An Outbreak Spreads Fear: Of Measles, of Ultra-Orthodox Jews, of Anti-Semitism

Ever for the reason that public well being declaration, Aron B. Wieder, a legislator in Rockland County and a distinguished member of the Hasidic group, has fielded nonstop cellphone calls from fellow Hasidim fearful of being vilified, he mentioned.

“The conception that is out there is completely distorted, and that is, that the Orthodox community for the most part don’t vaccinate their children, and that is not true,” Mr. Wieder added. “The county executive had a moral obligation to point these things out.”

Mr. Wieder, who mentioned he first realized concerning the order in information studies, felt that the exclusion of the Hasidim from the decision-making course of was emblematic of the divisions within the county and would solely sow extra distrust. “When you have people who are true haters,” he mentioned. “They will take advantage of this type of situation and it just pours fuel on the fire.”

Steve Gold, the chairman of the Jewish Community Relations Council for the Jewish Federation of Rockland, shared Mr. Wieder’s issues, saying the transfer by county officers risked exacerbating the anti-Semitism that already existed within the space earlier than the measles disaster. He pointed to a quantity of anti-Semitic episodes, together with swastikas spray-painted on timber.

“I think it just opened up the door for everybody to say whatever they wanted to say,” Mr. Gold mentioned. “And they’re placing, the best way it seems proper now, 100 p.c blame on the Orthodox group.”

The anxiousness over the outbreak has unfold from the aisles on the kosher supermarkets the place ladies in head-coverings pushed purchasing carts laden with infants and items for the upcoming Passover vacation, to the ritual bathhouses or mikvahs. In youngsters’s clothes retailers, moms shopping for Sabbath finery traded tales about buddies with sickened youngsters.

Near a strip mall that bought spiritual candelabras and fur hats, a bunch of teenage boys tugged on the prayer threads that hung at their waists, discussing whether or not they would hang around with unvaccinated buddies.