Ilene Prusher is a journalist, author and lecturer. For nearly 20 years, she was foreign correspondent based in Jerusalem, Istanbul, Tokyo and Kabul. She joined the multimedia journalism faculty of Florida Atlantic University in 2015. Her most recent work has appeared in the Forward, TIME, FiveThirtyEight and the New York Times Book Review.
Ilene Prusher
By Ilene Prusher
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News The University of Florida calls itself a haven for Jews. For some students, it doesn’t always feel that way.
'I didn’t really experience antisemitism until I got here,' said one Jewish student
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News At the center of the Surfside tragedy, a rabbi helps people hold onto hope — and mourns his former neighbors
When Fred Klein, the rabbi in charge of providing counseling services to the grieving survivors of the Champlain Towers South disaster, looks out onto the rubble of the collapsed building, he can’t help thinking of the people who used to be his neighbors. Klein grew up in Miami not far from Surfside, and when he…
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Opinion Entering Passover under the plague of vaccine guilt
As I unpack my Passover dishes and prepare to host a Seder that includes my aging parents — an enormous luxury compared to last year’s Zoom-only reality at the start of the pandemic — I find myself facing waves of an unfamiliar feeling. Vaccine guilt: That’s the guilt you get when you’re vaccinated and other…
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News Hot for Trump, Latino Jewish Miami helped contribute to Biden’s loss in Florida
Mayer Fayes moved to the US from Caracas about 15 years ago, and became a citizen in 2012. He blames the ongoing misery and mismanagement in his native Venezuela on left-leaning dictator Nicolás Maduro and the late Hugo Chávez — and that’s one of the big reasons Fayes gladly gave his vote to Presidential Donald…
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News At The Villages retirement community, pro-Trump and pro-Biden Jews break friendships
When Rochelle Bosley Larson cruises the lanes of The Villages, the nation’s largest retirement community, in her golf cart festooned with a large “Biden 2020” flag, she elicits some happy honks, but even more often, a slew of curses and names she wouldn’t want her grandchildren to hear. As newcomers, she and her husband had…
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News ‘Crazy Eddie,’ white supremacy — How campaigns are trying to reach Florida’s Jews now
In one advertisement, comic book speech bubbles pop on screen as a slick salesman delivers a sarcastic pitch for Joe Biden and the Democrats over upbeat music. “This election only! A special offer,” he says. “Elect Joe Biden — get all his far-left friends too.” The spot, sponsored by the Republican Jewish Coalition and running…
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News Anti-Muslim, pro-Proud Boys Laura Loomer faces an unflappable Lois Frankel
The firestorm over President Donald Trump’s refusal to disavow a white supremacist group is burning especially hot in Florida, where two competing Congressional candidates took opposite sides of the issue — and both women are Jewish. “I think Jewish organizations should be more concerned with Antifa and Black Lives Matter than the Proud Boys,” said…
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News These Florida Jews are sticking with Trump, even if it costs them family and friends
Rep. Randy Fine, a Republican member of the Florida statehouse, is an avid supporter of President Donald J. Trump. He’s also recovering from a serious bout of COVID-19, which landed him in the hospital with pneumonia in 30% of his lungs and critically low oxygen levels. He sees no contradiction between his frightening fight with…
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Opinion Anti-Zionism forced us to withdraw from Reconstructionist Rabbinical College
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Opinion The Gaza War is neither a genocide nor a mission — it’s Revisionist Zionism in action
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Opinion Young Jews are fleeing Jewish institutions: Here’s how to keep them
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