OCT. 13, 2020 • 21 DAYS UNTIL THE ELECTION Welcome to FAHRENHEIT 411, a special newsletter on disinformation and conspiracy theories ahead of the 2020 presidential election. It is produced in partnership with the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a London-based think tank that studies extremism, and written by Molly Boigon, an investigative reporter at The Forward. THE 411: CALLS…
Earlier this month Israel’s Minister of Diaspora Affairs, Omer Yankelevich, called on the technology giant to remove some 40 books from the platform that a ministry investigation found to contain antisemitism or Holocaust denial. Kindle Direct Publishing, the self-publishing arm of Amazon, has long been a haven for white supremacists who want to reach a…
On Wednesdays, Mindy Meyer wears pink. But for court appearances, she wears black. On Monday she donned her usual courtroom attire — complete with a black mask — for the arraignment of her latest client, Heshy Tischler. Meyer, an Orthodox Jew from Brooklyn, won a measure of tabloid fame in 2012 for mounting a failed…
I am not a rabbi — but am I proud of my colleagues who are. Along with cantors, soloists, educators, executive directors, board donors and laypeople in hundreds of congregations and spiritual communities, they pulled off one of the most extraordinary historic pivots in synagogue life. “This is epic,” Rabbi Steven Leder of Wilshire Boulevard…
Some 600 people filled an intersection in the northern Tel Aviv neighborhood of Yehuda HaMacabee on Saturday night — new fathers with babies strapped to their chest, women hoisting black flags, retired couples and children banging pots and pans. “Balfour is here,” read signs hanging from the balconies of apartment buildings, as the demonstrators pumped…
Orthodox Jews in Brooklyn proceeded with some indoor and outdoor holiday celebrations in their synagogues over the weekend, in defiance of restrictions limiting all religious gatherings to 10 or fewer people in neighborhoods where the rates of coronavirus infection have gone sharply up in recent weeks. On Saturday evening in Borough Park — a neighborhood…
BOSTON (JTA) – Just a few months after she turned 90 last year, Florence Barat joined a bat mitzvah class with a group of other women at the Jack Satter House, a Jewish senior residence near Boston where she had lived for some two decades. Barat had already had an adult bat mitzvah 30 years…
Sen. Kamala Harris missed an easy layup when Vice President Mike Pence offered what he thought was his best defense of his boss’s record on white supremacy during Wednesday night’s debate. Pence said President Donald Trump couldn’t support antisemites because “he has Jewish grandchildren.” Harris let it go, but what she could have said was…
A local rabble rouser had a request for President Donald Trump, which he tapped out and sent into the universe through Twitter on Wednesday. “We are asking for President Trump to interfere with Gov Cuomo’s hateful decision of tough lockdown on our schools and places of worship,” tweeted city council candidate Heshy Tischler. “#Cuomohatesjews.” In…
A case currently pending in the New York District court has the potential to undermine fundraising for progressive causes and intensify polarization within the American Jewish community. At issue is a complaint filed with the Internal Revenue Service by New York attorney David Abrams, a self-described “passionate pro-Israel Zionist” and founder and president of The…
So many seniors make their home in Florida that, for years, comedians have referred to the state as “God’s waiting room.” What every pollster’s mind these days is this: Who are they waiting to vote for? An estimated 29% of the state’s nine million voters are over 65, and recent polls suggest that support for…
