Approximately 60 students were present at the Nitra Yeshiva in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood when the police arrived, according to a New York Police Department spokesperson.Many of the teenage students were not wearing masks or adhering to social distancing, WNBC-TV reported, though a message accompanying a photo circulating on the messaging platform WhatsApp claimed that they were.Officers instructed school leaders to close the yeshiva and the students dispersed.New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio tweeted about the incident Monday evening. “Earlier today the NYPD shut down a Yeshiva conducting classes with as many as 70 children. I can’t stress how dangerous this is for our young people,” he wrote.The closure comes weeks after a large Hasidic funeral in Williamsburg, also in Brooklyn, drew thousands into the street to mourn a rabbi who died of the coronavirus, drawing the mayor’s ire.De Blasio drew fierce criticism in late April after he singled out “the Jewish community” in a trio of tweets announcing that he had instructed his police department to fine or even arrest social distancing violators. The mayor addressed the controversy during a press conference the next morning. He said that he has a "long and deep connection" to the Orthodox community."If you saw anger and frustration, you're right. I spoke out of real distress. People's lives were in danger before my eyes," de Blasio noted. "I regret if the way I said it in any way gave people a feeling of being treated the wrong way – that was not my intention," the Mayor said. "It was said with love, but it was tough love."Critics said de Blasio ran the risk of inflaming antisemitism, just months after a spate of violent attacks on Jews in the city and at a time when the Orthodox community is mourning many of its own losses from the coronavirus pandemic.Days after New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo issued an executive order in mid-March closing schools across the state, he clarified that the order also applied to private schools such as yeshivas. Last month, Cuomo extended the order to include the rest of the school year.Zachary Keyser, Shira Hanau/JTA and Philissa Cramer/JTA contributed to this report.The next time NYC's mayor sends out a gleeful tweet about sending cops after Jews, the DOJ should investigate to make sure he's not violating constitutionally guaranteed religious liberties. Actually, they should have done it after the last one. https://t.co/BU61pkh27y
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) May 19, 2020
Ted Cruz: NYC mayor's 'gleeful tweet' on yeshiva should spark DOJ probe
Approximately 60 students were present at the Nitra Yeshiva in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood when the police arrived, according to a New York Police Department spokesperson.
