Jacob Kornbluh was just three blocks from his home in Brooklyn, documenting a protest against coronavirus restrictions on Wednesday evening, when the demonstration suddenly turned toward him.
The 39-year-old journalist found himself pinned to the wall of a store, he said, as dozens of fellow Orthodox Jews began yelling and calling him a “moyser” — Yiddish for “snitch” — in a confrontation captured on video. Then a few maskless men spit onto his face.
“These were members of my own community with hatred in their eyes, flipping the finger toward me, calling me a Nazi, saying I deserve to die,” Kornbluh, a politics reporter for Jewish Insider, told The Washington Post. “All these months I keep a distance, wear a mask not to get sick, advocate for measures that save lives, they disrespect my space and do something horrifying.”
The attack underscores the escalating tensions playing out this week in many of Brooklyn’s Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods. As a surge in coronavirus cases has prompted government authorities to issue new lockdown orders, including restrictions on houses of worship, some in this mostly insular community have turned their skepticism of public health measures into open defiance.
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