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.
This week Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is on a four-day tour of East Africa, becoming the first prime minister to visit sub-Saharan Africa in almost 30 years. He visited Uganda, Kenya and Rwanda. He will also visit Ethiopia. “Israel is coming back to Africa,” Netanyahu announced. “Africa is coming back to Israel.” The goals…
Michael L. Weinstein has spent the last decade highlighting the hidden phenomenon of proselytizing in the military. As head of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, a watchdog group, Weinstein has earned many critics — and last week was sent a violent threat. The typed letter was sent by an individual claiming to be an ex-Army…
Nissim Baruch Black’s religious path has been winding. He was raised a non-practicing Sunni Muslim, converted to Christianity at age 14, embraced Messianic Christianity as an adult — and ultimately converted to Orthodox Judaism between 2010 and 2012. Seattle-born, he immigrated to Israel last year. Black is also an accomplished rapper — and this week…
The doors are open to everyone at Shabbat services held on the ground floor of this Nostrand Avenue building in Brooklyn. But, unlike most Orthodox spaces, here it’s the women who lead prayers. Men? They can sit in the back. “Men are welcome,” said Nechama Levy, 32, who organized the new prayer group. “But this…
Anna Kaplan is a Jewish Iranian refugee who has been living in America for almost four decades. She’s a councilwoman in Long Island, New York and on June 28 will run against five other candidates in the Democratic primary to determine who will face Jack Martins, the Republican candidates, this fall, when voters decide who…
Growing up, Ahamed Weinberg had a one-of-a-kind answering machine message. It would leave some callers perplexed. “As-salamu alaykum, you’ve reached the Weinbergs!” Weinberg, now 26, is channeling his hybrid identity into comedy. The son of a Jewish father and a Catholic mother, both of whom converted to Islam in Philadelphia, he’s spent years explaining his…
This weekend black Israelites will gather across New York City to celebrate their spiritual patriarch — a rabbi from Harlem who helped establish America’s black Hebrew-Israelite movement a century ago. “We thank the Most High for our beloved Chief Rabbi Matthew,” community member Deborah Reuben wrote online. “Chief Rabbi Matthew will always be remembered [as]…
Barring an eleventh hour deal, New York’s legislature prepared to end its session without passing a bill that will make it easier for child sex abuse survivors to seek justice as adults — legislation that advocates have been pushing for a decade. By June 17, the bill’s backers were still pushing for a vote in…
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