Welcome to the Forward’s coverage of Brooklyn, a borough of New York City home to a major population of Hasidic Jews.
Welcome to the Forward’s coverage of Brooklyn, a borough of New York City home to a major population of Hasidic Jews.
Brooklyn
The Latest
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Breaking News Brooklyn Neighbors Sound Alarm Over Hasidic Synagogue’s Ear-Splitting Siren
The Sabbath is supposed to be a day of quiet relaxation. But according to residents near one Hasidic synagogue in Brooklyn, the noise from the schul’s Friday afternoon siren is anything but restful. “It leaves me with a ringing in my ears and headaches that have continued for two days,” Aaron Graubart, who lives next…
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Life Adventures of a Secular Jew in Satmar Brooklyn
Before we got married, my husband, Tom, lived in an old limestone tenement in South Williamsburg, Brooklyn. North Williamsburg had already become hipsterville, but almost every building south of Broadway housed Satmar families. If you’ve driven through Brooklyn on a Friday night or Saturday morning, you have at least glimpsed Satmar families walking to synagogue,…
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Opinion Why I Spent Yom Kippur Serving Up Pork Chops in Brooklyn
I spent Yom Kippur this year dipping pork chops in olive oil, preparing lunch for the clients of St. John’s Bread and Life, an amazing anti-poverty organization in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. It marked a significant transformation from my upbringing: I grew up in one of the few religious households in a Conservative synagogue in Hamilton, Ontario,…
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Breaking News Ken Thompson, Brooklyn Prosecutor Who Vowed Shift in Hasidic Sex Abuse Probes, Dies at 50
Ken Thompson, the first African-American to be elected district attorney of Brooklyn, has died at age 50 of complications from cancer, his office said. Thompsson trounced longtime incumbent Charles Hynes in a bitter 2013 Democratic primary part on promises to shake up his approach to child sex abuse crimes in the borough’s large ultra-Orthodox Jewish…
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News Brooklyn Man’s $2K Tefillin Set Swiped on Subway
A Jewish man’s bag that included a valuable set of tefillin, a pair of ritual boxes attached to leather straps used during prayer, was stolen in Brooklyn on Friday, September 30. The 25-year-old victim told police that his bag was taken from the mezzanine of the DeKalb Avenue subway station at 7:36 p.m., the website…
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Yiddish World The Making Of The First Female Hasidic Civic Court Judge
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. In the final countdown before the election, Ruchie Freier was still uncertain whether she would win the race for Civil Court Judge. But win she did, and starting in January 2017, she’ll become the first Hasidic woman ever elected to this high position. Sipping hot tea with…
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Breaking News Did Brooklyn Mother Live With Dead Son For Decade Without Knowing?
An elderly Brooklyn woman was found living with the skeletal remains of her dead son — and police say she might not even have known he was there. Rita Wolfensohn, a widow from the predominantly Jewish Midwood neighborhood, is legally blind and her house was found full of belongings and trash that she has been…
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Breaking News Trailblazing Hasidic Woman Elected as Brooklyn Judge
NEW YORK — Rachel “Ruchie” Freier of Brooklyn was elected a Civil Court judge in New York state, reportedly a first for a Hasidic woman in the state. Freier won Tuesday’s vote in Kings County’s 5th judicial district, which encompasses the Brooklyn communities of Kensington, Sunset Park and Windsor Terrace, among others, according to Patch. Patch cited…
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News What Mike Huckabee’s ‘Kids Guide to Israel’ says about his views
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