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
By Louis Keene
-
News ‘Arnie could help you’: In Surfside collapse, a P.E. teacher who touched the heart of everyone he met
When Janet Howell learned that her old coach, Arnold “Arnie” Notkin, was among the missing in the Surfside condominium collapse, memories of a difficult childhood in Miami Beach came flooding back. In those days, Miami Beach was more strongly associated with trouble than with glamour, and her parents, Honduran immigrants, were among many in the…
-
News The secret Jewish history of…Devin Booker?
The whole video lasts less than 30 seconds, but it elicited fierce discussion among fans and players alike. Was Devin Booker right to complain about being double-teamed in a pickup game — where 1-on-1 matchups rule the day — or was a double-team not only fair, but a sign of respect? It was the Great…
-
News Broken bodies and grieving souls: A rabbi cares for the dead in Surfside
Rabbi Leibel Miller, director of the Chevra Kadisha society of Florida, has been working around the clock since the Champlain Towers South collapsed on June 24, and his body is beginning to show it. During an interview with the Forward Thursday evening, he yawned and coughed and admitted his health was faltering from a lack…
-
Fast Forward Surfside rescue operation transitions to recovery with 86 still unaccounted for
Officials called off the rescue operation at the site of the Champlain Towers South collapse Wednesday, 14 days into a grueling but futile search for survivors of the disaster that drew volunteers from all over the country and the world to Surfside, Florida. Until the transition from search-and-rescue operations to search-and-recovery, many people in a…
-
News ‘There is no Kohen:’ A minyan in the shadow of disaster mourns its losses
About 30 people packed into the living room and dining room of the white stucco house Saturday as a Torah scroll was laid on the bimah and the gabbai prepared to summon a kohein for the first aliyah. But there were no kohanim among them, because this congregation’s was in the rubble. “Ein kaan kohein,”…
-
News At Surfside memorial, a couple that nearly moved to Champlain remembers their doctor who did
Less than 12 hours before dynamite felled the remainder of the tower Sunday, covering the scene and everything around it with a film of misery and detritus, Moshe and Bluma Schneider took their first trip to the Surfside Wall of Hope and Memorial, a display of photos of the dead and missing on the fence…
-
Culture In Surfside, a Jewish tragedy receives a Jewish response
The volunteers trudged to the mansion’s front door, their heads covered, most of them wearing the same navy T-shirts they had been wearing all week, their uniform. It was about four hours shy of eight full days since the men of Hatzalah of South Florida responded to a call about a building in Surfside that…
-
News The Surfside disaster devastated the Young Judaea community, which lost several members in the collapsed tower
The mourners came from San Juan to the Surfside condominium where George Matz had lived to attend their friend’s funeral after his monthslong battle with COVID-19. Theirs was a bond that spanned generations, ZIP codes, and — perhaps most importantly — edahs, or age groups — in Young Judaea, the U.S.-based Zionist youth movement that…
Explore
Most Popular
- 1
Opinion I spoke out against Mamdani. Then he won. Here’s how we walk forward together.
- 2
News Indiana University removed its Jewish studies director. His replacement has ignited a firestorm over Israel.
- 3
Fast Forward Groundbreaking analysis of Hitler’s DNA shows no Jewish ancestry — but finds a genetic disorder
- 4
Culture Is the movie ‘Nuremberg’ about the wrong psychiatrist?
In Case You Missed It
-
Fast Forward He was Zohran Mamdani’s Jewish wingman. What’s next for Brad Lander?
-
Fast Forward Is dining-hall matzah ‘DEI’? The answer isn’t clear to UVA’s pushed-out ex-president.
-
Fast Forward Following uproar, IDF cantor to perform at Amsterdam Hanukkah concert after all — but not for everyone
-
Opinion Israel deported me for helping West Bank Palestinians. I won’t give up on a peaceful future for the country I love
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
