When Jewish neighborhoods were placed under “Red Zone Clusters” during the Covid-19 outbreaks, many called out former Governor Cuomos decisions as targeting Orthodox Jews. Positivity rates in non Jewish communities at the time were in much higher numbers and yet had remained “Orange Zones” and at times even “Yellow”.
Now the DOH has announced that they have found these zones blatantly discriminatory. See below:
"No matter how much pain was inflicted on families & small businesses, the Governors’s office kept moving the goalposts by creating and then hiding impossible-to-meet metrics. It is both validating and disheartening to finally see this proof of wholesale discrimination…." https://t.co/TfYbE1s5Am
— Chaskel Bennett (@ChaskelBennett) November 11, 2021
“It’s all based on science” they told us.
Ever wonder why Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods were placed in red zones? Remember when we called out the patently discriminatory cluster zones?
Turns out that others thought so as well. See sworn testimony from DOH official: https://t.co/2lzzF4R7Ci
— Simcha Eichenstein (@SEichenstein) November 12, 2021
This is a disturbing picture of an executive branch creating policies of arbitrarily shutting down certain communities and not others. This was one of the factors alleged in the lawsuit of Agudath Israel v. Cuomo @AgudahNewshttps://t.co/ej7KeaFKTD
— Yeruchim Silber (@ysilber) November 12, 2021
Statement by Agudah:
New York Attorney General Letitia James released thousands of pages of transcripts yesterday from the independent investigation into the sexual harassment allegations against former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo.
In addition to significant impropriety described by 10 women, one sworn testimonial details the politically motivated creation of “red zones” by the Governor last year. The speaker, identified in the heavily redacted transcript only as “DOH Official #2,” was the New York Department of Health Medical Director of Epidemiology, a position she held since 2014.
In her own words:
Page 114
I think that they were looking for someone to be an expert witness on that case and some people, as I understood it, were refusing to go do these legal attestations or affidavits.
I think part of the challenge was the system of not having other experts willing to do it, but even if I had been available, I would not have done it. I didn’t know how they determined XXXX and no one that I worked closely with knew how they determined XXXX, what the metrics for — at that time how they determined it.
Q. When you say how they determined XXXX, who is they?
A. The Chamber.
Page 118
Q. Did you have an understanding what or who they feared retribution from?
A. The Chamber.
Page 130
Q. Are you aware of any involvement by the Executive Chamber after January, 2020 in setting internal policies at DOH?
A. Yes.
Q. What are you aware of other than what we have already talked about?
A. All the policies. I don’t know how to be more specific.
Page 134
Q. Are you aware of any instructions from members of the Executive Chamber after 20 January, 2020 that went against the professional judgement of DOH employees?
A. The zones were very complicated. There were metrics that our staff would work on, but they would only be announced that people met the metrics if that came from the Chamber. Some areas met the metrics and would be called a zone and others met the metrics and would not be called a zone. Our staff who worked for hours and hours on these metrics and then nothing would be announced and it was very unclear as to why they would get very frustrated. And for me that was part of my not wanting to be involved in a lawsuit about the metrics without having clarity on how they were established. I didn’t feel professionally that I could do that…
What emerges is a disturbing picture of an executive branch creating policies of arbitrarily shutting down certain communities and not others. This was one of the factors alleged in the lawsuit of Agudath Israel v. Cuomo, as explained here.
As these new details emerge, the Agudah is once again thankful to the Almighty for allowing the truth to come to light, and for the Agudah to have ultimately prevailed in this landmark Supreme Court case. These new revelations reinforce the importance of staving off capricious government actions which, as detailed in the transcript, were rooted in executive whim and not scientific rigor.
Statement by OJPAC:
It doesn’t happen in a vacuum that a person is shameless enough to go on a 3 minute inflammatory public rant about Jews and for most people in attendance to take his side too. It’s a result of a toxic environment where agitators spent years weaponizing debates about municipal policy with an outsized focus on Orthodox Jews and the commentary being loaded with one-sided reporting and flat out lies. Often, the conversation is framed that every local problem is the fault of Orthodox Jews and everything about Orthodox Jews is faulty.
This narrative has been pushed by political candidates; elected officials; Facebook group administrators and by some players in media. Just today, transcripts from the investigation into @andrewcuomo revealed that the COVID-19 “cluster zones” from last fall were with a bias.
Many areas with bad COVID—19 numbers got a pass while Cuomo and his enablers @RichAzzopardi and @melissadderosa kept pushing Orthodox Jewish-focused Red Zones including in neighborhoods that had better rates than whole counties. The focus on Orthodox Jews by Cuomo was followed by hate attacks in the streets, discrimination in the private sector and targeted enforcement by government. It took hard work in the public arena and in the courts for the craziness to stop but scars were left. The Haverstraw scene is just an illustration of the issue at hand.
In many counties from Ocean in New Jersey to Rockland, Orange and Sullivan in New York, the inflammatory rhetoric and reporting has been scaled back due to responsible steps by press, media and officials who came to understand that words matter. More work is needed to assure that when reporting about municipal policy; when campaigning about it and when enforcing rules such as during COVID-19, that the focus should not be on one ethnic community and sure not in a negative, inflammatory way. OJPAC continuously releases data, reports, studies, articles and press releases to help steer the policy conversation in a truthful and productive direction. Candidates, officials and journalists are invited to reach out to request data, facts, comment and perspective that can help shape reporting and policy in an accurate and fair way.
Welcome to Germany 1933 .. it never ends does it!