Jacqueline Dressler was hard at work counting Michigan voter ballots in a convention center in downtown Detroit when she heard commotion break out on the far side of the room. “Stop the count! Stop the count!” she heard people chanting. She looked up and saw a group of people assembling together and pumping their fists…
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, the former chief rabbi of the United Kingdom whose extensive writings and frequent media appearances commanded a global following among Jews and non-Jews alike, has died. Sacks died Saturday morning at age 72, his Twitter account announced. He was in the midst of a third bout of cancer, which he had announced…
Editor’s note: This article was originally published on August 20, 2020. Joe Biden won’t be the first president with Jewish in-laws: both Donald Trump and Bill Clinton beat him to it. But he will be the first president whose Jewish offspring-in-law have Hebrew ink on their biceps. In fact, all three of Biden’s children —…
Rabbi Michael Beals has an exceptionally soothing voice, which has come in handy this week. The man known as “Biden’s rabbi” has spent most of the week trying to keep the members of his synagogue, Cong. Beth Shalom, in Wilmington, Del., from tearing the hair out of their heads. Beals met Biden at a basement…
“Overjoyed,” said Steve Sheffey, who publishes a pro-Israel newsletter out of Chicago. “Exhausted,” offered Rabbi Avram Mlotek, co-founder of BASE Hillel, a pluralistic outreach organization. Leor Rosen, a senior at the University of Michigan who used to be president of the campus Hillel, picked “jittery.” Josh Hammer, opinion editor of Newsweek, chose “concern.” “Dayenu,” was…
On Saturday morning, major media outlets across the country declared Joe Biden the president elect. President Donald Trump has not conceded, and might not — weeks of lawsuits, tweet storms, calls for calm and general uncertainty loom between now and Inauguration Day. In the meantime, we invite you to immerse yourself in the Forward’s idea…
With Georgia’s current ballot count and the ongoing ballot count in Pennsylvania and other states making it increasingly likely that President Donald Trump will not win a second term, one consequence for him, personally, is that he would lose the broad legal immunity he has had while in the White House. Whenever he leaves office,…
Mayer Fayes moved to the US from Caracas about 15 years ago, and became a citizen in 2012. He blames the ongoing misery and mismanagement in his native Venezuela on left-leaning dictator Nicolás Maduro and the late Hugo Chávez — and that’s one of the big reasons Fayes gladly gave his vote to Presidential Donald…
A clutch of polls on and around Election 2020 indicate that Jewish support for Democratic candidates is still stable. “They’re not really different numbers,” said Professor Leonard Saxe, director of the Steinhardt Social Research Institute at Brandeis University. “They are in line with the more-or-less 70-30 split between Democrats and Republicans that has been in…
Joe Biden’s victory is cause for long-delayed celebration among the majority of American Jews. According to a J Street voter survey, Biden received 77% of the Jewish vote. The final number may change up or down, but, hey, getting north of 70% of Jews to agree on anything is in and of itself a cause…
Rabbi Joshua Heller was trying to settle into a Tuesday evening Zoom class on the Cairo Geniza, the ancient archive of Jewish life, but his congregants had more contemporary concerns on their mind. “People were like, ‘But we have to watch the results,’” said Heller, senior rabbi of Cong. B’nai Torah, outside of Atlanta. “I…
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