New York’s elected officials’ oft-contentious relationship with its Jewish community took an even worse turn Monday.
Gov. Cuomo, responding to an uptick of Coronavirus cases, threatened to shut down synagogues and other “religious institutions” that don’t enforce a new round of restrictions on public gatherings. During his press conference, Cuomo displayed two images of Hasidic Jews en masse.
A New York City councilman quickly pointed out that at least one of the images was from a news article 13-years ago.
"I have to say to the Orthodox community tomorrow, 'If you're not willing to live with these rules, then I'm going to close the synagogues,'” Cuomo vowed.
City Councilman Joe Borelli responded to the post observing the image Cuomo is using to justify his crackdown on religion is more than a decade old:
The original image of a Satmar community gathering is from the Associated Press and appears in the Jerusalem Post article, “The battle over NY Satmar community.”
“We know religious institutions have been a problem,” Cuomo said. “We know mass gatherings are the super spreader events.”
Cuomo claimed the images were recent: “These are pictures from the past couple of weeks. These are just emblematic. You have all seen pictures like this for weeks. What did you think was going to happen? What did you think was going to happen?”
Watch his comments below: