Ari Feldman is a staff writer at the Forward. He covers Jewish religious organizations, synagogue life, anti-Semitism and the Orthodox world. If you have any tips, you can email him at feldman@forward.com. Follow him on Twitter @aefeldman.
Ari Feldman
By Ari Feldman
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News Orthodox To Dominate American Jewry In Coming Decades As Population Booms
It’s been nearly five years since the Pew Research Center released its “Portrait of Jewish Americans.” Given its stark conclusions, the study ruffled some feathers even as it expanded our notions of Jewish community. It highlighted the impact of intermarriage and the growth of the Orthodox community, and has impacted policy making for Jewish communal…
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News Can A Catholic Guy Save This ‘Hellhole’ Jewish Cemetery — (And Why Hasn’t Its Own Synagogue)?
Bayside Cemetery in Queens is “abandoned.” It is “desecrated.” It is “the cemetery that nobody wants.” Well, nobody but Anthony Pisciotta. Just about every Sunday, Pisciotta, a Catholic man from the Bronx, romps through the knee-high undergrowth to maintain the parts of the cemetery that get the most foot traffic. He paints, he whacks weeds,…
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News Slain Psychiatrist Who ‘Dealt With Worst’ Remembered For ‘Seeing The Best’ In World
At first, the killings seemed random. Dr. Steven Pitt, a nationally respected forensic psychiatrist, was shot outside his office in Scottsdale, Arizona. The next day, two people were shot outside a law firm across town. It wasn’t until a fourth body surfaced, and police received an anonymous tip, that it became clear the killings were…
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News Is A Private Community In Suburban New York Targeting Hasidic Jews?
The first Hasidic couple to move to Highland Lake Estates alleges that on their first night in the new house, the head of the community’s homeowner’s association shined the headlights of his car into their home for twenty minutes. Other Hasidic families say they woke up to find their mailboxes vandalized or destroyed. Once, the…
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News Reform Rabbi Was Secretly Censured For Affair With Congregant
When a Reform rabbi resigned from his Durham, North Carolina synagogue recently, the synagogue’s lawyer said the problem was “sexual in nature.” Now the Forward has learned what those words meant. The rabbi had a yearlong, sexual relationship with a woman who regularly worshipped at the synagogue. The Reform movement’s rabbinical association had censured him…
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News Ikar Is Building Something. Just Don’t Call It A Synagogue.
The Los Angeles congregation Ikar likes to break the unspoken rules of American Judaism. It does not call itself Conservative, Orthodox or Reform. It doesn’t even call itself a synagogue, because it has no permanent home. It holds services — known for their drum circles and packs of roaming children — in rented auditoriums and…
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Fast Forward Fortune 500 Firms Bankroll A Pro-Trump Dark Money PAC That Employs Anti-Semite
Three Fortune 500 companies have donated money to a pro-Trump dark money group whose staffers have been reported as making anti-Semitic, racist and homophobic remarks, Maplight reported. America First Policies is a not-for-profit run by former Trump campaign officials. So far, it has received $1 million from Southern Company, a major energy conglomerate, $500,000 from…
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Fast Forward That Time Diddy Prank Called Harvey Weinstein’s Lawyer On Shabbat
Benjamin Brafman, the New York criminal defense attorney representing Harvey Weinstein, has had his fair share of famous clients, from mafia members to Martin Shkreli. But only one ever tried to get him to break Shabbat. At a 2015 conference, Brafman, a religious Jew, told some fellow lawyers about a time when Sean Combs, the…
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