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
-
Culture When COVID hit, I went home to my parents. For Election Day, I came home to New York.
My roommate and I struck out early to vote Tuesday morning. Close to our polling place, a school in deep Brooklyn, we began to pass strangers wearing voting stickers. It wasn’t a very New York thing to do, but we waved at them, and they waved back. I couldn’t help it: despite the extenuating demands…
-
Fast Forward Report: organizers of five Brooklyn High Holiday gatherings hit with $15,000 fines
The organizers of five Jewish religious gatherings in the Hasidic hub of Borough Park, Brooklyn, received maximum-allowable $15,000 fines for violating state rules limiting such gatherings to 10 people in areas where coronavirus infection rates are highest, sources told the New York Post. The city said that it handed out $150,000 total in fines in…
-
News Orthodox Jews quietly defy coronavirus restrictions to celebrate last of the High Holidays
Orthodox Jews in Brooklyn proceeded with some indoor and outdoor holiday celebrations in their synagogues over the weekend, in defiance of restrictions limiting all religious gatherings to 10 or fewer people in neighborhoods where the rates of coronavirus infection have gone sharply up in recent weeks. On Saturday evening in Borough Park — a neighborhood…
-
News Orthodox rabbis say High Holiday services should proceed as usual — despite coronavirus
The leading Orthodox advocacy and religious authority has released a rabbinical decree ahead of the High Holidays that contains no mention of masks or social distancing, in contrast to the organization’s previous statement, which called on congregations to be careful at large gatherings. The decree, or Kol Korei, was written by a group of 15…
-
Fast Forward Brooklyn Jewish officials warn of new COVID cases amid rising fear of a second wave
(JTA) – With cases of COVID-19 rising over the last several weeks in Orthodox communities in the New York City area, a synagogue in Brooklyn and a Jewish ambulance group issued warnings for people to continue taking precautions against the virus. Hatzoloh of Rockland County, which serves a number of large Orthodox communities in Monsey,…
-
Fast Forward Questions grow over record stock gift to obscure Brooklyn synagogue
A little-known Brooklyn synagogue was the recipient last month of what may be the one of the largest personal donations to a religious organization in American history. But instead of celebrations over such a large contribution amid the bleak financial landscape of Jewish communal life, questions are being raised over the nature of the payment….
-
Fast Forward Shortened Census period means Brooklyn’s Orthodox communities will likely be undercounted
(JTA) – Before the coronavirus pandemic hit New York City, Rabbi Avi Greenstein knew he needed to make a big push to have people in his neighborhood fill out the census. In Borough Park, where Greenstein serves as executive director of the Boro Park Jewish Community Council, only 49.2% of residents filled out the census…
-
Fast Forward Pandemic reinvigorates push to ban chicken-swinging ritual in NYC
(JTA) — An organization that objects to a pre-Yom Kippur ritual that involves swinging live chickens is renewing its legal effort to stop the religious rite in New York City, citing the coronavirus pandemic. Kapparot involves swinging a live chicken over one’s head three times and reciting a prayer to transfer sins to the bird. The…
Most Popular
- 1
Opinion Why I resigned as chairman of Amnesty Israel
- 2
Music For Bob Dylan’s biographer, ‘A Complete Unknown’ is a dream come true — even if it’s mostly fiction
- 3
Culture ‘A Complete Unknown’ proves that one thing about Bob Dylan will certainly endure
- 4
Culture They were a kosher bakery success story — 80 years later, people are still trying to make a buck off their babka
In Case You Missed It
-
Yiddish באָריס סאַנדלער און דניאל גלאַי באַקומען דעם רובינליכט־פּריזBoris Sandler and Daniel Galay receive the Rubinlicht Prize
דער רובינליכט־פּריז טיילט מען אויס פֿאַר ליטעראַרישער און קולטורעלער טעטיקייט אויף ייִדיש און לטובֿת ייִדיש.
-
Fast Forward Montreal synagogue firebombed for the 2nd time in just over a year
-
News Hanukkah’s arrival on Christmas Day renews ‘Chrismukkah’ deliberations for interfaith families
-
Fast Forward Mayor Eric Adams calls himself ‘a modern-day Maccabee’ at pre-Hanukkah party at Gracie Mansion
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism