Ukraine has become the first country whose president and prime minister are both Jewish — besides Israel, of course. Volodymyr Zelensky, a Jewish Ukrainian actor, was elected president of the country over the weekend and will soon serve with Volodymyr Groysman, who has been prime minister since 2016. It’s an interesting first that brought up the…
On Lee Avenue, in the heart of Williamsburg, the Hasidic parents and children hurrying in the hours before the Passover holiday are living in the midst of a historic measles outbreak. Trips to the doctor’s office, where stricken children are being treated, have become truly dangerous for babies who haven’t yet reached the age at…
Conspiracy theorists were quick to blame Jews and Muslims for the shocking fire that enveloped the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris on Monday, despite French police finding it to be an accident. It’s a pretty common stream of events: The two cultures have somehow managed to be linked to a slew of tragedies and events….
In a Europe where anti-Semitism is on the rise, a country Jews still associate with the pogrom of family horror stories looks like it’s about to elect a Jewish comedian as head of state. It’s Ukraine, a country of nearly 44 million people. More than one million Jews were murdered here by the Nazis and…
The dovish Israel lobby J Street is considering endorsing bills that would put conditions on American military aid to Israel, the organization’s president Jeremy Ben-Ami told the Forward on Tuesday. In an exclusive interview, Ben-Ami told the Forward that J Street will deliberate over the next few weeks about whether to advocate for bills that…
New York City is experiencing the largest measles outbreak in recent history, but the state of emergency Mayor Bill de Blasio called earlier this month was limited only to ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods in Brooklyn. The first case was reported in Brooklyn in September, and as of last week, more than 300 cases have been confirmed — and…
For twenty years, two very different communities have been meeting on the corner of Marcy and Division avenues in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Ultra-Orthodox Jews go there to find cleaning ladies; Latina immigrants to find work. Gloria Puma, 35, is one of the latter, an undocumented immigrant from Ecuador. One morning almost exactly four years ago, her…
The Trump administration left major liberal Jewish organizations off its invitation list for a mysterious White House meeting scheduled for Tuesday afternoon, but invited three officials from the hawkish Zionist Organization of America, the Forward has learned. The meeting, the existence of which which the JTA first reported on Friday, comes amid speculation that the…
Three generations ago, before the Holocaust decimated European Jewry, tens of thousands of students studied at more than a thousand secular Yiddish elementary schools dotted across Eastern Europe. Today, there is only one secular Yiddish school in the world, and it’s in south Australia. Next year, that could change, and in a dramatic way: Secular…
WikiLeaks director Julian Assange is currently in police custody in London awaiting possible extradition to the United States, after spending almost seven years inside the Ecuadorian embassy. He is being charged with conspiracy to commit computer intrusion in connection with Chelsea Manning’s leak of more than 750,000 American military and government documents. Assange is one…
In the popular imagination, ultra-Orthodox Jews shun the modern world. They live and work in tight-knit enclaves in Brooklyn or suburban New York and New Jersey, fiercely protect their autonomy over their religious schools and do not participate in the defining technology of modern times: the Internet. But while this picture is true for many…
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