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 [email protected] and follow him on Twitter at @skestenbaum and on Instagram at @skestenbaum.
Sam Kestenbaum
By Sam Kestenbaum
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Fast Forward Is Trump An Anti-Semite? Ask David Duke, He Should Know.
Former Ku Klux Klan head David Duke wants to end the debate. Is President Trump Anti Semitic? Yes, avowed white supremacist Duke says. But is that such a bad thing? In a February 20 podcast, Duke started by offering his very own definition of anti-Semitism. “What is anti-Semitism? What is the proper definition of an…
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Fast Forward In Elaborate Joke, Internet Provocateurs Turn ‘Trash Bird’ Into Nazi Icon
In the meme war over Pepe the Frog, the white nationalists won. Despite a a campaign to “save Pepe” from the “alt-right” who wielded images of the green frog to serve their ideology, Pepe remains solidly an online icon of white supremacy, posted on the Anti-Defamation League’s list of hate symbols. Now, the meme war…
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Fast Forward Ikea Aims To Reach Israel’s Ultra-Orthodox With A Female-Free Catalog
Swedish furniture retailer Ikea has come under fire in Israel after publishing a catalog without women. Hoping to appeal to the country’s ultra-Orthodox Jews, the catalog released this month shows men and boys in domestic settings — clad in yarmulke and with side curls. They sit at a Sabbath table, in a study and a…
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Fast Forward What is #48Jewish? Yes, Twitter. JCC’s Are Being Targeted.
The hashtag #Jewish48 was spreading across the Jewish twittersphere Thursday, a reference to a spate of recent telephone bomb threats delivered to 48 Jewish community centers. The wave of social media activism comes on the heels of President Trump’s meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — during which Trump dodged a question about rising…
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Fast Forward MAP: Track The United States’s 917 Neo-Nazi And Other ‘Hate Groups’
There are more than 900 hate groups operating across the country, according to a newly-released report from the Southern Poverty Law Center, a slight uptick from last year. In 2015, the SPLC tracked 892 groups. In 2017 that number had risen to 917. The SPLC center dubbed 2016, a “year of hate,” during with far-right…
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News Hate Groups Grew In 2016 On The Trump-Energized Racist Right
The number of radical groups in the United States rose for the second year in a row, fueled by the rise of President Trump, according to an annual report from the Southern Poverty Law Center. Notably, white nationalism is on the rise. “2016 was an unprecedented year for hate,” said Mark Potok, senior fellow at…
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News The Neo-Nazi Daily Stormer — Now The Country’s ‘Top Hate Site’
In the battle of the neo-Nazi websites, the Daily Stormer has overtaken Stormfront. Andrew Anglin’s Daily Stormer website is now the “top hate site in America,” according to a detailed post by the Southern Poverty Law Center, published last week. Propelled by Donald Trump’s rise and energized by the so-called “alt-right,” 2016 was an important…
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Fast Forward Kellyanne Conway Retweets White Nationalist — Says ‘Everyone Makes Mistakes’
White House adviser Kellyanne Conway’s Twitter account retweeted a white nationalist on Tuesday, though she sought to distance herself from the move and denounced “whoever it is” who sent the tweet. The Twitter user goes by Lib Hypocrisy and their profile features the hashtags #whiteidentity and #nationalist. Their online handle also includes a frog emoji,…
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Fast Forward ‘Antisemitic hit-and-run squads’: Amsterdam temporarily bans demonstrations after Israeli soccer fans attacked by street mobs
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