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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News Jew-Hating Politician’s Campaign Shows Spread Of ‘Alt-Right’ Culture
Political hopeful Paul Nehlen began his move into the “alt-right” this past fall. First, he was just toying with the internet subculture’s memes and catchphrases and praising white nationalist groups. But by Christmas he had gone full anti-Semite — retweeting white supremacist slogans and reading an author known as the “Neo-Nazi movement’s favorite academic.” It…
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Fast Forward Irish Catholic-Turned-Orthodox Jew Turns Religious Path Into Comedy Routine
Yisrael Campbell is a Catholic-turned Orthodox Jewish comedian who has made his complicated spiritual path the subject of over a decade of stand-up jokes. Campbell was born in Pennsylvania to a family of Irish and Italian Catholics and later in life went through a series of Jewish conversations — first to Reform, then Conservative and…
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Fast Forward Spiritual Advisor Paula White Hails Trump’s Victory In ‘War On Christmas’
Paula White, a celebrity televangelist and spiritual advisor to President Trump, praised the administration for putting “Christ back in Christmas” and “prayer back into the White House” this year. “Trump just hasn’t put Christ back in Christmas, but he’s also put prayer back into the White House,” White said in a Monday interview on Fox…
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Fast Forward Congressional Candidate Paul Nehlen Reads Neo-Nazis’ ‘Favorite Academic’
Paul Nehlen, the Republican politician seeking to unseat Speaker of the House Paul Ryan from Congress in 2018, has been increasingly flirting with the online “alt-right” by posting memes and appearing on white nationalist podcasts. On Tuesday night, he proudly shared one of the books currently on his shelf: a title by an author known…
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Fast Forward He Said Berlin Didn’t Need A Shoah Memorial. So They Built One In His Backyard.
Activists have built a model of Berlin’s Holocaust memorial outside the home of far-right German politician Björn Höcke after he said the country shouldn’t have a World War II museum in its capital. At a rally in Dresden in January, Höcke called on Germans to make a “180 degree” turn in the way they viewed…
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Fast Forward Jewish Defense League Member Indicted For Assault Outside AIPAC Convention
A Canadian member of the Jewish Defense League was indicted by a grand jury in last week in Washington, D.C., for charges that include the assault on a Palestinian-American at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s annual conference in March. Yosef Steynovitz faces three assault-related charges, the Canadian Jewish News reported, including attacking a man…
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Fast Forward Mormons Are Still Posthumously Baptizing Holocaust Victims
Mormons are continuing to posthumously baptize Holocaust victims — despite church rules that are meant to restrict the ceremonies only to a member’s ancestors. This discovery was made by a former Mormon and researcher Helen Radkey and shared with the Associated Press. The church, in a statement to the AP, acknowledged the ceremonies violated its…
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Fast Forward Ex-Reporter Sentenced To Five Years In Prison for JCC Bomb Threats
Juan Thompson, the former journalist who bombarded Jewish community centers with fake bomb threats in a revenge plot against an ex-girlfriend, was sentenced on Wednesday to five years in prison. In a New York federal court, the judge called Thompson’s crimes “domestic terrorism,” the New York Post reported. “This is domestic terror in the literal…
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