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.
The burial sites of the world’s great Jewish sages have served for centuries as spiritual magnets, drawing pious Jews on far-flung pilgrimages to pray in their presence. Each Rosh Hashanah, the grave of Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav, the famed 18th century Hasidic master, draws tens of thousands of Hasidim to Uman, Ukraine. Likewise, the graves…
Like synagogues in many old neighborhoods, the walls of Mount Horeb in the Bronx are lined with the framed photos of esteemed elders who have passed on. There is a faded photo, too, of the Western Wall, and Stars of David. But at this Bronx synagogue, an Ethiopian flag also hangs above a series of…
Rabbi Gary Moskowitz served on the New York City Police Department for nearly a decade, during which he worked as an undercover narcotics cop and patrolled Times Square. Still, he says that many people could never fully grasp the idea of a Jewish police officer. Moskowitz remembers chasing down a mugger near Columbus Circle in…
When 77-year-old Rabbi Richard Nolan recalls Ben Ammi ben Israel, the leader of the Hebrew Israelite community in Israel who died last weekend, their shared hometown of Chicago is wrapped up in that recollection. And the image is bleak. “There was degradation, segregation, discrimination, lack of education and opportunity,” Nolan said. “A people who had…
Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum was observing the Sabbath on December 20 when New York police officers Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos were shot and killed in their patrol car in Brooklyn by 28-year-old Ismaaiyl Brinsley, who then took his own life. After sundown, Kleinbaum, who leads New York’s Congregation Beit Simchat Torah and has been an…
On Sunday night, Rabbi Hailu Moshe Paris, who had been at Manhattan’s Beth Israel Medical Center for three weeks, was blinking and smiling at the small group of Jews gathered around his bed. He could not speak, he wore an oxygen mask and was attached to an IV, but he nodded slightly as the group…
100% of profits support our journalism
