By Mark Ellis —
Queens, New York has a large population of Muslims and every fall they hold a large procession honoring Mohammed’s grandson, whose martyrdom started the rift between Shi’ites and Sunnis.
Despite Covid-related restrictions directed toward Christians and Jews, on October 4th a large group of Muslim men marched down Flushing’s Main Street, mostly without masks, chanting and beating their bare chests, with no authorities in sight, according to a report by Daniel Greenfield in The Jewish Voice.
“It’s one of a number of Shi’ite mass gatherings in New York and New Jersey,” Greenfield notes.
Unlike Orthodox Jewish or Christian gatherings, the media did not cover them as a public threat. “Governor Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio did not blame Muslims for the spread of the virus or declare a crackdown that would close mosques,” he noted.
The Queens procession happened in a watchlist neighborhood where Covid cases are on the increase.
Two months ago, Governor Cuomo threatened to crack down on Orthodox Jewish weddings and blamed the Jewish and Catholic communities for spreading Covid, but failed to mention Muslim events.
One day after the Oct. 4th Muslim procession, Cuomo said, “I have to say to the Orthodox community tomorrow, ‘If you’re not willing to live with these rules, then I’m going to close the synagogues.’”
“The media widely and wrongly claimed that the outbreaks were only taking place in zip codes with large Orthodox Jewish communities. This was false, especially when it came to Queens,” Greenfield noted.
Rep. Jerrold Nadler, who has maintained that Antifa violence is a myth, helped to distribute a petition of support for Cuomo and De Blasio’s crackdown on Jews from a group of rabbis created earlier this year to fight for social justice.
The petition was authored by Sharon Kleinbaum of Congregation Beit Simchat Torah, a gay temple.
“The differing treatment meted out to Orthodox Jewish and Shi’ite Muslim religious gatherings is a troubling demonstration of how anti-Semitism is baked into the intersectionality of the left.
“Systemic racism is a lie. Systemic anti-Semitism is real.”
