
Ari Feldman is a staff writer at the Forward. He covers Jewish religious organizations, synagogue life, anti-Semitism and the Orthodox world. If you have any tips, you can email him at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @aefeldman.
Ari Feldman is a staff writer at the Forward. He covers Jewish religious organizations, synagogue life, anti-Semitism and the Orthodox world. If you have any tips, you can email him at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @aefeldman.
Last week the world lost Elie Wiesel, a powerful voice of the Holocaust experience and a man honored by many as one of the world’s moral authorities. At the same time, towards the end of his life Wiesel drew criticism for his refusal to condemn Israel’s policies in the West Bank and Gaza. The meaning…
This article is part of a series of profiles of formerly Orthodox Jews. A report released last month found that though many formerly Orthodox — or “Off the Derech” — Jews struggle to find new communities and feel acceptance from their families, nearly all retain their Jewish identity. You can read more about this community…
‘Binyamin” is a formerly ultra-Orthodox Jew from Lakewood, New Jersey. He was raised in a household with over a dozen siblings, and stopped receiving secular education after sixth grade. Binyamin’s parents, he said, were emotionally abusive to him and his siblings. There wasn’t a time when things were better, he remembers. It was always that…
It was supposed to be just another leg in a long medical journey for Hannah Cohen, a disabled teenager who has been undergoing treatment for brain cancer since she was two years old. Hannah and her mother, Shirley, were flying home last June after a procedure at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, a world-renowned treatment…
This presidential election has seen the rise of a new group in American conservatism: the blandly-termed — and fiercely pro-Trump — “alt-right.” The blogs, forums, and Twitter accounts that make up the media landscape of the alt-right actively promote fascism, albeit one updated for the 21st century. Though the movement ties together white supremacy, neo-Nazism…
This article is part of a series of profiles of formerly Orthodox Jews. A report released last month found that though many formerly Orthodox — or “Off the Derech” — Jews struggle to find new communities and feel acceptance from their families, nearly all retain their Jewish identity. You can read more about this community…
A Jewish organization that provides much needed care and financial assistance to aging survivors of the Holocaust will receive the royalties from the American sales of “Mein Kampf.” Jewish Family & Children’s Service, which is based in Waltham, Massachusetts, and serves the Boston metro area, will receive the reportedly tens of thousands of dollars generated…
Many formerly ultra-Orthodox and Modern Orthodox Jews who no longer hold the beliefs of their communities feel “pushed off the derech,” yet still retain their sense of Jewish identity, a groundbreaking new study of the group has revealed. A third of those surveyed have yet to physically leave their communities, and may maintain outward displays…
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