Sam Kestenbaum is a contributing editor and former staff writer for the Forward. Before this, he worked for The New York Times and newsrooms in Sana, Ramallah and Beijing. Contact him at [email protected] and follow him on Twitter at @skestenbaum and on Instagram at @skestenbaum.
The Northwestern University chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine is hosting the Palestinian activist Rasmea Odeh — sparking a protest by Hillel that has been joined by the school’s J Street U chapter. The Monday SJP event in titled “When They Come for Rasmea Odeh, They Come for All of Us” and organizers say…
The mayor of Charlottesville, Virginia, was targeted by anti-Semitic tweets over the weekend after speaking out against white nationalists who gathered at a local park to protest the sale of a statue of Robert E. Lee. “You’re seeing anti-Semitism in these crazy tweets I’m getting and you’re seeing a display of torches at night, which…
On the February night that President Trump unveiled his travel ban on immigrants from Muslim countries, Samir Malik, a 31-year-old tech developer whose parents are from Pakistan, was on his way to dinner in Brooklyn. Text messages buzzed on his phone. Activist friends of his were on the way to JFK airport to protest. He…
The civil rights group Muslim Advocates sent a bulletin to mosques around the country detailing ways to protect their worship spaces from arson ahead of the holiday of Ramadan, which begins at the end of the month. “You have the right to worship and be protected by police and fire departments,” the letter reads. The…
Kris Kobach, who as Kansas secretary of state made voter-fraud allegations, will co-chair President Donald Trump’s new Commission on Election Integrity, igniting outrage from civil rights groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center who calls him “a central figure in the nativist movement.” “Kobach is a longtime lawyer for far-right extremist groups with ties to…
Boise, Idaho’s Anne Frank Human Rights Memorial was vandalized this week. On memorial Tuesday afternoon, a tour group discovered “racist and anti-Semitic slurs” written on two different marble tablets, the Idaho Statesman reported. Representative Dan Prinzing said he would not repeat the words reading the phrase written “because it was so offensive.” The graffiti was…
Following a meeting with Pope Francis to discuss the protection of Jewish cemeteries in Europe and combating child sex abuse, a delegation of Hasidic Jews broke out in song and dance. Rabbis locked arms, men played guitars and the Pope seemed to bob up and down slightly. A video of the scene went viral. Then…
A new debate is playing out in New York City’s Orthodox community over the halachic status of an online app designed for women who wish to better observe the religious prohibition on intimacy during menstruation. The application, Tahor, allows for women to anonymously send photos of their bedikah cloths, used to check the vagina for…
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