NEW YORK (JTA) — A leader of a major Hasidic sect denounced protests earlier this month where local Orthodox Jews voiced their anger at lockdown measures targeting their neighborhoods.
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Rabbi Aaron Teitelbaum, leader of a faction of the Satmar Hasidic community based in Kiryas Joel, a Hasidic enclave in New York’s Orange County, denounced the protests Tuesday at an event in Borough Park, the Brooklyn neighborhood where the protests took place.
“None of you should be seen at these protests,” Teitelbaum told the crowd, according to Bechadrei Charedim. “Praise unto the person who doesn’t follow in the ways of the evil.”
The protests took place over two nights earlier this month and were called in response to new restrictions placed on Orthodox neighborhoods aimed at curbing rising COVID-19 test positivity rates in those neighborhoods. Violence broke out at both protests, with masks burned in the streets and journalists chased and surrounded by mobs.
Heshy Tischler, a local radio host, ex-convict and City Council hopeful, was arrested after he led a mob that surrounded a reporter and member of the Hasidic community at one of the protests.
He and his brother should be the last ones to lecture anyone about chilul hashem.
How many days were Kiryas Joel schools on total lockdown in the last 12 months. Is Satmar trying to appease Cuomo?
Amazing. When will the beard pulling start? But Satmar riots vs Eretz Yisroel are glatt?
only if it’s against our holy land Eretz Yisroel,then it’s a mitzvah to tell the world that Jews have no sovereign rights to our God given land.
Any councidence that Cuomo downgraded KJ to orange zone today ??
A lot of comments against the Rebbe’s words. I am not Satmar by any stretch
but I must say his words are refreshing if late.
Heshy is going to disagree with the Satmar Rebbe as Heshy knows better. It should be noted that as a “radio host” Heshy’s broadcast has only several hundred listeners.