There are times when New York seems like a giant set for the next Woody Allen movie. A New York Times reporter recently saw something a tad odd in the protest against the gay pride parade. The Orthodox Jewish protesters appeared to be Mexican laborers wearing ritual fringes, or tzitzit and carrying protest signs. It turns out that the Orthodox group hired Mexican laborers to be surrogate protesters so that young Orthodox boys and men would not see gay people in the parade and corrupt them. I guess the tip off for the reporter was the men saying Hoy Gavalt.
There were some older Orthodox men. We know that because one got into an actual physical fight with a gay man in the parade.
However, Heshie Freed, a member of the Jewish Political Action Committee, explained that the laborers were hired to fill in for “yeshiva boys” who would normally protest but were kept away because of “what they would see at the parade.” So the solution was to hire Mexican laborers to dress up as Orthodox men and protest to uphold “their” ancient Jewish values. You cannot make this stuff up. Just like Orthodox men being allowed to hold up flights to get women to move to other seats or Orthodox men gathering in a stadium to protest the Internet (while allowing segregated women to watch on the Internet) or barring women from speaking at a gynecological conference.
Oy Gevalt.