Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Measles Outbreak Spreads In Brooklyn Orthodox Community

Six cases of measles have been confirmed in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn, with all of the patients being Orthodox Jewish children between 11 months and four years old, the New York City Department of Health confirmed on Wednesday.

“The initial case of measles was acquired by a child on a visit to Israel, where a large outbreak of the disease is occurring,” the Health Department said in a statement, according to radio station 1010 WINS.

The health department is meeting Thursday with rabbis and local elected officials to spread awareness of the disease, NBC 4 reported.

A similar outbreak has also grown in Jewish communities in Rockland County, home to many ultra-Orthodox enclaves, with the state health department confirming 11 measles cases on Tuesday. The disease spread there from three different groups that also traveled to Israel, the state health department said. It added that two of the cases were developed due to exposure in Rockland County.

Measles, a highly infectious disease, was declared eliminated in 2000, but has made a comeback as vaccination rates have dropped, particularly in religious communities. A study published in the academic journal JAMA Pediatrics in August found that the 2013 New York measles outbreak, the largest in decades in the city with more than 3,000 infected, occurred entirely within Orthodox Jewish communities in Williamsburg and Borough Park.

Contact Aiden Pink at [email protected] or on Twitter, @aidenpink

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.