The images are shocking: thousands of people dance and sing alongside each other at a secret ultra-Orthodox Jewish wedding recently held in New York. The mayor announced Tuesday a $ 15,000 fine against the synagogue for defying restrictions imposed to limit the spread of the coronavirus.
The wedding of a great rabbi’s grandson took place Nov. 8 at a Brooklyn synagogue that seats about 7,000 people, the New York Post reported.
Images obtained by the newspaper show the temple almost full, with thousands singing and dancing without masks.
“What we know unquestionably is that it was too many people. Whatever the number, if it was hundreds, thousands, it was too many people,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said Tuesday at a news conference.
The mayor of New York, where some 25,000 people have died from the coronavirus, said there was “a very conscious effort to hide” the marriage, “which makes it even more unacceptable.”
The $ 15,000 fine “is very serious,” he estimated.
De Blasio threatened to close the synagogue permanently if “inappropriate activity” continues.
Governor Andrew Cuomo said the wedding was “a flagrant disregard of the law.” “It’s illegal. It was also disrespectful to the people of New York,” he said Sunday.
The party at the Yetev Lev Temple in South Williamsburg, Brooklyn, celebrated the wedding of a grandson of Chief Rabbi Aaron Teitelbaum of the Satmar Hasidic dynasty, according to the Post.
Last month, another wedding with thousands of guests from a rival faction of Satmar, which was to celebrate the nuptials of a grandson of Chief Rabbi Zalman Teitelbaum – Aaron’s brother and enemy, according to the Post – was intercepted by authorities at the last minute.
Part of the ultra-Orthodox community in New York State rejects the use of chinstraps and social distancing, and the authorities are punishing when trying to obey the rules.
In October, several ultra-Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods were placed on alert by the governor as the infection rate rose. Cuomo decreed the closure of non-essential businesses and limited the maximum number of those attending religious temples to up to 10 people, prompting protests, sometimes violent, from the community.
Coronavirus cases are on the rise in New York, which has a rate of new positive tests around 3.1%, although now the greatest focus of infection is no longer in Brooklyn but in Staten Island.
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