Sam Kestenbaum is a contributing editor and former staff writer for the Forward. Before this, he worked for The New York Times and newsrooms in Sana, Ramallah and Beijing. Contact him at kestenbaum@forward.com and follow him on Twitter at @skestenbaum and on Instagram at @skestenbaum.
When Michael Hassen, a Manhattan lawyer and father of two, was looking for a new apartment and neighborhood to move to, there was one very important requirement: He needed to be within walking distance from a synagogue. Hassen, like many other Jews, takes his Shabbat observance seriously. He doesn’t cook food or turn on his…
White nationalist groups have been fracturing in the days after last weekend’s “White Lives Matter” rally in Tennessee — disagreeing over preferred tactics and image. According to a new post by Marilyn Mayo of the the Anti-Defamation League, white nationalists are divided into two camps when it comes to this particular dispute: those who promote…
El Al relaunched nonstop service between Tel Aviv and Miami on Wednesday, the Miami Herald reported, marking the airline’s return since it canceled service in September 2008. The airline had canceled service because of fuel costs and rates, El Al’s managing director said. Starting this week, the airline is offering three weekly roundtrip flights on…
Christopher Cantwell, a white nationalist who famously wept over being wanted by the police in the wake of this summer’s violent Unite the Right rally, is now hosting a web radio show — from behind bars. He is boasting that he is a “political prisoner” and reading up on anti-Semitic books while jailed. Cantwell’s transformation…
As part of their preparation for the scheduled visit of white nationalist Richard Spencer next month, the University of Cincinnati released a 2-minute-long clip cautioned students to think carefully about their response to the “alt-right” figurehead. “The choice of how we respond to Richard Spencer’s visit is ours to make,” speakers in the video recite…
Exactly five centuries ago, Martin Luther sparked what would become the Protestant Reformation by nailing a list of criticisms on a church door in Germany. Luther decried what he saw as abusive and corrupt practices in the Roman Catholic church — but reserved a very special kind of hatred for Jews, whom he branded an…
A new Messianic school in Dayton, Ohio, is prompting some backlash among the Jewish community. According to a recent Dayton Jewish Observer report a so-called Messianic Jewish group named Ahavat Torah Yeshiva is ramping up online activity — but not clearly indicating to potential members that the group does not follow traditional Judaism and believes…
An early official report is blaming the city of Charlottesville, Virginia, for the violence that occurred in the city on August 12 during a white supremacist rally — saying the city had been warned about possible violence, including a potential car attack. The report was presented to the Governor’s Civil Unrest Task Force in Richmond…
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