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"Suppose six children want to come to the Seder with all their grandchildren," said Eli Banash, 32, a member of the Orthodox community working in Williamsburg.
"Grandmother wants everyone to come in. One family did not vaccinate the children – five did." The five families say: "We will not come unless we have a baby." they do not come! " With Passover, it will intensify. "
Passover, which begins at sundown Friday and ends April 27, marks the history of the Exodus of the Old Testament and is celebrated with large gatherings and ceremonial meals. However, community leaders and health officials are worried that the holidays will encourage the spread of this highly contagious disease.
"The problem is that with Passover and the increase in the number of trips, we will put more people at risk," said Dr. Oxiris Barbot, the city's health commissioner. from New York.
"Because of the long incubation period of measles, we know that the epidemic will worsen before it improves," Barbot said in a statement released this week.
A brochure for Orthodox communities has helped fuel the fear of vaccines
In Hasidic Williamsburg, bearded men walk in haste with long frock coats and black hats. Women's skirts up to the ankles push strollers on cluttered sidewalks and spiraled Hasidic boys cross the streets in boots.
In an island community where some do not tolerate intrusion, residents attribute the epidemic primarily to an extremist minority opposed to vaccination or anti-vaxers. The very unified neighborhood – where locals explain insularity as a means of preserving the identity of the community – has created increased tension in some families, especially as the preparations for Passover began.
Blima Marcus, a nurse and past president of the Orthodox Jewish Nurses Association, has held small workshops with nurses in Brooklyn and New Jersey to educate members of the ultra-Orthodox community who fear vaccines.
"People thought it was a marginal magazine and had not paid much attention to it, but I think what we are achieving now is that it has had a impact far more important than anyone else has ever realized, "said Marcus.
"Every night people argue"
Burach Kahan, 25, said he vaccinated his youngest child, 9 months old, this week. His two other children are vaccinated. He stated that he had created a separate family text group where most of his 13 siblings could only talk about vaccines and the measles outbreak.
"One of my sisters is very scared," he said. "Most of her friends are anti-vaccine and she sends all their messages, she mentioned (vaccines) about the usual group and everyone was busy fighting day and night."
"People will argue over the holidays," said 22-year-old Shaya Hershko, who had her 14-month-old daughter vaccinated against measles before the Passover family trip to Canada. "Every night, people argue, people with whom you argue about everything – you talk about partners."
Hershko, who lives in Williamsburg, often wrestles with his sister-in-law in Orange County, NY. He says that she adheres to alternative medicine and refuses to vaccinate her children.
"I have a lot of friends who did not want to inject, but I thought that a doctor knew more than my friends," he said. Hershko's wife, Friny, 20 years old. "People who do not give the injection are actually a little downcast because schools and everyone do it like a big deal."
Health officials in New York announced last week that in areas affected by the epidemic, anyone who has not been vaccinated against measles or can not demonstrate immunity would be fined $ 1,000.
Nurses fight misinformation
On Monday, the health department said that a child care program in Williamsburg had been closed "for repeatedly failing to provide access to medical records and attendance records." Schools and day care programs are required to keep records on site, and unvaccinated students and staff are not allowed to attend.
The daycare program has reopened, but health officials announced Thursday that four more schools and kindergartens in the city would close soon for non-compliance with the orders of the department.
Marcus and a group of other nurses have studied and refuted each misinformation contained in the PEACH booklet and plan to publish soon a refutation to be distributed in the Orthodox communities.
The nurses also met with mothers in Williamsburg and in other Orthodox communities, said Marcus.
"I feel really bad for those women whose internal instincts of maternity and protection of their children have been exploited by this movement and now feel this warmth and brutal reaction and are somehow attacked for their medical choices," she said. she declared.
"I'm talking to these women and telling them that you're trying to use Jewish law to advocate for the non-use of vaccination, instead you're deliberately trying to hurt them." almost a bit like breaking your child's bone in the hope that it will come back, it will be stronger, "she said.
"We listen to them and take them seriously on an issue where they usually laugh," Marcus said.
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