New York state officials try to stop 'huge' Hasidic wedding from going ahead tonight after Cuomo blasted synagogue gathering of 7,000 for defying laws
New York state officials scrambled to stop a massive wedding in a Hasidic community from taking place tonight in a small town an hour north of Manhattan.
The state's Health Department mandated that the wedding booked at the Yetev Lev synagogue in Kiryas Joel be canceled - unless it can be limited to 50 people in each of two reception buildings and that guests wear masks and socially distance, the Middletown Times Herald-Record reported.
But by mid-afternoon it appeared that the wedding would go ahead, the Daily Beast reported.
Unmasked, black-hatted men were seen walking in and out of the large synagogue, where preparations for the huge event were underway, according to the Daily Beast. White tarps from the top of the stairs to the floor blocked the view inside the venue.
It's unclear how many people were invited to the wedding and how many were expected to attend. DailyMail.com has contacted Yetev Lev synagogue for comment.
New York's state Health Department ordered an ultra-Orthodox synagogue in Kiryas Joel to follow mask rules and limit capacity at a wedding planned for Monday within state guidelines - but preparations befitting a massive ceremony suggested that would not happen
The synagogue in Kiryas Joel, a village of 26,000 that's populated predominantly by ulta-Orthodox Jews of the Satmar sect, can accommodate thousands of people.
The wedding organizers sent invitations out to guests. A previous wedding in the Hasidic community, held November 8 at the Yetev Lev temple in Williamsburg, Brooklyn with 7,000 guests, limited invitations to word of mouth in order to fly under the radar.
Lawrence Dressler, who was invited to the Kiryas Joel wedding, shared on his blog the text of the invitation he received for the wedding, which he expected to be 'huge.'
'I would like to invite our family, friends and followers to the wedding of my grandchild the great scholar the groom who is filled with Torah and the fear of G-d,' the invitation began.
The earlier wedding on November 8 drew the ire of Gov. Andrew Cuomo after photos and videos emerged of the wedding, which was planned in secret to flout state rules limiting capacity at indoor religious gatherings.
Maskless crowds crammed together in their thousands at an earlier indoor wedding within the Satmar community - that one November 8 in Williamsburg, Brooklyn
The earlier Hasidic wedding, in Brooklyn, slipped under the radar of city officials as it crowded 7,000 maskless people into the Yetev Lev synagogue, in defiance of Governor Cuomo's coronavirus restrictions
Blogger Lawrence Dressler was invited to the Kiryas Joel wedding and shared the text of the invitation
More than 7,000 people packed the nuptials, where men were seen dancing and singing and few wore masks.
Satmar community newspaper Der Blatt later crowed over the successful subterfuge.
At a news conference in New York City on Sunday, Cuomo blasted the synagogue for hosting the crowded wedding of Yoel Teitelbaum, grandson of Satmar Grand Rabbi Aaron Teitelman.
'If that happened, it was a blatant disregard of the law,' he said. 'It's illegal. It was also disrespectful of the people of New York.'
In October, plans for wedding expected to draw 10,000 at the same Brooklyn synagogue were scuttled after New York's Health Commissioner Dr. Howard A. Zucker delivered an order similar to the one he issued Monday to the Kiryas Joel synagogue.
Worshipers packed the Yetev Lev D'Satmar synagogue in Williamsburg on November 8 for a massive wedding celebration, after a huge wedding booked in the venue for October was canceled
'If it turns out that, because we stopped that wedding, the reaction was, 'Well we'll have a secret wedding,' that would be really shocking and totally deceitful from the conversations that I had, because I had personal conversations with members of the community,' Cuomo said Sunday.
Cuomo urged New York's Mayor Bill de Blasio to conduct 'a robust investigation' of the November 8 wedding.
Mitch Schwartz, the mayor's director of rapid response, did not answer when the New York Post asked if the synagogue would suffer consequences over the massive wedding gathering.
A coronavirus cluster is shown in Orange County, the home of the village of Kiryas Joel, where the wedding was planned to be held Monday
Coronavirus cases in New York surged throughout November, prompting New York City to close its schools again
Kiryas Joel was put under lockdown in October after positivity for coronavirus tests hit a staggering 34 percent.
The positivity rate in the village then plummeted to 2 percent, leading to an easing of the lockdown.
Many speculated that the drop owed to community members refusing tests to keep the rate low, the New York Times reported.
Parts of Orange County were newly designated as a yellow zone Thursday.
After New York State had flattened its curve following a peak of hospitalizations and deaths in the spring, the number of cases surged throughout the autumn.
While the state averaged only several hundred new cases a day during the summer, it now averages over 5,000 new cases a day.
The state has suffered 33,804 COVID deaths as of Monday, the most of any state, and now averages 37 deaths a day.