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.
You’ve heard of Jewish Buddhists — “Jewbus” — and secular Jews. You likely know Jews who favor yoga over synagogue — there are even Jews for Jesus. But Jewish Muslims? With a grim deadlock between the Israelis and Palestinians, which often takes on a religious dimension — and a rise in both Islamophobia and anti-Semitism…
“First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out — Because I was not a Socialist,” opens the famous poem by Pastor Martin Niemöller, describing the the Nazis’ rise to power and the targeting of minority groups, one after the other. “Then they came for me — and there was no one…
A Jewish group that has been stumping for Donald Trump is doubling down on its support for the Republican candidate — despite the fallout that Trump is seeing from within his own party. Jews Choose Trump, which was launched in July to address what it sees as a hostile environment towards Republican candidate Donald Trump,…
If you disagree with your rabbi’s politics — on Israel, refugees and immigration, for example — you don’t have to suffer through an uncomfortable Yom Kippur sermon. You can live-stream it instead, and pray in the comfort of your own ideological and actual home. This year, the far left-wing group Jewish Voice for Peace is…
The king arrived mysteriously in the Land of Israel. He wielded a staff and said he commanded a kingdom in Africa, and that he was capable of summoning millions of followers to his side. He travelled with an entourage. Angelic figures had visited him, he said, and he spoke directly to God. His followers projected…
On Friday, October 7, Shabbat was approaching — and off the coast of Florida and Georgia, so was Hurricane Matthew, the category 3 storm called a “monster” by Florida’s governor, Rick Scott. Which is why instead of putting out the prayer books and ironing their best clothes in preparation for Jewish day of rest, congregations…
A Jewish man’s bag that included a valuable set of tefillin, a pair of ritual boxes attached to leather straps used during prayer, was stolen in Brooklyn on Friday, September 30. The 25-year-old victim told police that his bag was taken from the mezzanine of the DeKalb Avenue subway station at 7:36 p.m., the website…
This week the Anti-Defamation League officially listed Pepe the frog to its list of “hate symbols” — just weeks after Donald Trump’s son posted a photoshopped image of his father standing beside the now-officially Jew-hating amphibian. Trump’s links to anti-Semitic groups will surprise no one who has been following the rise of the Republican presidential…
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