(Queens Chronicle) Only a little more than a month after Mayor de Blasio took heat from the Ozone Park community over his lack of outreach to the neighborhood’s Bangladeshi population about the COVID-19 shutdown, he is back in hot water with the area’s Muslim community.
This time it’s over halal meals.
State Assemblyman Mike Miller (D-Woodhaven) and Ozone Park Residents Block Association President Sam Esposito announced at the Our Neighbors Civic Association virtual meeting on Tuesday that New York City schools are not delivering on the mayor’s promise to provide halal food for Muslim residents.
While the city has been providing hummus and peanut butter and jelly under the guise of halal meals, de Blasio’s critics point out that halal refers to Islamic protocols for slaughtering animals. So while the meals provided may be permissible to observant Muslims, they are mischaracterized as halal, according to members of the Muslim community.
