Avital Chizhik-Goldschmidt was the Life/Features editor at the Forward. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, Salon, and Tablet, among others.
Avital Chizhik-Goldschmidt
By Avital Chizhik-Goldschmidt
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News This new 600-page book contains Jewish laws of coronavirus, from hand-washing to drug trials
An American nursing home worker might have inadvertently exposed a resident to the virus, and that person has died. Now the worker — an Orthodox Jew — has questions, for the sake of his soul. Someone has written on his behalf to a rabbi in Jerusalem: “The man is broken and shattered,” the letter reads….
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News The Party of God: Republican or Democrat?
The presidential nominating conventions playing out these past two weeks across the nation’s television and computer screens have been about more than a fight for power. They have also served as the latest staging of the American battle for God — in which the Bible has become a political football, in which the unborn, the…
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Life Teens keep cosplaying as Holocaust victims on TikTok
Holocaust victim roleplay is emerging as a trend among teenage actors on the video social media platform TikTok, under the hashtag #holocaustchallenge. “I was put in Auschwitz camp at 19 with my family,” says TikTok user @thatsnadia in one video, face made up with painted bruises. “We were forced to work, it was painful, exhausting….
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News A reporter’s notebook: Jewish Belarus then and now
Belarus — that strange country, locked in a previous era, and now reeling from anti-regime protests — is drenched in Jewish history, and blood. To go to the Republic of Belarus is to travel in time. It is to go to a land where few tourists enter and where foreigners require “additional special security.” Where…
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News Trump says U.S. needs ‘more Jews that love Israel’
President Trump told a group of Jewish supporters at a fundraiser Sunday that “we need more Jews in the U.S. that love Israel,” the Orthodox news outlet Belaaz reported. The event was held at the Long Branch, N.J. home of the late Stanley Chera, a real estate developer and a friend of Trump’s who died…
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Breaking News Leading ultra-Orthodox rabbi Shmuel Kamenetsky endorses Trump, in rare move
Rabbi Shmuel Kamenetsky, a leader of American ultra-Orthodoxy, endorsed Donald Trump for the 2020 election in a rare statement to the Orthodox Mishpacha magazine. “I think people should vote for him,” said Kamenetsky about Trump. “He’s done a good job. It’s hakaras hatov,” he said, using a Hebrew phrase for appreciation for a good deed….
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News Alarmed by ‘death threat’ video, Orthodox Jews try to de-platform fiery ‘folk preachers’
Explosions, thunderstorms, burning lava, tsunamis, clips from apocalyptic Hollywood films — and a scrolling list of the names of 14 prominent rabbis, including former U.K. Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, Rabbi Efrem Goldberg of Boca Raton, Fla. and Rabbi David Wolpe of Los Angeles. “Every minute that you listen to them will destroy your soul…
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News A man sues a rabbi for sexual abuse — and explains why others won’t do the same
The first time Joel Engelman sued the rabbi he accused of abusing him was in 2008. He did so, despite having missed the deadline for such lawsuits, in order to name the man — Abraham Reichman — and hopefully protect other children from him. Now he’s suing again, but his reasons are slightly different: That…
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