As YWN has reported, a Topeka-based hate group (Westboro Baptist Church) is targeting Brooklyn Jews with a barrage of hate-filled demonstrations this week.
The anti-Semitic, anti-gay organization plans to picket five Shuls in Brooklyn this coming Shabbos, the day before Yom Kippur. The group is on a four-day visit to New York, where they’ll demonstrate at 19 locations, mostly synagogues, around the city and Long Island – including Great Neck.
They plan to assemble on sidewalks and sing anti-Jewish songs and display signs with slogans such as “God Hates Jews” and “America is Doomed.”
Hate-filled members of the group say that they have now decided to target Jews in Brooklyn because “there are 1.6 million Jews in New York and Brooklyn so we need to go there.”
The first of the five Shuls the group plans to picket on Shabbos is Cong. Shomrei Emunah in Boro Park.
Many anonymous emails & text messages are going around the community, with one of them reading: (unedited) “Hitler is coming to town. plz come out and show your support for us jews at 14th ave and 52nd street. at 830 shobbes morning. me yichye umi yumis….. plz pass it on people have to know whats going on”
YWN spoke with NYS Assemblyman Dov Hikind today about the Boro Park demonstration.
“My office has recieved more calls about this, than almost any other issue that I can remember,” Hikind said.
“People are very concerned, and rightfully so. I was driving down Canal Street in Manhattan on Thursday and came across the group with their anti-Semitic and hate-filled posters demonstrating. It absolutely sickened me.
“I plan on walking in from Flatbush to Boro Park on Shabbos morning to make sure that this thing does not get out of control. I would like nothing more than to see this demonstration go peacefully, and I will just be the only Jew standing there. Although it hurts and pains me to see this sick group specifically protest in Boro Park (a neighborhood filled with Holocaust survivors) just one day before Yom Kippur, I still hope that no Jews show up to confront them.”
Rabbi Beirish Freilich told YWN “I strongly urge people in the community to ignore the small group of protesters, and not even walk near the demonstration. It can only lead to a Chillul Hashem!”
Simcha Felder tells YWN that upon consulting with a prominent Gadol, he was instructed to tell people not to walk near the protest whatsoever.
Highly credible sources tell YWN that the NYPD will have a zero-tolerance level on both sides, and urge everyone to not break the law, and remain calm. Additionally NYPD tells YWN that people would be better off not coming to counter-protest, as they will just be giving them a “platform” and will encourage them to return to Boro Park again.
(Yehuda Drudgestein – YWN)
Join the official YWN WhatsApp status
14 Responses
As Jews we are always quiet. Maybe instead of always being quiet its time for us to start making some noise. Trust me if they went to Harlem to protest black people they wouldnt make it out alive. They know Jews are push-overs and wont do anything to them. Im not saying we should act like the animals in Harlem but we should definetely stop being quiet!
In many instances it is true that we should not simply sit back and allow abuse (verbal, in this case) but to engage in dispute with them is counter productive.
As G-D’s Chosen, let them take it up with G-D to inform Him that He is wrong and inform the Almighty that He hates us… (c”v)
I think it would be best not to even give these low life creeps the time of day. They want attention and they should be totally ignored. (If a tree falls in a forest and no one is there does it make a sound? If some idiots make noise and no one pays attention, does it have any impact?)
Being quiet doesn’t make one a coward. Being quiet doesn’t mean we’re afraid. Being quiet is the worst thing that can happen for these interloping miscreants, having us be quiet is the last thing they want. The only way they can hurt us is to incite us emotionally, getting us all riled-up. Being quiet means we have the discipline, the strength to know better in resisting their provocations, to effectively relegating them as persona non grata, marginalizing them to utter total non-existence.
Any sort of altercation, response to start “making noise” implies the sort of action, activity that my desecrate the Shabbos in the process, that would only serve to fall into their hands , subvert, denigrate all that Shabbos comes to symbolize.
Although my first reation to this is to want to go there and beat the …. out of them, but in reality the best reaction is what is advocated by Mr Felder and Mr. Hikind and that is to let them play to an empty house…no-one there shouting back will not fuel their fires of hate.
POSTERS SHOULD BE PUT UP NOW AROUND THIS AREA!
The posters should say to avoid the area completely at the time these morons are there, and if that is impossible, to totally ignore them, and stay as far away as possible! I know the temptation IS great to send them to the next world, BUT REMEMBER – confrontation is what they WANT!!! Confrontation is what will get them the press coverage they desire!!! Be Kovesh the yetzer to stomp on them like the vermin they are, and erev Yom Kipur be mekash Shaim Shamayim by IGNORING THEM, and telling every one to do so!
Is it legal to have a public demonstration without a permit?
Take them refreshments, food. Recite tehillim for them. Be nice to them. Remind them the man they follow in faith was a Jew and that nowhere in their bible were they ever commanded to leave the synagogue. The church spoken of is the people, not a building. G-d is no respector of persons and I think that G-d will appear to those who hate as that which they hate, and that is where the Westboro folks are going to encounter the biggest problem for their souls.
Bring out some chulent and kugel, serve them a kiddush.
Do these Nazis even have a permit to demonstrate?
ATTN Hashem: please make the ground open under their feet and swallow them alive! that would create huge Kavod Shamayim ! Moshe emes vsoraso emes!
These people demonstrated in my community yesterday. There were 4 adults and 1 child. No one confronted them and they were gone in 20 minutes. They have there own law firm and sue everyone that confronts them. Enjoy your Shabbos and ignore these jokers. It is Shabbos Shuva and there are more important things to do!
If it was my community I would encourage everyone to daven outside this Shabbos. No better way to shut them up. These people just heard that there is a large Jewish community here, they obviously don’t know to much about it or otherwise they would have been here a long time ago. If I were to see a Nazi I would go up to him and say HA I’m still around and there is nothing you can do about it!! Same thing here go out and daven in the streets don’t entice them but daven real loud.
Ignore them and don’t waste your breath on them. We have more important things to do, especially on Yom Kippur. We will daven to Hashem for the sake of all Klal Yisrael to be placed in the Sefer HaChaim. Let’s daven that Eliyahu Ha Novi, comes to herald the arrival of Moshiach and let him deal with this pathetic misinformed group.