NY Police Arrest 3 Men in Crown Heights for Illegally Gathering in Groups Outside Synagogue

Those in New York City who think they can thumb their nose or completely disregard the city’s social distancing stringent guidelines are in a for an unpleasant surprise.

Since Governor Andrew Cuomo announced that all New Yorkers must wear a mask and a pair of latex gloves when leaving their homes if they cannot practice social distancing as is required, many people are taking these rules seriously and adhering to them scrupulously while others are not.

According to a report on Sunday that appeared in the New York Post, three people were arrested for violating the city’s social distancing restrictions outside of the World Headquarters of the Chabad-Lubavitch synagogue in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn on Thursday.

The Post reported that the arrests came after police responded to calls about “New Yorkers NOT social distancing” outside the synagogue, NYPD Chief Terence Monahan said in a tweet.

“After numerous warnings from officers and continued disputes, three arrests were made,” Monahan wrote.

The Post reported that those arrested during the incident were Menachem Hilel, 29, who was charged with assault and criminal trespass, police said Sunday.

Two other men, Ariel Balon, 37, and Moshe Blumenfeld, 20, were each charged with resisting arrest, disorderly conduct and obstructing governmental administration, police said, as was reported by the Post.

On Sunday, Yaacov Behrman, a spokesman for Chabad-Lubavitch, said that the men were part of an unsanctioned group gathering outside the temple, which had been closed due to coronavirus restrictions, according to the Post report. He said police had the synagogue’s permission and blessing to stop the gathering outside the building.

Behrman added that, “We made it clear that we support any action the police take to uphold the law.”

The Post reported that he said the group “had no permission to be there. Chabad made it clear no one has permission to be on the property.”

Other such large gatherings of people throughout the city have also been targeted by police, including a raucous assemblage of people at a barbershop in Brooklyn on Saturday, according to the Post report.

In other related news, the video clip in his article depicts a man who is lambasting his co-religionists for gathering together in a Brooklyn synagogue in defiance of the lockdown rules that were implemented by authorities in the city to help protect people from catching the deadly virus that has claimed the lives of thousands.

The man in the video is chastising the offenders in Yiddish, which is the mother tongue of the vast majority of Jews who migrated to America from Europe in the aftermath of World War II and the Nazi led Holocaust. In the video, the man known as Jacob Kornbluh, is getting pushback from those he is trying to help. Kornbluh is a Jewish journalist, blogger and reporter for several Jewish publications.