Bill D’Blasio Warns "The Jewish Community"

[Willie]

Wuhan China. So lets call it the CHINESE virus to incite racist attacks against all Chinese people?

No lets call it the chinese virus because thats its origin and the country of China is the reason we are all going through this

[Lurker]

Wuhan China. So lets call it the CHINESE virus to incite racist attacks against all Chinese people?

"Chinese" is not a race, It is literally "of China." If it turns out that the Chinese government created this virus in it's labs, would it be inaccurate to call it a Chinese virus? And would doing so have any racist connotation against the 1 billion Chinese citizens?

[aygart]

Instead of all these chachumim we have as our spokespeople that nobody hired/vetted... pointing out the bigotry of the mayor and kvetching about other ppl watching jets—-
They should offer an apology on behalf of the idiots who came in droves and say “We are very sorry that there are some rotten selfish people in our community that don’t listen to the guidelines. We want to inform you that the overwhelming majority of Jewish people take this crisis very seriously and adhere to the utmost degree possible”

What do you think happens to the average goy when he sees our “spokespeople” give the wrong msg?!? You think it combats AS??? It only exacerbates it!!!

There are onoly about a half million comments around saying exactly this

[Dan]

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

Sums it up well.
Threads split and merged here.

[Yehuda57]

https://twitter.com/HQSatmar/status/1255345428243021824

What a colossal prick of a human being

[aygart]

I may get blasted for this but I am trying to be honest with myself here and I just don't see why saying Jewish community is any more a problem vs Trump calling covid-19 the Chinese virus. The only reason its concerning is because as jews we understand the likelihood that it leads to anti-semitism.

One is against an ethnic group and the other is a country's government. That was easy.

[aygart]

https://twitter.com/HQSatmar/status/1255345428243021824

What a colossal prick of a human being

I thoink we need DeBlasio need to make sure the guy all the way at the top's head rolls.

[yakov116]

I always knew his name was Dumb Blasio.

[aygart]

Important context

https://twitter.com/NYCGreenfield/status/1255460056952385536

Go check out the whole thread. I disagree with some of it, but it is a helps to reframe the issue.

Once you remove the dumb politician speak it is much better.

[Yehuda57]

Once you remove the dumb politician speak it is much better.

Yeah, the important part is the sheer incompetence and stupidity of the NYPD to approve of such a funeral and cause the whole mess to begin with.

[aygart]

Yeah, the important part is the sheer incompetence and stupidity of the NYPD to approve of such a funeral and cause the whole mess to begin with.

I thoink we need DeBlasio need to make sure the guy all the way at the top's head rolls.

And I don't mean the police commissioner. His administration approved something stupidly and he uses that to lash out and incite against an entire community, going down to view HIS MESS as if he is the hero.

[AsherO]

Statement from the shul

Why are they justifying the Mayor? They can apologize for their part in things without defending him.

[yaakov35]

This is literally absurd. Numerous people here have been spending this entire corona season bashing frum people and rabbanim for what they may or may not have done. And now when you get called out for precisely what you were complaining about its anti- semitism?!?!?

[AsherO]

Important context

https://twitter.com/NYCGreenfield/status/1255460056952385536

Go check out the whole thread. I disagree with some of it, but it is a helps to reframe the issue.

He’s not being intellectually honest with 8. The good weather and crowds watching the flyover had nothing to do with the the crowds at this levaya.

[aygart]

Why are they justifying the Mayor? They can apologize for their part in things without defending him.

They don't want to burn bridges.

[AsherO]

They don't want to burn bridges.

Then be mum on the topic, they’re outright defending/sucking up.

[AsherO]

Bill D’B is having a hard time w the fact that Cuomo is getting a lot of credit & whatever he does he still looks like a clown.

It’s getting to him that the lacks leadership skills compared to Cuomo? Let it get to him and he can self implode, hopefully this tweet is just the early stages of that process.

[Zevwolf]

https://www.theyeshivaworld.com/news/featured/1854835/watch-deblasio-explains-himself-lives-were-in-danger-nothing-like-people-in-the-park.html

[EliJelly]

They don't want to burn bridges.

Exactly, The community actually has great relations with the Mayor and the police department, hence they were given approvals for this funeral in the first place, and just this erev pesach they got approvals for the street fires with police supervision. Not wise to create tensions with the mayor over this when no one thinks antisemitism was his underlying motive, rather it was him foolishly trying to be strict when something his PD approved went out of control and potentially cause HIM harm.

[AsherO]

Then be mum on the topic, they’re outright defending/sucking up.

The more sarcastic me wants to ask if they need to stay on the Mayors good side so that they can have such crowds at the next funeral too R”L...