Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Jake Tapper is tweeting about Torah with … Lenny Dykstra?

In what may be one of Jake Tapper’s Jewiest tweets ever, CNN host Jake Tapper and former Mets and Phillies player Lenny Dykstra got into a discussion of the weekly Torah portion on the social media network.

Dykstra’s reference to Jacob was less about the biblical patriarch and more about Phillies starter Jake Arietta. Dykstra probed Tapper, another Jacob, for his opinion on the player as well as on another Phillies starter Nick Pavetta. Tapper responded that he likes them both.

Tapper, a Philadelphia native, is a graduate of a Jewish day school who and tweets and speaks often about things Jewish. Dykstra is not Jewish; he came to Torah study following a federal prison sentence for bankruptcy fraud. According to the Jerusalem Post he learned Torah with a Chabad Rabbi on Manhattan’s Upper East Side.

This week’s Torah portion, Vayeitzei, tells many of the stories connected to the patriarch Jacob, such as Jacob’s ladder, his marriage to Rachel and Leah and servitude under his father in-law, Laban.

Correction, Nov. 24, 7:45 p.m.: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated the crimes for which Lenny Dykstra served time in federal prison.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.