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.
With just hours before the election, online supporters of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump are frantically posting about Pepe the Frog, the controversial online meme designated as a hate symbol by the Anti Defamation League. “One more day,” one Trump supporters who goes by Vendetta Vidame, wrote on Twitter, posting a meme of Pepe overlaid…
An election ad on rotation in the swing state of Florida, which boasts a sizable Jewish population, imagines presidential candidate Donald Trump calling for a ban on Jews coming to the United States. The advertisement, paid for by the anti-Trump group Truth PAC, includes an excerpt of an earlier speech by Trump in which he…
While leading a prayer session recently, on the eve of the Sabbath, surrounded by a small crowd of other Jews, Kohenet Sarah Chandler picked up her prayer book and prepared to pray. But something was different. On the cover of her prayer book there was an illustration of a female figure, her body intertwined with…
Republican candidate Donald Trump’s son Eric Trump attacked David Duke on live radio on Nov. 3, saying that the former Ku Klux Kan leader “deserves a bullet.” Speaking with conservative radio host Ross Kaminsky, on Denver’s 630 KHOW, Trump said that Duke and his supporters are “horrible people,” according to NBC News. Trump also praised…
Israeli Ambassador to the United States Ron Dermer will be accepting an award in New York next month from an American organization that has been labeled an anti-Muslim hate group. The Center for Security Policy, which will be honoring Dermer with a “Freedom Flame Award,” is included in a watch list of hate groups compiled…
The Kohenet Institute ordains Hebrew priestesses, drawing from the Goddess Judaism movement, which seeks to rethink Jewish prayer through a feminine lens. Priestesses have their choice of many paths. At the completion of their three-year-course, women select the feminine archetype most fitting to their personality to inform and inspire their vocation. Here are descriptions of…
You may know rabbis, cantors, and gabbais, or prayer leader, from synagogue. But have you met a Jewitch, healer or priestess? You may soon. There is a growing movement to carve out alternative spaces for distinctly female leadership roles in Jewish life, as well as honor feminine characteristics of the divine — some call it…
With the presidential election just days away, Donald Trump is praying for America. In a note to be delivered at the Western Wall, one of Judaism’s most sacred pilgrimage sites, Republican candidate Trump asked for blessings to be bestowed on the United States, its armed forces and its allies. “May you bless the United States,…
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