
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.
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.
A resolution to support the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement in the second-largest teachers’ union in the country met a quiet demise Thursday evening, defying a trend among public school boards that accelerated after the Gaza-Israel war last May. In a meeting of the United Teachers Los Angeles, the union that represents roughly 30,000…
This year, say yes to Kiddush Levana.
The summer before 10th grade, some friends of mine pulled off what I have long thought had to be the most outrageous prank of all time: spoiling the biggest twist in the Harry Potter series for an entire sleepaway camp. It happened at Camp Ramah in Ojai, Calif., on July 18, 2005, two days after…
A Yeshiva University student accused a member of its men’s basketball team of raping her and the school of treating her callously in an anonymous piece published Wednesday in the student newspaper, the YU Commentator. “The school didn’t want to do anything against the basketball team publicly, because they don’t want any negativity about that…
The family of a rabbi who made his San Diego-area synagogue the center of a sprawling network of tax fraud has regained control of the synagogue’s finances, state filings show, replacing a board that had sought to bring accountability to the institution. For decades, Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein had exploited a lack of oversight at Chabad…
A rabbi sexually assaulted children while he was supposed to be treating them for mental health issues, and the prominent Jewish institutions he worked for covered it up, claims a lawsuit filed in New York August 13. Rabbi Yaakov David Klar allegedly carried out his abuse while he was a social worker at Chai Lifeline,…
A time to learn, a time to feel, a time to snooze: the rabbi’s sermon. For centuries it has given Saturday morning prayer services their character and depth — and their length. But last summer, when Orthodox synagogues across the United States held abridged outdoor services to limit the spread of COVID-19, the sermon —…
Not long after Brandon Loschiavo started taking gymnastics at the age of four, he made a bold declaration to his mother. “He told me, ‘Mom, I’m going to go to the Olympics,’” recalled Laura Loschiavo. “He’s pretty committed, so once he says something he usually does it.” Nearly two decades later, Loschiavo is in Tokyo…
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