Stewart Ain, an award-winning veteran journalist, covers the Jewish community. Follow him on Twitter @AinStewart or email [email protected].
Stewart Ain
By Stewart Ain
-
News As the pandemic subsides, congregations memorialize a year of loss and resilience
Even as synagogues begin planning for services and programs that will approximate synagogue life before the pandemic, many recognize a need to memorialize the unprecedented disruption and loss suffered by congregations from COVID-19. “I wanted something that would remind us of what we had gone through. This will be a story that we will need…
-
News Marine chaplain’s website post blamed ‘Men of Israel’ for killing Christ
A U.S. Marine chaplain’s summary of a New Testament passage that appeared on military websites blamed the “Men of Israel” for killing Christ. The remarks, written for Easter, were part of a post by the chaplain published on both Camp Lejeune and Department of Defense websites. The post stayed up for weeks before complaints to…
-
News Rocket man: Jared Isaacman is leading the first trip to space without astronauts
Jared Isaacman set the world speed record in 2009 by flying a jet around the world in 61 hours, 51 minutes and 15 seconds, more than 20 hours faster than the previous record. In September, he plans to circle the globe again – but in 92 minutes. How? His next flight he will be aboard…
-
News A synagogue in your home? Zoom camera lighting? Pandemic offered rabbis some unusual tax deductions
A suggestion to rabbis: don’t do your own tax return this year. The pandemic forced most people to move their office to their home and rabbis were no exception. Rabbis found themselves setting up a room in their house from which to work, buying office supplies and camera lighting to Zoom with congregants and participate…
-
News In this Florida synagogue, 5 people committed suicide in 4 months. Here’s how the rabbi is coping.
Rabbi David Steinhardt of Boca Raton, Fla., confessed that he had never dealt with anything remotely comparable: in the last four months, five congregants or their close relatives have died by suicide. All were single men aged 20 to 60. In contrast, during his nearly 38 years in the rabbinate, Steinhardt – spiritual leader of…
-
News A new study has found that heartbeats actually harmonize during this religious ritual
Two anthropologists have discovered that the heartbeats of those who practice Sufism, a mystical dimension of the Islamic faith, beat in tandem during a communal ritual in which all of the congregants join in deep meditation or an ecstatic trance. Rabbis and cantors told the Forward they were not surprised. “Anyone who has been at…
-
News Orthodox Jews show less stress-related weight gain, study shows
Research has shown that when a person turns to religion during a time of stress, it improves his psychological well-being. Now, a new study has found that religion can also provide protection against weight gain. “Generally, being in touch with your values during a crisis like COVID helps you cope with stress in a way…
-
News Why not a Holocaust Survivors Day?
When more than 200 survivors gathered last year at the former Nazi extermination camp of Auschwitz to commemorate the 75th anniversary of its liberation, it struck Jonathan Ornstein that there were three days each year to remember Nazi victims but no day to celebrate the lives of Holocaust survivors. “Seeing all those survivors in Auschwitz…
Explore
Most Popular
- 1
News A pioneering Reform synagogue makes way for a booming Iranian Jewish community
- 2
News Hampshire College closure reverberates for alumni who treasured a Yiddishist hub
- 3
Opinion Who’s responsible for deadly antisemitism? Everyone will hate the answer
- 4
Opinion Epstein and Iran are an antisemitism mega-crisis. Here’s what Jewish organizations should do about it.
In Case You Missed It
-
Opinion Marking Israel’s most joyous day with anguish over the country’s future
-
Culture Lena Dunham’s new memoir is the most millennial thing ever
-
Yiddish שיִער נישט פֿאַרבאָטן׃ גאַסנשילדן אױף אַן „אומגעוווּנטשענער“ שפּראַךNearly forbidden: Street signs in an ‘unwanted’ language
אַן איניציאַטיװ צו אָנערקענען בערלינס אַמאָליקע „ייִדישע גאַס“ װעקט אױף דעם טרױם פֿון ייִדיש װי אַן אָפֿיציעלע מינאָריטעט־שפּראַך
-
Fast Forward The ‘godfather of denim’ was an Italian designer whose Jewish father was murdered at Auschwitz
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
