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 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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News On the 6th anniversary of his death, Dan Markel’s friends plead for an investigation into his ex-wife’s family
Six years ago, on July 18, a gunman approached Dan Markel and shot him twice in the head. A Florida State University law professor and attorney, Markel had just pulled into his own garage. He died the following day at the age of 41. Three people were charged in his murder; two found guilty. The…
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News Will Rosh Hashanah 5781 come with a paywall?
The High Holidays are designated for spiritual stock-taking, but this year synagogues are wrestling with a decidedly non-spiritual issue: money. The Days of Awe also happen to be the season in which many synagogues garner enough income — in the form of ticket sales, membership renewals and Yom Kippur appeals — to sustain themselves for…
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News This is what democracy looks like
When 17 students and teachers were gunned down in a school in Parkland, Fla., two years ago, it felt as if it had happened in our backyard. Our kids were only 6 and 7 at the time, but we quickly gave up on hiding what had happened: Parkland is like Greater Boca; there were kids…
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News The pandemic is forcing synagogues to reinvent themselves
The Forward is taking an ongoing look at the future of synagogues in America in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. If you have information or insights, please contact [email protected] The start of May means different things to different people, but for most synagogues, it means it’s time to start planning for the high holidays. And…
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Life Thinking about food insecurity in a time of everything insecurity
My husband was itching to have an outing. He suggested a nearby farm that offers pick-your-own. After a knee-jerk no, we found three ways to justify it to ourselves (and anyone who might ask). One, get the kids out of the house, into nature, and away from their screens. Two, help our local farmers by…
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News Israeli EMS leader intubated in Miami hospital with coronavirus: health minister sidelined us
Eli Beer had been traveling around the globe trying to raise money to help Israeli patients who fall gravely ill with coronavirus. Then he became one of them. Beer, 46, is the founder and president of United Hatzalah, a non-profit, volunteer Emergency Medical Service organization. A week ago, he was hospitalized in Miami with what…
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News In Jewish Florida, the healthy and the young make it to polls on primary day
It’s primary day in Florida — a day that’s normally full of energy given the Sunshine State’s plum position as one of the most delegate-rich in the union. Instead, the coronavirus was like a mushroom cloud hanging over polling stations, leading many voters and some poll workers to stay home. At my own polling station,…
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Fast Forward Why neo-Nazis marched in Ohio this weekend, and almost every weekend in the US
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Opinion The group behind Project 2025 has a plan to protect Jews. It will do the opposite.
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Opinion Just about every interpretation of Trump’s narrow election victory is wrong
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News Texas schools want to add Queen Esther to the curriculum. Here’s why Jews (and many Christians) are opposed.
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Fast Forward Rep. Ritchie Torres, outspoken pro-Israel advocate, is dropping hints that he could run for NY governor
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Fast Forward Ursula Haverbeck, infamous German Holocaust denier known as ‘Nazi grandma,’ dies at 96
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Fast Forward A Jewish museum in Tulsa held a funeral for remains of Holocaust victims it kept for years
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Sports Texas A&M’s Sam Salz cherishes his first taste of DI college football — and the opportunity to inspire fellow Orthodox Jews
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