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NYC Will Close More Public Schools Amid Violent Protests

NYC to Close 61 More Public Schools, Bringing Total to 169

New York City is closing an additional 61 public schools, bringing to 169 the number shut to combat Covid-19 hot spots, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Thursday as opposition to community restrictions intensified in Orthodox Jewish areas.

The earliest those schools can reopen would be Oct. 21, the mayor said. The city decided which to close using state-created, color-coded zones that denote rates of infection; some had already shut under a previous system based on ZIP codes, de Blasio said.

An additional 308 will have mandatory weekly testing of students and staff.

In recent nights, protesters have thronged the streets, burning masks and roughing up suspected opponents. De Blasio warned of tough weeks ahead for all New Yorkers, but particularly people residing or owning businesses in new hot spots that had been gradually reopening while infection rates remained low.

“The way we will do it is with unity, understanding we are all in this together,” de Blasio said during a news briefing. “We can stop this challenge from turning into a full blown second wave.”

Backward Motion

Residents fear that the city might backslide toward the paralyzing days of last spring, when hospitals were bursting beyond capacity and deaths came faster than funeral parlors could handle them.

The mayor recited statistics showing that newly diagnosed cases have hit 526 on a seven-day rolling average. That’s perilously close to the 550 trigger officials set for citywide restrictions. It’s a warning, as health officials focus on the specific problem areas in Brooklyn and Queens, de Blasio said Thursday.

The seven-day average of tests returning positive stood at 1.56% citywide, down from 1.74% Wednesday. The number of hospital admissions with Covid-like symptoms increased to 89 as of Tuesday, as opposed to 79 the previous day. In the affected areas, which represent at least 25% of reported cases, infection rates have ranged between 3.5% to above 8%.

In light of the rising numbers, Governor Andrew Cuomo has demanded that the city step up its enforcement of the regulations. The enforcement orders are complicated because most of the high-risk areas contain large Orthodox Jewish communities that are being told to restrict gathering just before Simchat Torah, which begins Friday evening.

Red zone regulations limit religious observances to groups of 10 people, with 25 in the orange zone, and 50% of capacity in the yellow zones. Secular and religious leaders question the policy noting that, while some synagogues are small, many can hold hundreds of worshipers.

Agudath Israel of America filed a lawsuit Thursday in federal court, asking to block the state from enforcing its attendance cap of 10 people at houses of worship in red zones. The advocacy group’s suit argues that the restrictions “unconstitutionally discriminate against religious practice while simultaneously permitting comparable secular conduct.”

Mob Rule

The past two nights have been rocked by demonstrations by Orthodox Jews in the streets of Borough Park, Brooklyn. A City Council candidate and radio personality, Heshy Tischler, has taken a lead role in spurring crowds to anger, saying he will use force to stop restrictions. He has said Democrats are lying about the virus for political advantage.

On Wednesday night, hundreds filled the streets, some dancing, most maskless, many with Trump campaign signs -- shouting that they would refuse to comply with the mask-wearing and restrictions. In several locations, men in the traditional religious garb of prayer shawls and yarmulkes set fire to masks in the street. At one point, Tischler shouted to the crowd, “You are my soldiers. We are at war.”

The mob attacked a reporter for Jewish Insider, Jacob Kornbluh, as he videorecorded the scene.

“I was just brutally assaulted, hit in the head, and kicked at by an angry crowd of hundreds of community members of the Boro Park protest — while yelling at me ‘Nazi’ and ‘Hitler,’” Kornbluh reported in a Twitter message. Kornbluh said he would press assault charges, but no arrests were made at the scene.

Cuomo told reporters Thursday that the violence must stop: “This is irrational, illogical, ugly, illegal conduct and it shouldn’t be tolerated and it’s an affront to the Jewish community, the Orthodox community, the Ultra-Orthodox community. It’s against everyone’s best interests.”

De Blasio said he’s directed Police Commissioner Dermot Shea not to tolerate law breaking.

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