Louis Keene is a reporter for the Forward. His work has also been published in The New York Times, New York Magazine and VICE. He is based in Los Angeles and can be followed on Twitter @thislouis.
Louis Keene
By Louis Keene
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News A kosher calamity ends: Trader Joe’s reintroduces pareve chocolate chips
Kosher pareve semi-sweet chocolate chips have been returning to Trader Joe’s stores across the country in recent weeks, a delectable sight for halachic shoppers since they disappeared from the shelves in 2012. It was a great kosher calamity at the time, reminiscent of the bank runs before the Great Depression. Frantic shoppers cleaned out the…
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Culture A requiem for the backyard minyan
On the other side of the old wood fence in the rear of my parents’ Los Angeles backyard I could hear a young man reading from the Torah, and people reciting kaddish, and everything else that distinguished an authentic prayer service from the solitary ritual I’d grown accustomed to since the stores ran out of…
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News Snapchat at the Supreme Court: Why the case of the cheerleader matters to Jewish students
Despite her Jewish-sounding last name, Pennsylvania teenager Brandi Levy, whose expletive-filled remarks on Snapchat are the center of a case soon to be decided by the Supreme Court, is not Jewish. Her father thinks the Levys are Pennsylvania Dutch. “I was going to do one of those DNA things you see online, on TV, but…
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Fast Forward UPDATE: Google diversity chief reassigned for saying Jews have “insatiable appetite for war”
Updated 6/3 1:00 ET Google said Wednesday night it had reassigned the company’s diversity lead, whose 2007 blog post suggested Jewish people have an “insatiable appetite for war.” “These writings are unquestionably hurtful,” the company’s press office said in a statement. “The author acknowledges this and has apologized. He will no longer be part of…
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Fast Forward Vandal attacks L.A. synagogue, kosher restaurant
A vandal carrying a box of concrete slabs targeted an Orthodox synagogue and a kosher steakhouse in Los Angeles Thursday night, adding to a spate of attacks on American Jewish communities in the wake of the Israel/Gaza conflict. Young Israel of Century City and Pat’s Restaurant a few hundred feet from each other at the…
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News Tracking this week’s antisemitic rage
Even as Israel and Hamas agreed to a cease fire Thursday afternoon, a spate of violent antisemitic incidents across the United States, that began when the conflict broke out, has set American Jews on edge. This post tracked incidents reported in news accounts and on social media. It was updated to reflect the latest information…
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Fast Forward After honoring Kahane, high school tests Montclair parents’ patience with Palestinian poet
A week after its inexplicable highlighting of Meir Kahane, a convicted terrorist, for Jewish American Heritage Month, Montclair High School has once again angered some parents — this time, by honoring a Palestinian poet for Asian American and Pacific Islander month. The Jewish-American pick included in Wednesday’s daily announcement e-blast was the late Supreme Court…
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News For Israel-bound travelers, violence throws long-awaited plans into doubt
To get her flight to Israel approved by Los Angeles’ consul general, Maure Gardner had to provide her passport, her husband’s Israeli passport, and their marriage certificate, which required a special stamp from the county clerk’s office. A minor inconvenience to endure for a wedding she had waited over two years to attend. But with…
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Film & TV Bonhoeffer biopic tells of a pastor turned would-be Hitler assassin — but is the story true?
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Culture At 95, Shaindel Schreiber is still dispensing babka and advice on the Lower East Side
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Fast Forward Trump attorney general pick Pam Bondi: 5 things Jews should know
In Case You Missed It
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News Israel reached a ceasefire in Lebanon. Why does Gaza seem so hard?
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Culture Barbra Streisand recorded here — and so did Bob Dylan, Stevie Wonder, John Lennon and, uh, The Village People
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Fast Forward Lee Zeldin, Trump’s pick to helm EPA, says he received bomb threat with ‘pro-Palestinian themed message’
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Opinion We can be thankful this year — and Jewish wisdom can help
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