This archive report was first published on 19 May 2020.
On Monday, May 18, 2020, the New York City Police Department shut down a Brooklyn yeshiva after dozens of children were found playing on the roof without masks, violating public health orders that have kept schools across the state closed since March.
Neighbors in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn reported that the children, few of whom were wearing masks, filed into the building, crowded into classrooms, and played on the roof at recess.
"It was definitely a regular day for them, like business as usual," said Joe Livingston, a neighbor who lives across from the school. "That's dangerous."
The police brought the school day to an abrupt end around noon after a neighbor called 311 to report the children playing on the roof.
According to Sergeant Mary Frances O'Donnell, a police spokeswoman, about 60 children were found at the school, and they were all sent home.
The shutdown of the yeshiva is the latest in a series of incidents that have ignited tensions between the authorities and Hasidic Jews since the start of the coronavirus pandemic.
Despite the high rate of COVID-19 cases among Hasidic Jews, social-distancing rules have repeatedly been broken in areas where Hasidim dominate, especially at activities like weddings, funerals, and religious education.
