Mayer Rispler, 70, a leader of the Satmar Haside movement who in his members must comply with fitness rules, who died at age 70 after being infected.
The leader of a Jassidic satmar sect that asked Orthodox Jews to adhere to New York’s fitness regulations on the first wave of the pandemic this spring has died of COVID-19.
Mayer Rispler, 70, died Friday, according to Vos Iz Neias, an Orthodox news website, which planted a fan in late September because infection rates were higher in the city’s Orthodox neighborhoods.
While Rispler was hospitalized, city and state officials imposed restrictions on “red zones” with infections, which led some Orthodox Jews in Brooklyn who burned masks in the street to protest their sense of being marginalized by the rules.
Rispler had supported the city’s handling of the pandemic in April, after a funeral by a dead COVID-19 rabbi led New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio to bet the net for the last time on a widely criticized tweet. Rispler defended the mayor and called for compliance with government fitness regulations.
“We do not tolerate any habit that puts others in danger and are committed to painting alongside the brave men and women of the NYPD to deal with these events,” Rispler wrote at the time.
Rispler, accountant and principal donor of satmar establishments in Williamsburg, where his funeral was held today.