A Brooklyn synagogue that was stopped by the state before it could host a massive wedding in October finally succeeded on Monday in pulling off another potential super-spreader event — a jam-packed funeral.
The Congregation Yetev Lev D’Satmar went coronavirus rogue for the funeral of 94-year-old former chief Satmar judge Rabbi Yisroel Chaim Menashe Friedman — with up to an estimated 5,000 people cramming the house of worship at 152 Rodney St. in Williamsburg.
Bodies were pressed in on all sides and spilled out onto the sidewalk as just a fraction of the Hasidic crowd was seen wearing masks.
Five NYPD officers were seen standing nearby outside the house of worship — where a crowd of men and boys failed to socially distance, many also maskless or with their masks down around their necks.
“Normally, we would avoid having such a crowd unless it was for something very, very important. This was one of those times,’’ said an attendee whose first name is Lipa.
“This man was a giant,’’ he said of Friedman. “He was there from the beginning, when the community was rebuilding after the war. A very, very holy man. For someone like him, you couldn’t keep people from coming even if you wanted to.”
Another man at the service claimed that the community is immune to COVID-19 at this point — because virtually all of its members have already contracted it.
“Ask anybody here if they had COVID. They’ll say yes — and they won’t be lying,’’ the man said. “People from the outside, they don’t understand that. We’ve all had it.”