Home Antisemitism Coronavirus Cuomo Democrats recent Anti-Semitic Democrats Blame Orthodox Jews for the Coronavirus
Home Antisemitism Coronavirus Cuomo Democrats recent Anti-Semitic Democrats Blame Orthodox Jews for the Coronavirus

Anti-Semitic Democrats Blame Orthodox Jews for the Coronavirus




“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.’” Governor Andrew Cuomo told religious Jews.

His basis for the decree was a photo of mourners who weren’t practicing social distancing at a funeral. But the photo of a crowd of Orthodox Jews on Cuomo’s slide was from 2006.

It was a very different message than Cuomo’s condemnation of bigotry when he had insisted, “There is zero evidence that people of Asian descent bear any additional responsibility for the transmission of the coronavirus." The new message is, don’t blame the Asians, blame the Jews.

They did go to a funeral in 2006.

Cuomo was picking up where Mayor Bill de Blasio had left off in his infamous tweet targeting Orthodox Jews. “My message to the Jewish community, and all communities, is this simple: the time for warnings has passed,” the New York City leftist boss had raged.

Medieval bigots blamed the Black Plague on Jews poisoning wells. Modern Democrats blame the Coronavirus on the Jews. Despite the plague of media narratives accompanied by photos of Chassidic Jews praying or mourning, there’s as little evidence for the latter as for the former.

Cuomo’s threat to synagogues was prompted by a supposed resurgence of the virus. De Blasio had already announced that the spike in the targeted areas would lead to school and business closures. Except that a number of those areas have African-American, Latino or Asian majorities. But instead Democrats and the media have focused in on the “Jewish” areas.

And even those “Orthodox Jews” areas are far from a homogenous monocultural community.

Chassidic Jews, a subset of Orthodox Jews, may stand out, but so do the Amish. So-called “chassidic neighborhoods” in Brooklyn are actually made up of the usual New York mix of African-Americans, Latinos, and assorted immigrant groups, including Muslim immigrants.

Coronavirus deaths among Asians in New York have been twice as high among whites and approaching five times as high among Latinos and African-Americans. New York City's worst death rates were not in Borough Park or Williamsburg, but in a Bronx neighborhood, in East New York, in Flushing, Queens, in Far Rockaway, and in Brighton Beach.

None of those are Chassidic neighborhoods. Only one has a significant Orthodox population.

Nor are the highest positive rates in Orthodox or Chassidic areas. You have to get through five Queens neighborhoods before making it to Borough Park. And Borough Park, and most Brooklyn neighborhoods, except East New York, are far below Queens and Bronx neighborhoods when it comes to cases per population. Borough Park is only the 49th highest zip code in actual mortality rates, Williamsburg is in 79th place.

And yet the insistence that the outbreak is an Orthodox Jewish problem is ubiquitous. It pops up in the media and in rhetoric by top Democrats that stigmatizes religious Jews for the virus.

The Democrats who rose to denounce scapegoating of Asians have joined in the racism.

The media pumps out stories blaming the outbreak on Orthodox Jews with a cheerful disregard for facts or basic urban geography. The Associated Press rolled out an entire story blaming the outbreak of coronavirus infections on Orthodox Jews, but the only actual neighborhood that it offers statistics for is the "Gravesend section of Brooklyn", a mostly immigrant area that is not home to a Chassidic community and whose Orthodox Jews are Syrian refugees, but is mostly associated with Italian-Americans, with large populations of Chinese and Russian immigrants.

The media won’t stop claiming that Orthodox Jews spread the virus because they make a convenient boogeyman for its hipster readers who despise traditional Judeo-Christian religions.

The New York Times, which has run the most articles blaming Orthodox Jews for the outbreak, has linked them to cultural lefty hobgoblins like opponents of vaccines and Trump supporters.

"N.Y.C. Threatens Orthodox Jewish Areas on Virus, but Trump’s Impact Is Seen," one New York Times headline read.

The power of othering is that all your hatreds and fears can be projected onto those who are different. And despite all the politically correct lectures on race and hate, the Times needs its own others to hate. The most obvious ‘tell’ is that when the Times writes about any other group, it quotes members of the community, but when it writes about Chassidic Jews, it turns to opponents and critics of the community who are happy to nod along to the negative coverage.

That’s why a rise in positive test results in a Chinese area isn’t a story, a rise in a black area is a story about racism and inequity, but a rise in an Orthodox Jewish area is a story about ignorant religious fanatics who support Trump, insist on praying, and don’t trust the medical experts.

The Orthodox Jewish community has suffered from the virus, as have many other groups. It’s no more at fault for it than they are. It isn’t unique because more Orthodox Jews have come down with the virus, but because they make a convenient scapegoat for the failures of Democrat officials like Cuomo and De Blasio, for the blatant flouting of their rules by rioters and hipsters.

Chassidic Jews in particular are stereotypically ‘Other’ with strange garb, incomprehensible beliefs, accents, large families, and long beards, but they’re white enough that hating them is socially acceptable for progressives who can act out their xenophobia without feeling guilty.

Even before the pandemic, the media was eager to provide a platform for every special interest out to bash Orthodox Jews, from the YAFFED campaign by leftists against religious Jewish schools to opponents of circumcision to animal rights cranks campaigning against Kosher meat.

The new coronavirus antisemitism relies on the same stereotypes and slurs: Orthodox Jews are ignorant, superstitious, flout authority, and need to be saved from their backward ways. These are the progressive prejudices that permeate the media’s coverage of Orthodox Jews. And it’s part of the reason why Orthodox Jews are a Republican constituency in presidential elections.

Bigotry isn’t just about the pleasures of hate. It’s how those in power redirect blame for their crimes and failures, and a means for those who hate to gain a false sense of power and control.

Blaming the upsurge on an outside group creates a false sense of security for everyone else.

And when it’s no longer possible to pretend that the upsurge is limited to Orthodox Jews, then they can still be blamed for having caused it with their weddings, funerals, and their prayers.

Best of all, none of the newfound bigots will blame Governor Cuomo or Mayor Bill de Blasio.

The two top Democrats who mishandled the pandemic in the worst ways possible, while spewing lies, excuses, and smears at their serial press conferences, won’t be held accountable.

And that’s why every time things get worse, Cuomo and De Blasio will blame the Jews.




Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical Left and Islamic terrorism.

Comments

  1. My entire life I have heard how “tough” New Yorkers are; where are those tough guys now? Why aren’t they out there getting rid of these two awful “leaders”?

    ReplyDelete
  2. And please excuse the second post but hey, Jews, whatever happened to “Never again”?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Aisla Portland12/10/20

    No one , but no one is surprised at this.
    You're a rare writer in stating all this: the Jews are " other" and the likes of De Blasio and Cuomo are jumped up doped out, privileged lefties and very nasty.
    Either would be happy to dole out yellow stars , push kiddies onto cattle trucks if CNN or Sorogates paid them too.
    All we need to ask is how the hell did we get these types into key public posts worldwide. All share a lefty loathing for Jews and Christians. All well trained to take roles that they got on ludicrous low turnouts , as we ignored what they might do with the law and their mobs should they get power on some concocted pretext like Wuflu20.
    Ah well. Maybe those getting their cities destroyed might vote then out ,given a fair vote. But prepare for their brownshirts dreaming up a Reichstag fire as we speak

    ReplyDelete
  4. When this whole thing started, the first outbreaks in the NY metro area were in New Rochelle in Westchester County NY, Monsey in Rockland County NY and Kiryas Joel in Orange County NY. These are strongly Orthodox/Hassidic areas. Right now the biggest spike in NJ is in Lakewood in Ocean County, another strongly Jewish area. These areas, along with the same Covid ones in Queens and Brooklyn, were for over a year the measles hotbeds of the nation just months before the 'rona showed up.

    Without a doubt, this virus has run rampant through other ethnic communities in the overall area. It's hit well mixed areas too. I'm not placing blame, just stating facts. Please don't confuse identifying who "owns" a hot spot with being prejudiced.

    That being said, the media is heavily biased, and drags out the standard "hate filled lefty" tropes at every opportunity. And there are political leaders who are rather crass, and sing the media's tunes all the time. One positive thing I can say for NJ Governor Murphy - he is approaching the Lakewood situation without pointing fingers. So far.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The worst fatalities of the virus were in the Bronx. There's once again an uptick in the Bronx.

      The official public health and media focus repeatedly targets Orthodox Jews areas, for a very obvious political agenda.

      Delete
  5. Anonymous12/10/20

    Considering the Democrat sanctioned race riots,
    condemning a religious event is obvious slimy
    political lying. But maybe we should exploit the
    ineptitude of domestic commies and CCP weapons
    researchers to draw a frightening warning.

    An ethnicity which has maintained reproductive
    isolation over thousands of years has unique
    DNA traits. A well financed nation with such a
    dominant ethnicity (Han Chinese), is already
    known to conduct human genetic experiments and
    live prisoner organ donations.

    Suppose the CCP Hunan Lab was on the way to a
    virus that spread rapidly, and killed all non-Han
    victims? They also could develop vaccines to
    boost Han resistance, or protect groups.

    They failed this time. If they succeed next try,
    we will never know what killed all of us. Clearly
    it’s a race whose winner writes all history from
    now on.

    Charlie

    ReplyDelete
  6. Anonymous12/10/20

    It would interesting to test the governor's authority in court on this issue. I suspect the state would lose such a case.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Thank you for publishing the truth. This article was concise and will-written.

    ReplyDelete

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