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 feldman@forward.com. Follow him on Twitter @aefeldman.
Ari Feldman
By Ari Feldman
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News Ahead of Simchat Torah street parties, mayor says NYPD not sure how to enforce new health rules
The New York City Police Department does not know how it will enforce new state restrictions on religious gatherings just days before Simchat Torah, a holiday typically celebrated in Orthodox communities with massive dance parties that spill onto the street. “The lawyers all have to get on the same page, and the NYPD has to…
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News In Borough Park, an anti-shutdown protest turns into a pro-Trump rally — and a journalist is assaulted
The religious Jews of Brooklyn’s Borough Park neighborhood often pour into the streets during the harvest holiday of Sukkot to dance with Torahs in a celebration called “Simchat Beit HaShoeva,” a ritual having to do with rainfall. On Wednesday night, they danced along Borough Parks’s 13th Avenue holding Trump flags. Heshy Tischler, a community agitator…
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News Orthodox stage mask-burning protest in Brooklyn, furious at new COVID-19 rules
Hundreds of Hasidic Jews in Brooklyn thronged the streets of Borough Park last night to protest New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s new COVID-19 restrictions, which directly target Orthodox neighborhoods with high infection rates and would dramatically disrupt Orthodox life during the last week of the High Holidays. At the gathering, a video shared on social…
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News With Cuomo on warpath, Orthodox Jews worry that COVID-19 shutdown will backfire
New York City’s Orthodox community is expressing outrage at school and business closures ordered Monday by Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio in response to spiking rates of positive coronavirus tests. Orthodox leaders say they are being unfairly targeted by de Blasio’s and Cuomo’s bold approaches — and confrontational rhetoric — in the…
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News Cuomo, pointing finger at Orthodox community, will shut down schools in virus hotspots
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo issued a striking challenge to leaders in the Orthodox Jewish community on Monday, demanding that they comply with state rules capping attendance at religious gatherings and enforce mask wearing in order to avoid a total shutdown of religious institutions. The challenge came after the governor announced that, effective Tuesday, he…
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Fast Forward Beloved Orthodox philanthropist attended maskless Trump event right before positive COVID-19 test
Donald Trump went maskless at a fundraiser at his New Jersey golf club in Bedminster Wednesday evening, a day before he tested positive for coronavirus, according to a Jewish Republican donor who attended the event. Dr. Richard Roberts, a retired pharmaceutical executive, told the Asbury Park Press that Trump was separated from the attendees of…
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News Think Trump failed to condemn white supremacy? Here’s how Republican Jews see it.
President Donald Trump’s critics — led by the Anti-Defamation League — say he failed to condemn white supremacy during the Sept. 29 debate, and then gave a shout out to a white supremacist group, the Proud Boys. Many of his Jewish supporters just don’t see it that way. “White supremacists?” said Ruth Reinish, 88, of…
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Fast Forward Orthodox areas drive NYC’s COVID-19 rate to highest level since June, mayor says
New York City’s one-day positive COVID-19 test rate jumped to 3.25%, its highest rate since June, with much of the new cases attributable to zip codes with large Orthodox Jewish communities, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said Tuesday. The high test rate portends a shutdown of the city’s nascent public school reopening plan…
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