Helen Chernikoff is the Forward’s News Editor. She came to the Forward from The Jewish Week, where she served as the first web director and created both a blog dedicated to disability issues and a food and wine website. Before that, she covered the housing, lodging and logistics industries for Reuters, where she could sit at her desk and watch her stories move the stock market. Helen has a Master’s of Public Administration from Columbia University and a BA in History and French from Amherst College. She is also a rabbinical school dropout. Contact her at [email protected] and follow her on Twitter at @thesimplechild.
Helen Chernikoff
By Helen Chernikoff
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News Squirrel Hill, In Crosshairs Of Synagogue Shooting, Is A True Jewish City
Jews all over the world unfurled their holy scrolls to chant aloud the exact same section of the Torah yesterday, as they do every Shabbat. On October 27, it was the story of Abraham’s hospitality, and how he rushed to throw open his tent to three visitors who turned out to be angels. So it…
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Breaking News As Shabbat Ends, A Wounded Pittsburgh Neighborhood Gathers To Mourn
The day that the American Jewish community experienced the most deadly anti-Semitic hate crime directed at it in the history of the United States was also Shabbat, the weekly Jewish day of rest. So when Shabbat ended at sundown in the densely Jewish town of Squirrel Hill, where a gunman killed 11 Jews at prayer,…
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News Why Haven’t White Supremacists Held A New Charlottesville? Meet Roberta Kaplan.
Last July, white supremacists like Mike Peinovich and Richard Spencer were in the final throes of planning for what became known as “Charlottesville.” The months since the inauguration of President Trump in January 2017 had been filled with triumphs for him and his fellow travelers, racists of various stripes who operated mainly online. They felt…
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Israel News Natalie Portman Takes A Stand, And Israeli Expats Sigh Over The Challah
Friday afternoon is always a busy time at Queens Pita, a sunny bakery on Flushing’s Main Street. The Jewish Sabbath, which starts with sundown, is descending. When the Forward visited on April 20, shoppers from across the borough were snatching up rugelach and challah as part of their preparations for the holiday. “The challah here…
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Fast Forward Rod Rosenstein’s Getting Pressure From Another Quarter Now — Congress
Two of President Trump’s backers in Congress have threatened Rod Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general running the Russia investigation, with impeachment or contempt of Congress if he did not give them documents they want, according to the Washington Post. Rosenstein met Monday with Mark Meadows of North Carolina and Jim Jordan of Ohio, both Republican…
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News Harvard Students Walk A Careful Line To Host Anti-Occupation ‘Liberation’ Seder
The Hillel at Harvard University is sponsoring a Seder this Passover that is aligned with a protest movement critical of Israel, a move that required the students to position the event carefully in order to hold it under Hillel’s auspices. Scheduled for the evening of April 5, the seventh night of Passover, the festive meal…
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Fast Forward David Duke To Judge: I Won’t Hand Over My Charlottesville Emails
Lawyers who are suing white supremacists for conspiring to foster and carry out violence at last summer’s “Unite the Right” rally are trying to get some papers from former KKK Grand Wizard David Duke — but he says it’s too much trouble, and too expensive. Roberta Kaplan, who successfully argued before the Supreme Court to…
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Fast Forward Sleepy Stephen Miller Battles Brutal Case Of Head Bobs At School Safety Meeting
Maybe Stephen Miller was out late partying on Sunday night? Or maybe school safety, even after the shooting that killed 17 at a Florida high school on Valentine’s Day, puts him to sleep. For whatever the reason, a photo agency captured the young advisor as he fought to stay awake during a White House meeting…
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Fast Forward Why neo-Nazis marched in Ohio this weekend, and almost every weekend in the US
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Opinion The group behind Project 2025 has a plan to protect Jews. It will do the opposite.
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Opinion Just about every interpretation of Trump’s narrow election victory is wrong
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News Texas schools want to add Queen Esther to the curriculum. Here’s why Jews (and many Christians) are opposed.
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Fast Forward Rep. Ritchie Torres, outspoken pro-Israel advocate, is dropping hints that he could run for NY governor
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Fast Forward Ursula Haverbeck, infamous German Holocaust denier known as ‘Nazi grandma,’ dies at 96
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Fast Forward A Jewish museum in Tulsa held a funeral for remains of Holocaust victims it kept for years
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Sports Texas A&M’s Sam Salz cherishes his first taste of DI college football — and the opportunity to inspire fellow Orthodox Jews
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