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Brooklyn Yeshiva Allegedly Caught Holding Classes With At Least 60 Students Inside
By
Ben Yakas
Published May 18, 2020
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Ben Yakas
Published May 18, 2020
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The NYPD says officers dispersed an illegally-operated ultra-Orthodox Yeshiva in Brooklyn this afternoon after receiving a tip about a lot of children being inside.
An NYPD spokesperson tells Gothamist that they received a tip today about Nitra Yeshiva, located on Madison Street in Bedford-Stuyvesant, being in session. Officers arrived around noon and found "approximately 60 students inside of the building." A man operating the school was told to close it, and the students left on buses.
NBC reported that there were "more than 100 children" inside Nitra Yeshiva at the time. They add that police were tipped off by at least two people in the neighborhood, who described "seeing children playing on the roof of the school building without masks."
The NYPD said no summonses were issued against the people operating the school. Calls to multiple numbers listed for Nitra Yeshiva went unanswered on Monday.
Some ultra-Orthodox yeshivas have been holding classes around Brooklyn in defiance of the statewide order that closed schools to help stop the spread of COVID-19. "It started slowly, and by now, after the holiday, even the bigger schools are slowly opening more and more classes," a father whose son previously attended the underground lessons told Gothamist in April. "Some of them have 15 classes per grade."
Brooklyn's ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods have seen some of the highest rates of COVID-19 deaths, but portions of the community have continued to eschew social distancing rules—large groups have gathered in public for funerals and other events, with some tacitly approved or coordinated by the NYPD. A number of Orthodox Jewish business owners have recently joined in calls for the state to allow small businesses to re-open, using the hashtag #ReopenNY.
Mayor Bill de Blasio has expressed frustration that the Orthodox community has repeatedly been seen ignoring social distancing guidelines during the pandemic.
Today's incident comes a week after the release of "smoking gun" emails that show de Blasio was directly involved in delaying a four-year investigation into the quality of education at the city's yeshivas as part of a push to renew mayoral control of city schools.
Yeshiva advocate Nafulti Moster, whose group Young Advocates for Fair Education has called on NY State Attorney General Letitia James to launch an investigation into de Blasio and his staff over the delay, told the Post recently that the flaunting of rules by the community is indicative of the city's prior mistakes: “It’s no surprise that after decades of no oversight, ultra-Hasidic Yeshiva leaders are doing as they please — even now during a health pandemic — with little concern for the law or for the children’s health and educational well-being."
Tagged
Bedford-Stuyvesant
COVID-19
coronavirus
brooklyn
orthodox jews
yeshiva
Ben Yakas
Ben Yakas is a former Gothamist reporter.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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