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measles outbreak in Rockland County has brought national attention to the area and led at least one Jewish community to charge that the focus on the Jewish community is unwarranted.

Aron Weider, a Rockland County legislator and chairman of the legislature’s public safety committee, admits there is a small minority of Jews living in the county, located about 35 miles north of New York City, who don’t vaccinate. But nothing near the rates that the county executive, Ed Day, charged last week.

Last Tuesday, Day cited New York State Immunization Information System statistics showing that just 72.9 percent of Rockland residents age 1 to 18 have been fully vaccinated against the measles. Day added that the “lion’s share” of 16,000 vaccinations administered since the outbreak started 26 weeks ago have been in New Square, New York, the home of the Skverer chassidus. Day issued an emergency order, banning any minor who has not been vaccinated from public places.

Since October, there have been 153 reported cases in the county, about half of all the reported cases nationally. This is the longest measles outbreak since 2000, when public health officials announced the disease had been eradicated from the United States.

But Weider disputed the statistics Day cited — though he couldn’t produce statistics of his own. In addition, Weider said that the insinuation by Day — who was once sued by his former human rights commissioner for ordering him to develop policies to “limit” the growth of the county’s frum population — that Jews are largely responsible for the outbreak is leading to a resurgence of anti-Semitism.

“He should have made clear that the outbreak is only in the Orthodox community, because it was brought in from abroad, but there are anti-vaccination movements in every community,” said Weider, who has long opposed Day’s plans for the frum community in Rockland, which includes the Torah centers of Monsey, Spring Valley, and New Square.

Mishpacha reached Weider, who is charged with overseeing the county’s response to the measles outbreak, when he was in Lublin, minutes before Shabbos. He had gone to Lizhensk for the yahrtzeit of the Rebbe Rav Elimelech and also led a group to the Majdanek concentration camp.

How common is this sort of emergency order?

“The basic understanding of the ban is that this is unprecedented and it’s very difficult to understand what this is all about. Emergency executive orders in the past have usually been done for snowstorms, when the county executive or the governor would call a state of emergency and people are not allowed on the road. Ed Day has now taken this to the level of the measles outbreak.

“The issue of ordering people who are not vaccinated to stay home is something that could be commendable if done the right way.

“This was done wrongly. I was leaving Rockland County literally two hours before he made the announcement, and while I was driving to the airport, I was already getting phone calls from people asking what this was all about. The problem with that is — I’m chair of the public safety committee. So I would expect to be notified on something like this. But forget about me. What about the other 16 legislators [on the Rockland legislature]?

“What about the other partners in government — towns, villages, communal leaders? He hasn’t worked collaboratively with anyone on any of this. If you’re going to announce something like this, perhaps give a week’s warning, tell people, ‘You have a week to vaccinate, otherwise you can’t go out.’ Or sit down with all the partners in government and have a conversation how to approach this, what to do.

“Not by having a press conference at two o’clock in the afternoon saying that by the stroke of midnight you’re not going to be able to be out. Not by having the media of the entire United States there and be confused, and not being able to answer what would be the fine, who is going to enforce it, how is it going to be enforceable. It turns out that it’s not going to be enforced. It’s just an awareness campaign.

“If they happen to find out that an unvaccinated child was outside, the parents will be referred to the district attorney and face a six-month prison term. The way it was executed was wrong. It was very noticeable that not a single frum person was standing behind him at his press conference. Considering that the subject of his order is the Orthodox community, he should have made an effort to have one frum person with him, if just for political reasons. It’s not only about a frum person, I would expect that with something like this that has never been done before should have one or two people from the state health department.

“Not even the state health department was there. This was very suspect.”

Leaving aside the way Day rolled it out, do you think this outbreak rises to the level that would require such an emergency?

“I don’t know. I don’t know the data. The way this is perceived in the general population is that the Orthodox community does not vaccinate and they carry diseases. That is absolutely not true. Most of the schools have a 95% vaccination rate. So why does he cite a 72% vaccination rate? It’s very misleading. And I think he does it deliberately. He does this often, putting out these accusations, but not saying it’s the Orthodox Jews’ fault. He wants you to come to that conclusion on your own. Regarding the 72%, I believe that includes children who are younger than a year old who don’t get vaccinated. That would include newborns. So it’s extremely misleading.

“He should have gone out of his way to say, ‘The data that we have shows that the Orthodox community does vaccinate. The reason that we have this outbreak is because it came from abroad into that community. If it had been other people coming from other countries, it would have happened in their community. There are anti-vaxxers in every community.’ To say that 72% vaccinate and not elaborate that that number also includes children too young to vaccinate is very misleading.”

How many in the county remain unvaccinated?

“That is something we don’t know. The reason why you get so much resistance from these anti-vaccination people is because how harsh he came out. I’m not saying that the 28% who do not vaccinate are children. What I’m saying is that that number includes everyone, all exemptions.

“Has this caused more anti-Semitism? Absolutely. The picture being portrayed, and he’s contributing to this by not explaining again and over again that this is not a case of the Orthodox community vaccinating their children less than the general population. I’ve gotten so many e-mails — not from the Orthodox community and not even from the Jewish community and not even from Rockland County — about how dare the county institute this ban. If you look at the comments on Facebook about how we spread disease and that we should all be put into camps and we only bring destruction to communities — this absolutely causes anti-Semitism. And because this is such a sensitive matter, someone halfway responsible would have made that point.”

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 755)