The Russian troll farm indicted by Special Counsel Robert Mueller for interfering in the 2016 election also used its Twitter bots to boost the message of a handful of prominent anti-Muslim extremists, including right-wing Jewish activist Pamela Geller. The Russian-operated bots promoted tweets and articles by Geller, Robert Spencer and Frank Gaffney, all of whom…
In 2008, Rabbi Josh Yuter got a job as the spiritual leader of a small synagogue on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. It was hard work. He gave four talks every Shabbat and two lectures during the week, counseled synagogue members and helped with conversions. At the end of the month, he couldn’t pay for much…
You might say it was the first Shabbat after south Florida’s 9/11. It goes by the name Stoneman Douglas and the hashtag #ParklandStrong. It might seem like an exaggeration to allude to the worst-ever attack on American soil – and of course it doesn’t compare in scope or casualty counts – but the Talmud teaches…
A visitor to Israel may be overwhelmed by the abundance of guns in the streets. Firearms seem to be everywhere: The soldier sitting next to you on the bus has one, as does the security guard at the entrance to the shopping mall, and the neighbor’s daughter coming home from her army base for the…
Students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, in Parkland, Florida, were expecting a slightly unusual day Wednesday. It was Valentine’s Day, so in addition to bringing calculators and textbooks, some students brought balloons and candy. But the day ended up breaking everyone’s heart — in the school and across the nation — after a gunman…
A tragic mass shooting that hit close to home for the Jewish community elicited a call from Jewish groups for gun control legislation. The Orthodox Union put its emphasis on expanding the program providing security grants to nonprofits, a program that has provided throughout the years funds for Jewish institutions to better address threats of…
There are two hidden truths about China’s General Tso, whose ill-advised military incursion into Japan put the miso in misogyny and the saké into “for heaven’s sake. The first is that he had a speech impediment. The second is that he was a coward. This latter character flaw was resented by the rank and file,…
When Tali Cohn, 15, first heard about the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, she tried to put it out of her mind. Then someone texted to tell her that their new friend from summer camp Alyssa Alhadeff was a freshman at the school. And worse still, that Alhadeff, also 15,…
Ira Stickler was driving into the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel when he blinked in disbelief. There in front of him was a New Jersey license plate that read “Aryan10.” As a Jew, Stickler was outraged to be driving behind a Nazi. As a lawyer, he decided right then and there to see if he could get…
We’re delighted to announce that the Backward has won a record number awards from the Jewish Organization for Satire and Humor (the JOSHies), including the prestigious Lifetime Achievement for a Decade of Jewish Humor In a National Jewish Media Outlet. 2009 For providing ten years of hilarity that have done “more to preserve continuity than…
The Jewish parents of infant twin boys drove last summer from their home in the Washington, D.C., area to a summer camp in Pennsylvania to perform a conversion for their babies. It was a slightly embellished version of the traditional conversion ceremony: Since both boys were already circumcised, they simply recited a prayer, the Sh’ma,…
באַזונדערש רירנדיק דאָ זײַנען די בילדער פֿון משפּחה־רײַבונגען, פֿון באַגעגענישן װאָס ברענגען נישט צו קײן עמאָציאָנעלע פֿאַרשטענדיקונגען.
