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 kestenbaum@forward.com and follow him on Twitter at @skestenbaum and on Instagram at @skestenbaum.
Open Hillel, a movement of Jewish students who seek to widen discourse about Israel on college campuses, is holding a rally this afternoon — urging Hillel International to end its financial partnership with Naftali Bennett, Israel’s Diaspora Affairs Minister. The rally is taking place outside Hillel International headquarters in Washington D.C. @OpenHillelNow rally today for…
The police force of Whitefish, Montana — the site of the neo-Nazi march that wasn’t — has just nailed a mezuzah on the door of their station in a sign of solidarity with the beleaguered Jewish community. During a group tour of Whitefish by Orthodox rabbis from the U.S. and Canada, Rabbi Adam Scheier, a…
Donald Trump has enlisted a diverse lineup of six clergy to pray him into office at his upcoming inauguration ceremony. Three draw on Jewish ritual objects and ideas in their practices, like Torah and prayer shawls — but only one clergy member is a Jewish rabbi. The other two, praying alongside Rabbi Marvin Hier, are…
Jared Kushner, real estate developer and presidential son-in-law, is about to play an important role in peace negotiations in the Middle East. His father-in-law Donald Trump praised him as “a good boy” who will pull off an “Israel agreement that no one else would pull off,” and a prominent New York Times pundit agrees, sort…
When Rabbi Matt Rosenberg went to a speech presented by one of the country’s leading white nationalists, he hoped to make a statement about the power of Judaism. During a question-and-answer session after the talk, Rosenberg, who heads Hillel at Texas A&M, asked Richard Spencer, the self-styled ambassador of the “alt-right,” whether the two could…
Jared Kushner is a father of three in his mid-thirties, ostensibly in line to play an important role in peace negotiations in the Middle East — but to Kushner’s father-in-law Donald Trump, he’s still a boy. “He’s a good boy and he will agree an Israel agreement that no one else would pull off,” Donald…
The plans for Martin Luther King Jr.’s pilgrimage were ambitious. King was slated to lead thousands of pilgrims to the Holy Land, where he would preach on the Mount of Olives and at a specially constructed amphitheater on the Sea of Galilee. He would preside over a series of “multi-racial interfaith services” at the region’s…
Is Twitter plagued with Nazis? That’s what an anonymous Change.org petition is charging, listing information on hundreds of “Nazi and white supremacist accounts” and demanding the social media platform boot them off. “Twitter is brimming with active Nazis who use your platform as a tool to recruit members, spread hate, and harass other users,” reads…
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