On May 12, 2008, government agents raided a massive kosher slaughterhouse in Postville, Iowa. Within days, over 300 undocumented workers at the plant had been sentenced to five months in prison, followed by deportation. One of the plant’s managers, Sholom Rubashkin, was eventually sentenced to 27 years in prison for financial fraud. But in December…
For nearly three decades, Jacob Daskal has been chasing criminal suspects through the streets of Boro Park as the head of the Shomrim, a private Orthodox Jewish security patrol he founded. On Thursday, the tables were turned. Police in Brooklyn arrested Daskal for allegedly raping a 16-year-old girl. He has been charged with rape in…
The man who achieved internet notoriety for mocking a Hasidic boy’s hair and then was widely embraced after posting a heartfelt apology on Twitter is desperate to seek absolution in real life — on the Brooklyn streets where he first saw the boy. Quai James was working in Wallabout last Saturday when he came across…
Walk into Drop Juice, an e-cigarette store in Brooklyn, and you’ll hear customers asking the normal questions about vapor, oils and battery packs — in Yiddish. The store is located next to a yeshiva in one of Williamsburg’s ultra-Orthodox sections. Virtually of its customers are Hasidic, according to Moses, the manager. They buy his products,…
If the Democratic Party is hoping for a “blue wave” that will help it recapture the House of Representatives, it will need to flip at least 23 districts, likely including one in Palm Beach County, Florida. Florida’s 18th congressional district is filled with bubbies in age-restricted communities, strip malls and synagogues, including the Reform Temple…
As claims of physical and emotional abuse quickly consumed Eric Schneiderman’s promising political career, longtime allies struggled in vain to reconcile the lurid reports with the principled and progressive leader they thought they knew. The liberal stalwart resigned as New York’s attorney general on Monday night, less than four hours after the New Yorker published…
Sylvia Bloom didn’t want many things, according to a recent report in The New York Times. Every now and then she craved good chocolate. After she retired at age 96, she hoped to find a lively bridge game. Professional and personal independence were always a priority. But it became apparent, after her 2016 death, that…
Rabbi Rebecca Einstein Schorr says that participating in the first Women’s March in 2017 was “one of the most uplifting, powerful moments of my life. It was just an incredible experience.” That moment is over. Schorr feels anti-Semitism has tainted the march. “I can’t in good conscience say that I support a movement or feel…
The Orthodox magazine Mishpacha appears to have reversed its previous policy against publishing images of women — at least on its social media channels. In an email to subscribers last week, the magazine announced that it had begun to ramp up its social media presence. Breaking with precedent, the email included a picture of three…
Rabbi Joel Dinin is a no-nonsense Orthodox rabbi — and he looks the part. He sports a black kippah and doesn’t tuck in his tzitzit, the ritual tassels of the prayer shawl he wears as an undershirt. After Saturday morning services he asks that his congregants wash their hands and say the proper blessings, as…
The principal of an elite ultra-Orthodox girls’ school is defending himself against accusations from a politician and community members that he’s ignored years of complaints about sexual misconduct. The controversy’s catalyst was the release late last week, through a popular messaging app, of a recording that relates one student’s tale of an unwanted kiss from…
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