(JTA) – Weeks after one prominent Satmar wedding was publicly called off amid a backlash over convening guests during the pandemic, members of the Hasidic Orthodox sect held another wedding in Brooklyn that brought together thousands of people. The Nov. 8 wedding was arranged to avoid detection by authorities, according to the New York Post, which first reported about the wedding on Saturday, Nov. 21. Photographs published in the Post show Congregation Yetev Lev B’Satmar in Williamsburg packed with guests, in violation of pandemic rules limiting houses of worship to 50% capacity at most, and less in areas with many COVID-19 cases. “Due to the ongoing situation with government restrictions, preparations were made secretly and discreetly, so as not to draw attention from strangers,” the Satmar newspaper Der Blatt reported. Cuomo’s order shutting down the previous Satmar wedding came amid escalating tensions between Cuomo and Hasidic Orthodox Jews in Brooklyn at a time when COVID-19 cases were on the rise in several heavily Orthodox neighborhoods. Since then, cases have risen across the city, and Orthodox neighborhoods no longer have the highest proportion of tests coming back positive.

The Nov. 8 wedding took place at the main synagogue in Williamsburg attended by followers of Aaron Teitelbaum. The synagogue’s president, Mayer Rispler, died of COVID-19 in mid-October, after having openly urged his community to follow city and state health rules earlier in the pandemic. “We do not condone any behavior that puts people at risk and pledge to keep working alongside the brave men and women of the NYPD in addressing and eliminating any such occurrences,” Rispler wrote in May, as tensions between the city and his community escalated after Mayor Bill de Blasio criticized a large Hasidic funeral.

Main Photo: People walk through Williamsburg, one of several Orthodox neighborhoods in Brooklyn with rising COVID-19 rates, on Oct. 1, 2020. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)