New York – Councilman David G. Greenfield recounted the story Chanukah at yesterday’s Stated meeting of the New York City Council as he called for two New York City Police Officers to be held accountable for forcing Rabbi Shalom Emert to violate Shabbos, under threat of arrest, last Friday night.
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Greenfield, before a full meeting of the City Council, (watch below YouTube) detailed the history of Chanukah and its significance. “We celebrate this over two thousand year old victory,” explained Councilman Greenfield, “because it was a momentous victory of religious freedom over religious persecution. And religious persecution is sadly woven throughout the history of the Jewish People.”
Greenfield then continued with the story of Rabbi Emert. The Rabbi, a resident of Midwood, was walking home from shul Friday night when he got stuck in the middle of Kings Highway while trying to cross. He was immediately approached by two police officers from the 61st Precinct who demanded his identification in order to issue him a summons.
Rabbi Emert explained that, because it was Shabbos, he was not carrying a driver’s license, but would be happy to verbally give his name and address to the officers. When the officers insisted that they needed his identification, the Rabbi asked the officers if they would walk him to his home down the block where he could provide the officers with his driver’s license. The officers refused and threatened to arrest him if he did not write his name and home address down on a piece of paper. Rabbi Emert pleaded with the officers, explaining that it would violate Jewish law to write on Shabbos, but to no avail. Under threat of arrest, and concerned that he would be unable to contact his family if he were brought to jail, the Rabbi was forced to commit chillul Shabbos by writing his name and address for the officer, who then issued him a summons.
“So many of us Jews are thankful for the protections afforded to us by the United States of America,” said Councilman Greenfield. “Particularly, our constitutionally protected right to practice our religion freely.”
The Councilman went on to make a public call for the NYPD to hold the officers involved in last week’s incident accountable for their actions, which violated Rabbi Emert’s rights and religious freedom. “I am calling today on the NYPD, who I am a big fan of…to hold these officers fully accountable for this shocking breach of a New Yorker’s civil rights,” concluded Greenfield.
Greenfield previously called for a full investigation into this incident by the NYPD, and that investigation is currently underway. Councilman Greenfield felt that using this high-profile forum, on the floor of the City Council Chamber in front of his 50 Council colleagues, would send an urgent message to NYPD officials at the highest levels to not only hold these officers accountable, but to ensure that incidents like this never happen again.
Video below of Councilman Greenfield’s remarks at yesterday’s full meeting of the New York City Council.
Kudos to mr. Greenfield for demanding justice for this disgusting religious persecution, this is Flatbush not Montana, the NYPD is well aware of Shabbos and its restrictions, these officers should be reprimanded to the fullest extent.
Greenfield looks very nervous and unpolished.
With all due respect to this fine ‘Rabbi’ Emert, but since when does a arrest or worried family warrant chillul Shabbes? Would the worrying trigger a life threatening situation for one of his family members? Otherwise according to what I understand, it appears as if (although he didn’t want to) he was mechalel Shabbes for no permissible halachic reason. Can someone explain?
As for Mr. Greenfield, you are doing a wonderful job on behalf of us all. Keep up the great work!
David I’m becoming more and more impressed with you. Sharp and to the point. Wishing you a long and healthy career helping people.
So now Emert is a Rabbi.
This is not a bes medrash. Leave out the divrei torah when addressing goyim, and get to the point.
Get real. The goyim are not going to understand that a police officer doesn’t have the right to demand that a person writes down his name and address. That’s standard policy, and for good reason. If a person gives a false ID verbally, nothing can be done. However, if he gives a false ID in writting, he can be prosecuted for fraud.
Would a Jew refuse to write down his name because of the shabbas, and then be arrested for j-walking, there would be grounds for making a case against the police to change that policy. However, trying to make a case out of police policy that demands that someone without ID write their name down is doomed to fail.
lets wait till all the details come out
I am more concerned about the officers giving a jay walking ticket. I bet that neither officer ever wrote such a ticket, and directly target this ‘Rabbi’ as a direct jewish discrimination. To me that is equally as important as violation his shabbos rights.
Basically every orthodox jew nowdays is called a Rabbi…
And it doesn’t mean he had a hetur he just lost himself … under the pressure of these chayos
Actually in the 66pct i am aware that if the NYPD has to make an arrest they will wait until after shabbos and pick up the suspect.
They are well aware of the sabbath.
Why don’t we quit all the nit-picking and just thank Mr. Greenfield for standing up for us all?
Notice the black guy sitting to Greenfelds left. Either he has a sever case of hiccups or turettes syndrome.
There has to be a large deomonstration in front of the 61st precinct, with the news media present. Those two cops are going to have to be transferred to a very bad neighborhood. The latter action would be the ultimate punishment. If the Rabbi told the cops that they were welcome to come to his house, for his ID, what was the problem? I think they knew that he wasn’t allowed to write on Shabbos, but they wanted to humiliate him. There are many cops who hate observant Jews. I worked with the cops in the old 90th precinct on Lee and Division Avenue, in Williamsburg. They used to refer to the Chassidim as “The Beards”. In addition, I heard them making other nasty comments about the Chassidim.
If this is the Rabbi Emert I know, he is very respectable. I think he might have been concerned that the police could behave the way they did, they might just throw him in the car and leave him for dead somewherE. Crazier things have happened.
Why do we have to make a big deal about it and :hold them accountable”? Just meet with the Officer in charge of the precinct and ask nicely for him to tell his officers not to do this again. A Jew in the public arena has to be so careful and to make an issue out of this makes us look like the kvetchy Jews who have to take over everything. Is this really worth it? I think not
I would have said, I understand you are just doing your job, but I absolutely cannot break Jewish law, so I understand if you have to arrest me. Poor man probably wishes he had, in hindsight.
Thanks!!! Councilman, you did a great job, as usual. We now have two great leaders Dov Hikind and David Greenfield. Happy Chanukah to all.
To #14 .
Actually, according to the vast majority of Poskim, writing in any language is Osur min haTorah. Also, no one is privy to the amount of pressure Emert was facing. So please don’t judge
It’s sad that some would see fit to criticize this person who was clearly under duress, and was understandably fearful of being arrested, thrown in jail (which necessitates a strip search, fingerprinting, etc) without even the chance to notify his family (which would have inexorably lead to their initiating a search for him, which would have involved chilul Shabbos).
He did the right thing. The police officer did the wrong thing. It’s that simple.
(Whether it’s worth publicizing this and getting a lot of fellow police officers riled up is another issue.)
Don’t break the law. You won’t have to worry about “persecution”.
SoRry not impressed from mr greenfield at all
The way is to deal with the police stations in private bashing them in public won’t help us day to day it won’t even help Greenfeld public relation effort
Since when do we, in the United Socialist States Of America, have to carry ID? There is NO such law!
That being said, I wonder if the former community organizer now council person will apologize profusly if it comes out that the story isn’t as was reported.
I read lots of post at regular news website who reported this story and most of the posters of course are goyim of which most of them don’t get the fuss around this story, I believe that were are making to much noise about this and therefore creating more hatred from the street against us, the right thing to do is to quitly teach the officers of the NYPD some basic things that jews aren’t allowed to do on shabos and I do believe that this will not happen again. The way we act now with this big blown out of peportion media sensation story about this rabbi is just having the oppesite effect with the goyim getting a sence that we must be treated differently like the chosen people and the regular laws do not apply to us only to non jews.
These heavy handed cops are going to have to learn that there will be penalties for their actions. When I studied physics, our professor told us that “for every action, there is a reaction”. Hence, if we act like nice quiet Jewish boys, the cops will humiliate and harass us further. In 2006, when an assistant chief of the NYCPD, at the Borough Park disorders, was overheard making obscene statements about the Jews, he was transferred out of the 66th precinct. Surely, two lower ranking street patrol officers, can also be transferred. I would have them pounding a beat, in the worst neighborhoods of the city. Let the cops rant and rave; they must realize that they can no longer push us around. Incidentally, how come we haven’t heard from the esteemed Mayor Bloomberg and Chief Kelly, about this incident?
To #52 -“Mr. Are you Kidding”- My point was that if the cops are going to mistreat us (an action), then we are going to deal with it (a reaction). Your “solution”, is to sweep this matter under the rug. Ignoring a problem will invite further incidents. In 1973, in Williamsburgh, some NYCPD cops wanted to arrest a frum Jew on Shabbos, on a minor violation. He told them that he could not ride in the patrol car, but he would willingly walk to the precinct, which was a short distance away. The cops manhandled the Jew, threw him into the patrol car, and clubbed in the head a number of Yeshivah students, who came to see what was going on. In this case, the cops intentionally targeted the Rabbi for jaywalking. There are thousands of jaywalking incidents every day in NYC. When was the last time that jaywalking tickets were given out on Kings Highway on Shabbos? A little over 50 years ago, when Sen. John F. Kennedy was at the same location where this incident took place, the motorcycle cops in the area, were intentionally racing their motorcycles at the crowds in the street. Some pedestrians got so incensed that they knocked a cop off his motorcycle. I saw the cops engaging in that conduct.