brooklyn and Queens that has raised the citywide positivity rate to levels not seen in months.
On the first night after the governor announced the restrictions, a group of mostly young men in the predominantly Orthodox neighborhood of Borough Park took to the streets in protest.