Gold from @Chaikel
https://twitter.com/ChaikelK/status/1255342633444093952
Lol that is great. I am usually not political on twitter but that tweet really riled me up.
This kept me up late at night. Not enough characters on twitter I need to rant once here about all the aspects that bother me and get it off my chest to feel better. Feel free to ignore this it's for me not you.
Basically the entire NYC was outside yesterday b/c it was 67 degrees for once and everyone is feeling cooped up, many flooding the parks and violating social distancing. All ethnicities. Particularly egregious were people watching some planes do a tribute, according to the NY post they were standing shoulder to shoulder and stationary (a nice idea I guess but gun to my head a funeral is "more important" than any kind of plane tribute - I'm not defending chasidim here, I am just calling out these plane watchers. Some were saying they felt stuck when so many people gathered and blamed each other for encroaching in their space. Um you're not stuck, take your butt and go home.)
Meanwhile a group of chasidim pre-coordinated an outdoor, socially distant funeral for a very prominent and revered leader with the NYPD (which means they should get some of the blame for this falling apart btw), including masks being handed out. Granted people were idiots and it got blown to hell, but the effort was at least made at the outset. It gets out of hand, the Mayor goes personally to help break it up.
Tired and exhausted (probably) the Mayor at night takes to twitter and not only sees fit to call out this group of chasidim out of all the social distancing violators yesterday, but does so with the term "Jewish community" (!!!!!)
Important backdrop: In the past year, there has been a scary and meteoric rise specifically in anti-Jew hate crime in his city (Jews getting randomly beat up in the streets etc) under his watch. You would think he would be extremely careful and sensitive about doing anything that might negatively impact anti-Jewish sentiment? Like be absolutely sure your tweet will be helpful and do more good than harm.
Yet in an extremely turbulent time where tensions are high with this virus, he decides to point out chasidim and threaten them with arrest (Chasidim don't have twitter and won't see this). But now making a bad thing much worse, he doesn't say chasidish community or Williamsburgh community he uses the term JEWISH COMMUNITY.
Jews make up 13% of NYC. The vast majority of us are following the rules. Anyone reading this tweet won't know this. People are stuck at home and looking for news and in a world with fewer and fewer unbiased sources, a tweet straight from a politician carries a lot of weight as to the facts on the ground. People are going to think Jews are violating social distancing when the opposite is true. The overwhelming majority are following the rules. Come on we are hypochondriacs.
Lastly the hypocritical part. Bill De Blasio is famous for downplaying this virus in early march encouraging everyone to "get out on the town despite coronavirus" (3/2 tweet). 6 days after purim and 3 days after Lakewood rabbinic authorities banned public gatherings, De Blasio went to a gym. To this day, De Blasio takes a car to brooklyn to go for walks, which is counter his own directive to "avoid all unnecessary travel" (he lives near a park). Even if you think it's not technically harmful (I'd agree), it is still counter to his directive, period, and a good leader would go above and beyond to set an example, let alone fall short of his own guidelines even in a technical/non-dangerous sense.
I think I covered it all. Ok I can finally move on from this topic.
/rant