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.
An independent investigation has vindicated a pro-Palestinian group charged with fostering an anti-Semitic climate at the nation’s largest urban public university. Two lawyers hired by the City University of New York to investigate alleged instances of anti-Semitism found that expressions of political opposition to the State of Israel are not inherently anti-Semitic, and that such…
A well-known neo-Nazi activist in Oregon is taking his message on the road — literally. Jimmy Marr, who the Anti-Defamation League calls an anti-Semitic white supremacist activist, recently posted online pictures of his latest efforts — a truck emblazoned with signs reading “Jew Lies Matter,” accompanied by a swastika. The slogan is an anti-Semitic twist…
At a trendy community space in Brooklyn, a controversial 9/11 conspiracy theorist spoke Wednesday to a group of around two dozen listeners about the “Zionist war agenda” that he says was behind the attack 15 years ago that killed 3,000. The crowd filed past a sleek bar serving drinks, some carrying Palestinian flags and flyers…
Brooklyn Commons is a neighborhood gathering space. It says its purpose is “movement building,” but the organization dedicated to fostering connection found itself attacked by its own allies days before the 15th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. Groups affiliated with the Commons, including Jewish organizations, wanted the space to cancel a scheduled talk by Christopher…
A progressive gathering space in Brooklyn is sticking by its decision, despite widespread condemnation, to host a talk by a conspiracy theorist who has blamed Israel and Jews for the 9-11 attacks on their 15th anniversary. Melissa Ennen, founder of Brooklyn Commons, a self-described “movement building space” serving the “progressive community” in Boreum Hill, wrote…
On Saturday, presidential candidate Donald Trump was draped in a Jewish prayer shawl by a pastor during a visit to a black church in Detroit. Bishop Wayne Jackson of the Great Faith Ministries placed the tallit on Trump’s shoulders. “I want to just put this on you,” Jackson said. Jewish observers were baffled. Others offended,…
Milan Chatterjee, the former president of the UCLA Graduate Students Association who’s been ensnared in an explosive controversy over the boycott movement of Israel, said he hadn’t thought too much about Mideast politics until last year. In fact, he’d hoped to steer clear of it as a student leader. “This is the first time I’ve…
Roseanne Barr, the Jewish actress with an outsized Twitter personality who called Hillary Clinton an anti-Semite and her aide Huma Abedin a “filthy nazi whore,” lectured on Tuesday night in a prominent San Francisco synagogue about Judaism, Israel and the critics who have been calling her a racist. “They call me a racist and a…
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