Cuomo Says Banned Bklyn Hasidic Wedding is Not ‘Top Priority’

By: Hellen Zaboulani

On Monday, the Jewish wedding of the grandchild of the Satmar Rebbe, shlita was slated to take place in a grand celebration with attendees from New York, London, Antwerp, Bnei Brak and Jerusalem. The wedding, however, was dramatically scaled down to welcome only the immediate family members, leaving the original 10,000 well-wishers out of all stages of the wedding, not even allowing them outdoors, with only the option of watching through live audio conference. The change was made in the guest list in compliance with the charge by New York city and state officials to keep the event to a limited scale during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In a statement, on Sunday, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said that the banned Hasidic wedding in Brooklyn was “not on the top of list of concerns’’ for the state at this time. The governor seemed to make no effort to at least appease the wedding’s organizers who were forced to drastically change the plans just days before the wedding. “I understand their point. They had planned a large wedding. And everybody was excited for the wedding. And then the government says you can’t have this large wedding. How terrible. We were all excited about this large wedding,” said Gov. Cuomo.

“You can’t have a wedding now with thousands of people,’’ the governor said. “There is no safe way to do that. We know that. We know that a party with a hundred people has generated issues.’’ He went on to add that one of his daughters couldn’t have a college-graduation ceremony this year because of the virus. He noted that people have died in nursing homes and hospitals from COVID-19, some without even being able to have their loved ones near.

“On the scale, I think, ‘I really wanted a big wedding’ isn’t on the top of the list of concerns,’’ Cuomo said. “My suggestion: Have a small wedding this year. Next year, have a big wedding. Invite me, I’ll come.’’

On Friday night, the Congregation Yetev Lev D’Satmar was served an order from New York state barring Monday’s planned public wedding in Williamsburg of a grandson of its grand rabbi, Zalman Leib Teitelbaum. “The unwarranted attacks on this event, originated by those besmirching the community, are detached from the facts,” said Chaim Jacobowitz, the synagogue’s secretary. He insisted that the congregation had all along been planning to take special steps to ensure the wedding complied with coronavirus guidelines and social distancing, without the necessity of such a high-profile dissolution.