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New York City Erases Bike Lanes to Appease Hasidic Men Who Object to Seeing Women in Bike Shorts

By JEREMY OLSHAN and JAMIE SCHRAM
New York Post
December 8, 2009

Groups of bicycle-riding vigilantes have been repainting 14 blocks of Williamsburg roadways ever since the city sandblasted their bike lanes away last week at the request of the Hasidic community.

The Hasids, who have long had a huge enclave in the now-artist-haven neighborhood, had complained that the Bedford Avenue bike paths posed both a safety and religious hazard.

Scantily clad hipster cyclists attracted to the Brooklyn neighborhood made it difficult, the Hasids said, to obey religious laws forbidding them from staring at members of the opposite sex in various states of undress. These riders also were disobeying the traffic laws, they complained.

PALE RIDER: Bikers repainted bike lanes (above) in Williamsburg after they were wiped out amid Hasidic complaints.

Brian Branch Price

Two cycling advocates were apprehended by the Shomrim Patrol, a Hasidic neighborhood watch group, as they repainted a section of bike lane at 3:30 a.m. yesterday, but when cops arrived, no one was arrested and no summonses were issued, police said.

“These people should apply for a job at the DOT,” neighborhood activist Isaac Abraham said of the repainting. “You put it on, they take it off — and they will probably do this again.”

A Department of Transportation spokesman said: “We will continue to work with any community on ways we can make changes to our streets without compromising safety.”

A source close to Mayor Bloomberg said removing the lanes was an effort to appease the Hasidic community just before last month’s election.

Abraham contends the bike lanes put children at risk of getting hit by cars or bicycles as they exited school buses.

But Baruch Herzfeld, who has tried to bridge the gap between hipsters and Hasids with a bike-rental program, said safety is not the issue so much as xenophobia.

“They don’t want the hipsters in their neighborhood,” he said. “It’s like in Howard Beach back in the day when they didn’t want black people in the neighborhood.”

The cycling advocacy group Transportation Alternatives has not taken sides in the dispute.

But bike lane or not, “cyclists have a right to be on Bedford Avenue,” said Wiley Norvell, a group spokesman.

Additional reporting by Maggie

December 11, 2009 - Posted by | Civil Liberties

26 Comments »

  1. After the fakes are finished with the ethnical cleansing of the indigenous Palestinian Arabs they may want to try the same over here if we are stupid enough to let them.

    Like

    Comment by B. Benhamid | December 11, 2009 | Reply

    • B. Benhamid is apparently stupid enough to confuse history and geography and doesn’t understand the meaning of the word genocide. It is Hamas and fundamentalist islamists who openly want to kill off the Jews, Arabs and Jews are ‘indigenous ‘ to that area in the middle East, which is Israel. The Arabs who chose not to flee to Jordan and Syria rather than live under Jewish “Rule”, and it is those countries who denied them citizenship, making them refugees and establishing the camps, were made citizens of Israel, with voting privelage, and the same socialized health care system access and education (including Molsem parochial schools if desired). This is NOT genocide. Palestinians living in israel have higher life spans than any of the neighboring countries, that is not indicative of enocide and their infant mortality rate in Israel is about the same as the Jewish population. Case Closed. That is NOT genocide. And what does this have to do with Brooklyn anyway? Hopefully you are aware of your own bigotry and don’t try to pass your self off as a social progressive, because you are a racist.

      Like

      Comment by jante | December 13, 2009 | Reply

      • jante,

        Seeing how you immediately insult, it is not difficult identifying where your allgiance lies. Zionism is a lethal illness, which it seems, you are in the advanced stages of.

        What if we shuffled the subjects of you premise? How about if we stated that the failure of the “Jews” NOT to flee to other countries but rather live under “nazi” rule…. You’d immediately label me “anti-Semetic” in my arguments.

        IT IS G-E-N-O-C-I-D-E when it is the goal of the occupier to ‘wipe them from the face of the earth’. Which is unquestionably the desire and goal of proponents of zionism.

        Zionism is the totality of racism, naked and exposed for the world to see. Aren’t you proud?

        Like

        Comment by James B | December 14, 2009 | Reply

  2. Sinfulness is in the hearts of men that think that by exterminating their neighbors they can find righteousness with their eyes.

    It would be much easier to avert their eyes but in their hearts they are already commiting adultery by lusting after that which does NOT belong to them, lying to get it, stealing it, while murdering to keep it.

    Like

    Comment by James B | December 11, 2009 | Reply

  3. < "The cycling advocacy group Transportation Alternatives has not taken sides in the dispute."

    No doubt wary of being defamed as 'anti-Semites' and possible 'Holocaust deniers'

    Why don't these devout believers honor their god and raise their eyes to it and off the undulating thighs of transiting shiksas on bikes?

    Like

    Comment by ardejn | December 11, 2009 | Reply

  4. hahahhaa hahhahaha I always love it when two groups who fight for the rights that they take from me. Go get them girls and have all day parties in their neighbourhoods and you jew boys get your rocks off and through them at the girl in cut-off on bikes or in this case dikes-on-bikes. HAHAHHAHAHA fight fight fight fight fight!!

    Like

    Comment by jesus | December 11, 2009 | Reply

  5. NYkrs should have the disturbing Has. Eruv lines removed from overhead in Manhattan. I personally do not religious “borders.”

    Like

    Comment by Joe | December 11, 2009 | Reply

  6. Hipsters?Hipsters?

    What planet are these “avert your eyes:” people from?

    Like

    Comment by mot | December 11, 2009 | Reply

  7. The imaginary god’s self-chosen people have taken over America. Ask Obushama, the ‘first Jewish president’.

    Tough luck, people. You let it happen despite all the warnings from your illustrious leaders of the past, including Ben Franklion who said:

    “”I fully agree with General Washington, that we must protect this young nation from an insidious influence and impenetration. That menace, gentlemen, is the Jews. In whatever country Jews have settled in any great number, they have lowered its moral tone; depreciated its commercial integrity; have segregated themselves and have not been assimilated; have sneered at and tried to undermine the Christian religion upon which that nation was founded by objecting to its restrictions; have built up a state within a state; and when opposed have tried to strangle that country to death financially, as in the case of Spain and Portugal.

    For over 1700 hundred years, the Jews have been bewailing their sad fate in that they have been exiled from their homeland, as they call Palestine. But, gentlemen, did the world give it to them in fee simple, they would at once find some reason for not returning. Why? Because they are vampires, and vampires do not live on vampires. They cannot live only amongst themselves. They must subsist on Christians and other people not of their race.

    If you do not exclude them from these United States in the Constitution, in less than 200 years they will have swarmed here in such great numbers that they will dominate and devour the land, and change our form of government, for which we Americans have shed our blood, given our lives, our substance, and jeopardized our liberty.

    If you do not exclude them, in less than 200 years our descendants will be working in the fields to furnish them substance, while they will be in the counting houses rubbing their hands. I warn you, gentlemen, if you do not exclude the Jews for all time, your children will curse you in your graves. Jews, gentlemen, are Asiatics, let them be born where they will or how many generations they are away from Asia, they will never be otherwise. Their ideas do not conform to an American’s, and will not even though they live among us ten generations. A leopard cannot change its spots. Jews are Asiatics, are a menace to this country if permitted entrance, and should be excluded by this Constitutional Convention.”

    PS

    You could accuse me of anti-religious freakery.

    Like

    Comment by Truthteller | December 11, 2009 | Reply

    • You’re not a truth teller, but you speak your mind, which bespeaks all the brainwashing you have received. It apparently makes you fell superior. I am sorry your paranoia misguides you to erroneous conclusions. You are welcome to embrace your opinion, but it is not born of truth, so be aware you are deceiving yourself, hopefully others will have the sense to see through you.

      Like

      Comment by jante | December 13, 2009 | Reply

      • jante – what the hell are you talking about? I was quoting Benjamin Franklin. I guess he was brainwashed too.
        Are you one of those hasbara propagandists?

        Like

        Comment by Truthteller | January 3, 2010 | Reply

  8. Sorry for the typo. Should obviously read ‘Ben
    Franklin’.

    Like

    Comment by Truthteller | December 11, 2009 | Reply

  9. These religious freaks should also write another letter to the Izraeli government and rabbi- chaplains to condemn for not observing sacred day of Sabbath and invading Gaza during the ritual prayers.

    Like

    Comment by rita | December 11, 2009 | Reply

  10. Why don’t these edomites and khazars go to their promised homeland of ziostan, where they can be happy not looking at women’s asses.

    Like

    Comment by Hymie Kychowictz | December 12, 2009 | Reply

  11. Didn’t we bomb weddings and funerals in Afghanistan to FREE them from RELIGIOUS FANATICS who FORCED women to wear concealing clothing? The only HONEST thing would be to BOMB these Hassids until they are FREE.

    Like

    Comment by Marvin | December 12, 2009 | Reply

  12. Screw them

    Like

    Comment by SAM | December 12, 2009 | Reply

  13. Stop it….rabbi!!

    Like

    Comment by jerry | December 12, 2009 | Reply

  14. This whole thing is so funny, really. At what point do some people decide not to come into the 21st century? And do they have the right to utilize those tools of the 21st century if they do not adhere to its policies, laws and the rights of others?

    Like

    Comment by maggie | December 12, 2009 | Reply

  15. I’m offended and I think my safety is being compromised by them wearing their religion out on the street like that. I can’t avert my eyes because they are so ass backwards. It’s a hazard to my 21st century mindset.

    Like

    Comment by LibbyBuck | December 12, 2009 | Reply

  16. […] New York City Erases Bike Lanes to Appease Hasidic Men Who Object to Seeing Women in Bike Shorts « …. December 12th, 2009 | Category: Uncategorized | Leave a comment | […]

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    Pingback by The Progressive Mind » New York City Erases Bike Lanes to Appease Hasidic Men Who Object to Seeing Women in Bike Shorts « Aletho News | December 12, 2009 | Reply

  17. […] New York City Erases Bike Lanes to Appease Hasidic Men Who Object to Seeing Women in Bike Shorts By JEREMY OLSHAN and JAMIE SCHRAM New York Post December 8, 2009 […]

    Like

    Pingback by Top Posts — WordPress.com | December 12, 2009 | Reply

  18. Disobeying the traffic laws??? LOL.
    There is not one jew in that whole neighborhood who does not jaywalk. Try driving in that neighborhood at designated speed limit (30) and not worry about hitting a jew that might come onto the road from any random direction. It’s impossible. I near miss atleast 10 jews everytime I drive by that area. lol.

    Them complaining about disobeying traffic laws gave me a good laugh and desire to add my two cents to this article. So there they are.

    Like

    Comment by Daniel | December 12, 2009 | Reply

  19. I am curious. If this were an observant Islamic neighborhood expressing offense (for the same reasons) would the commentary be as scorching, or is there one set of standard for one group of people and a separate one for Jews?

    Like

    Comment by jante | December 13, 2009 | Reply

    • It would be worse since we all know anti-Islamic propaganda is being promoted heavily by Zionist jews like you. So I take it your distraction is to cover up your own “judaification” of the West?
      Stupid Zionist asshole, people here will not be manipulated by the like of scum like you.

      Like

      Comment by Unimpressed | December 13, 2009 | Reply

  20. “The Franklin Prophecy”, sometimes called “The Franklin Forgery”, is an antisemitic speech falsely attributed to Benjamin Franklin, warning of the supposed dangers of admitting Jews to the nascent United States. The speech was purportedly transcribed by Charles Cotesworth Pinckney during the Constitutional Convention of 1787, but was unknown before its appearance in 1934 in the pages of William Dudley Pelley’s pro-Nazi weekly magazine Liberation. (Pinckney wrote that he had kept a journal of the Convention, but it has never been found, and Pelley’s claims that it was printed privately, and that the Franklin Institute has a manuscript copy, are unsubstantiated.)
    Despite having been repeatedly discredited since its first appearance, the “prophecy” has proved a remarkably durable canard, returning most recently as a popular internet hoax promulgated on Usenet groups and antisemitic websites, where it is presented as authentic. On February 18, 1998, a member of the Fatah Central Committee revived this myth and mistakenly referred to Franklin as a former President of the United States.[1] Osama Bin Laden has even used this canard briefly in his October 2002 “Letter to the American People.”[2] While its author is not known, many who have investigated the “prophecy” suspect Pelley of having penned it himself.
    (from wikipedia-good place to start a search for truth; be a truthlearner, or a Rumorspreader

    Like

    Comment by jante | January 3, 2010 | Reply

  21. So stupid, these fools should not get their way. The lanes encourage biking which will ease congestion and pollution rates over time. I hate people that think backwards. If these men are so about their religion they should be able to control their own eyes. This is New York Fvckin City. No wonder they got their a$$ beat in Crown Heights.

    Like

    Comment by newyorker | March 19, 2010 | Reply


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