Hundreds of haredi Jews in Brooklyn celebrate Lag Ba'omer, break lockdown

“Ninety percent of my neighbors are doing the right thing with socially distancing, but it’s 10% who are endangering everyone else’s lives.”

By AARON REICH
Orthodox Jews of the Satmar Hasidim celebrate Lag BaOmer in the village of Kiryas Joel (photo credit: MIKE SEGAR / REUTERS)
Orthodox Jews of the Satmar Hasidim celebrate Lag BaOmer in the village of Kiryas Joel
(photo credit: MIKE SEGAR / REUTERS)
Hundreds of ultra-Orthodox Jews in Brooklyn violated coronavirus social distancing restrictions when taking to the streets celebrating Lag Ba'omer on Monday night, The New York Post reported, citing several videos and witness accounts.
Cellphone footage taken by Crown Heights resident Richard Ward depicts Orthodox Jews dancing hand-in-hand to music near a bonfire in the Bedford-Stuyvesant area, telling The New York Post that he had seen an estimated 200 people there while delivering food.
Noting that many of them were not covering their faces, Ward told The New York Post that “When I first saw it, I was in shock. I was like, ‘This is crazy.’”
Describing the scene as a “block party, pretty much,” Ward called the police.
“I was scared at first. I was worried. It was real scary for me. That’s why I took the time to call the police, I know people dying from this thing,” he told The New York Post, though specifying that he was told by a 911 dispatch that it was not an emergency, and had to flag down a passing NYPD van.
This was not an isolated incident in Brooklyn, however. In the Boro Park neighborhood, at least 100 people were witnessed gathering to music and dancing in celebration of Lag Ba'omer, a member of the ultra-Orthodox community told The New York Post, which was supported by pictures uploaded by other witnesses to social media.

Requesting to remain anonymous, the man said that “I heard music and I went down and I saw in a vacant lot approximately 100 people singing, dancing,” adding that “95% were not wearing masks and they were not socially distancing.”
The man, who has lived in the neighborhood for around 40 years, called the police, who showed up within 10 minutes, he told The New York Post.
Around 45 minutes later, the area was “completely empty,” he explained.

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Despite the large numbers, the man insisted that this was a small minority and did not reflect the community overall.
“Ninety percent of my neighbors are doing the right thing with socially distancing, but it’s 10% who are endangering everyone else’s lives,” he told The New York Post.
According to an NYPD spokesperson regarding the Boro Park gathering, “The group, within minutes, peacefully complied without further incident. No arrests or summonses were issued.”
The police did not comment on the gathering in the Bedford-Stuyvesant area.
Social distancing violations were not limited to the US, with several such incidents also occurring in Israel.
On Tuesday afternoon, hundreds of ultra-Orthodox extremist worshipers broke into the tomb of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai on Mount Meron despite police closing the tomb due to crowding concerns and the dangers of the coronavirus. Three hundred worshipers were arrested.
Other notable incidents occurred on Tuesday and on Monday night, with police breaking up communal Lag Ba'omer bonfires in Bnei Brak and in Jerusalem's Mea She'arim neighborhood.
Jeremy Sharon contributed to this report.


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