Growing up in the South Florida Jewish community, Reform variety, I didn’t see many Orthodox Jews. In lived in the American Jewish homeland, South, of Broward County. The Hasis, short for Hasidic, and the Orthies were mostly in Dade County around the area of Miami Beach that now is Eurotrash haven South Beach.

When we did see them they were calm, orderly, and not prone to civil disobedience. Well, times have changed, at least in New York.

Go Ad-Free, Get Exclusive Shows and Content, Go Premium Today - $1 Trial

As such, a multitude of stiff-necked Borough Park Orthies Tuesday night ignored orders to vamoose and lit a street fire in protest of new state restrictions imposed on area synagogues, schools, and non-essential businesses over a COVID-19 surge. To watch, as you can below, pious men of this faith lose control is rather odd to say the least. Judah Maccabee, call your office.

A crowd huddled assembled at the corner of 50th Street and 15th avenue in Brooklyn at about 9 p.m. as community mensch Heshy Tischler ripped Governor Cuomo and Mayor de Blasio over the state order that shuts down schools and limits shuls to 10 people in COVID-19 hot spots.

Jewish men and boys in Brooklyn start a fire in the street to protest COVID-19 restrictions. pic.twitter.com/ez6N9RTEXC

— Andy Ngô (@MrAndyNgo) October 7, 2020

The defiant crowd chanted “Jewish lives matter,” as they held their ground. “It’s called civil disobedience, we can fight back,” Tischler told the crowd after tearing off his face mask and destroying it. “Do not allow them to torture you or scare you,” he said, referring to Cuomo and de Blasio.

Go Ad-Free, Get Exclusive Shows and Content, Go Premium Today - $1 Trial

City Councilman Kalman Yeger later showed up at a protest on 13th Avenue and told the crowd: “We are not going to be deprived of the right that we have in America, like everybody else in America, the right to observe our religion.”

“We are appalled by Governor Cuomo’s words and actions today. He has chosen to pursue a scientifically and constitutionally questionable shutdown of our communities,” said a statement from Yeger, State Senator Simcha Felder, Assemblyman Simcha Eichenstein, and Councilman Chaim Deutsch.

“His administration’s utter lack of coordination and communication with local officials has been an ongoing issue since the start of the pandemic, and particularly recently as we face this uptick…Governor Cuomo’s choice to single out a particular religious group, complete with a slideshow of photos to highlight his point, was outrageous. His language was dangerous and divisive, and left the implication that Orthodox Jews alone are responsible for rising COVID cases in New York State,” the elected officials said. Blood libel, anyone?

Many area Orthodox Jews, though socially ultra-conservative, have made political alliances with New York liberal Democrats to get what they want out of state government. That relationship may be coming to an end.