ESCALATION

Ultra-Orthodox COVID Protesters Descend on Journalist’s Home After Leader’s Arrest

Angered by the arrest of Heshy Tischler, who led ugly protests against COVID restrictions in Brooklyn, a crowd gathered Sunday night.

Supporters of the political gadfly and Trump fan Heshy Tischler surrounded the Brooklyn home of a journalist Sunday night after Tischler was arrested for allegedly encouraging protesters to pursue the reporter while he covered an anti-lockdown event last week. Late on Sunday, a crowd of Tischler supporters gathered outside Jacob Kornbluh’s house in Brooklyn, chanting “shame on you,” and taunting him through a megaphone, as police looked on. The respected Jewish Insider reporter has become the subject of ire following his reporting of social-distancing violations in neighborhoods where many ultra-Orthodox Jews live. Kornbluh was covering an anti-lockdown protest last week when he said Tischler, one of the most visible critics of lockdown and mask measures in Brooklyn, spotted him and urged supporters to pursue him. Kornbluh said he was subsequently hit and kicked by the crowd. Anti-lockdown protests led by some ultra-Orthodox residents have flared up in several Brooklyn neighborhoods after the New York state government placed new restrictions on several zip codes in the borough with spiking coronavirus test positivity rates.

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