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.
A new GPS device for navigation has been designed specifically for Hasidic Jews who might otherwise be averse to using smartphones. Some have taken to calling the kosher, rabbi-approved device “the Ark” — because, apparently, it looks something like the ark of a Torah. A blog post on Tablet featured the new device, which can’t…
The Nation of Islam and white nationalists in the “alt-right” have been finding common ground in recent weeks — bonding over their dreams of racial separation. Last month, NOI leader Louis Farrakhan tweeted: “Black People: We should be more convinced that it is time for us to separate and build a nation of our own.”…
Before he became one of the country’s most prominent Internet neo-Nazis, Andrew Anglin was an anti-racist vegan whose favorite band was the indie group Modest Mouse. A lengthy profile in the Atlantic chronicles Anglin’s transformation from shy teen to racist troll. Anglin grew up in Worthington Hills, an upper-middle-class neighborhood in Columbus, Ohio. He collected…
When Rabbi Rigoberto Emmanuel Viñas took the helm of the aging Yonkers, New York, synagogue Lincoln Park Jewish Center 15 years ago, the hope was that the Cuban-born Orthodox Jew would breathe new life into the sleepy congregation. And over the following years the strategy seemed to work. Membership swelled, garnering acclaim from the media….
Who would want to label themselves a “proud anti-Semite”? Apparently one driver in Farmingdale, New York — who slapped a bumper sticker on their car to let the world know. One woman recently spotted the sticker while driving her children home from a Girls Scout event on Route 110 in Long Island, according to a…
It’s hard to keep up with the lingo of the “alt-right,” which morphs and adapts at the speed of the Internet. Some of the phrases are obviously bigoted, others seemingly benign. One relatively new, particularly anti-Semitic, meme known as “fellow white people” requires some unpacking. It’s not new but has recently bubbled up to the…
White nationalist Richard Spencer has spent the last several months ramping up a campus tour — but is apparently still struggling with some basic financial logistics. In the leadup to his recent speech at Florida University, Spencer and his white nationalist think tank paid for their venue space with a check for some $10,000 —…
A new Jewish religious school opened today in the city of Kazan, the capital of the Republic of Tatarstan — Russia’s largest Muslim republic. The November 8 opening of school, a branch of Chabad’s Yeshiva Tomchei Temimim, was lauded as a “major breakthrough” for Kazan’s Jewish community by the website Chabad.org. The inauguration was timed…
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