Shortly after the onset of the coronavirus pandemic last year, Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York managed to enrage much of the Jewish community with a single tweet.
After witnessing a large funeral in the Orthodox neighborhood of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, last April, de Blasio warned “the Jewish community, and all communities” that police would take extreme measures to enforce social-distancing restrictions prohibiting public gatherings. Many Orthodox leaders took offense to the singling out of their community and this particular funeral rather than cracking down on crowds in public parks. And others, across New York and the country, were infuriated by what they saw as “scapegoating” of all Jews based on the behavior of one sect.