I never thought I would see blatant antisemitism in New Hyde Park. And who is the culprit this time? The Village of New Hyde Park itself.
The annual street fair is being held on Saturday, Sept. 16, which also happens to be the Jewish holy day of Rosh Hashanah. They are insulting every single person of Jewish heritage by doing this.
I reached out to the village, and the response I received back was just as insulting.
Per Patricia Santomauro, secretary to the board “We were advised that the holiest of the holiday is during sundown hours.”
I am not sure who she consulted with, but services for the Holy Day begin the night before and continue all day Saturday and Sunday. Did she bother to reach out to any of the local temples in the area to get their opinion?
Patricia then said, “there are no alternate dates available as the vendors would be attending other street fairs the weekends after the 16th.”
So that makes it okay to be antisemitic?
Holding the Street Fair on one of the Holiest days of the Jewish year is an insult and a slap in the face.
Donald Panetta
New Hyde Park
Donald Panetta,
While I agree that the event shouldn’t take place on a holy day I also find it very tacky and distasteful to call out a village office employee. Patricia Santomauro does not set the street fair date. If you would like to tarnish someone’s name it should be the village board. They make the decisions, the office staff merely executes their plans. Mayor Christopher Devane, Deputy Mayor Madhvi Nijjar, Trustees Rainer Burger, Arthur Savarese and Eve Shiekh.
While I agree that the event shouldn’t take place on a holy day I also find it very tacky and distasteful to call out a village office employee. Patricia Santomauro does not set the street fair date. If you would like to tarnish someone’s name it should be the village board. They make the decisions, the office staff merely executes their plans. Mayor Christopher Devane, Deputy Mayor Madhvi Nijjar, Trustees Rainer Burger, Arthur Savarese and Eve Shiekh.
Just a disgrace. First he locks down our parks and now this. Can’t wait till his term is up! Good riddance.
While it may well be tone deaf of the village to hold the fair on Rosh Hashanah, it’s a bit of a stretch to call it antisemitism. The truth is, it’s an unfortunate scheduling error made by elected officials in a predominantly Christian town.
Let’s look at the facts… what is the religious makeup of New Hyde Park? I did a little research and found that while the population of New Hyde Park is 50% Catholic, and almost 33% “nones” (no religion), it is only 6% Jewish.
Statistics below are from: https://dwellics.com/new-york/community-in-new-hyde-park
Protestant 7.7%
Catholic 50.6%
Orthodox 1.3%
Other / Christian 0.0%
Mormon 0.1%
Jewish 6.0%
Muslim 1.2%
Buddhist 0.1%
Hindu 0.2%
Other / Non-Christian 0.1%
No Religion 32.9%
So let’s take a deep breath and stop accusing the village officials and employees of antisemitism. There are enough real problems in the world and enough division in our community. Just relax and don’t go to the fair if you’re busy celebrating Rosh Hashanah.
And let this be a lesson for the Jewish community of New Hyde Park. A little outreach to the village government by Jewish community leaders NOW, informing them of all the upcoming holy days in the coming year, would surely be welcome and would avoid future conflicts.
And for this year? Maybe we should all pray for rain on September 16.
Nina K. Gordon
Great Neck, NY