Free Republic

Argentina’s new president Monday visited the Queens grave of one of the most revered rabbis in modern history, paying his respects as he met with Jewish leaders in the Big Apple. Javier Milei — a firebrand libertarian and outspoken admirer of Israel who has been fostering a close relationship with New York’s Hasidic community since well before his Oct. 22 election victory — stopped at the Ohel, the gravesite of the Chabad Lubavitcher Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson. Donning a yarmulke and flanked by Hasidic community leaders, Milei, who is Catholic, somberly toured the rebbe’s final resting place, where he shared...

Would you look at that? What is being referred to as a Lefty Twitter Wannabe that is supposedly free of hateful content (because you know, Elon Musk ensuring people of all political persuasions have a voice on his platform is hateful) sure seems hateful if you're in any way, shape or form Right-leaning. Some have even called it the 'Twitter Killer,' but so far we are less than impressed. Look at what's happening to Libs of TikTok's Chaya Raichik: As a woman, it’s pretty creepy when a man is obsessed with you and harasses you on social media. pic.twitter.com/pKelmEwDKM —...

The New York Times announced Monday that it won a George Polk Award for its "news report" about Hasidic Yeshivas, which was exposed to have been part of a political operation targeting the religious group, through an investigation published by Breitbart.The Times bragged on its website how its report that "exposed how private schools in New York's Hasidic Jewish community were failing to provide students with an adequate education, despite receiving more than a quarter of a billion dollars in public funds annually," was given the once-prestigious award.However, the Times story -- alleging Hasidic students "[know] nothing" and grow up...

The Regents of the State of New York have voted to impose specific curricular demands upon religious and private schools. The move is redolent with paternalistic hubris, and a dangerous usurpation of both religious and parental rights. Even worse, it is precisely the wrong way to go about assuring the quality of education that the State desires, especially since a better way is readily available. Governments ought to use carrots in place of sticks. Even where sticks might seem necessary, the best sticks are withholding carrots. The Regents are concerned or frustrated with the reluctance of some (but hardly all...

With tensions high between Orthodox Jews and New York officials, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio expressed regret Tuesday for how he handled a large Hasidic funeral in the pandemic’s early days. Back in April, after a large funeral for a local rabbi in Brooklyn drew thousands of Orthodox Jews into the streets of Williamsburg, de Blasio visited the scene himself and called out “the Jewish community.” His tweet was widely criticized and damaged what had been a relatively close relationship between the mayor and the city’s Orthodox community. Now, with Orthodox neighborhoods again among the city’s virus hotspots...

The Hasidic synagogue barred from holding a public wedding in Brooklyn over fears it would attract 10,000 people says the “unwarranted attacks” forced it to scrap the planned celebration to avoid a “paparazzi” event. The Congregation Yetev Lev D’Satmar was served an order Friday night from New York state barring Monday’s planned public wedding in Williamsburg of a grandson of its grand rabbi, Zalman Leib Teitelbaum. But the synagogue hit out at the order, saying it had taken special steps to ensure the wedding complied with coronavirus guidelines but “nobody verified our plans before attacking us.” “The unwarranted attacks on...

The Word “Pharisee” has been very much overused in our church culture. These days, anyone who calls on Christians to take devotion, and Obedience to God seriously is labeled a Pharisee, and dismissed out of hand in this antinomian age. So also are those who call upon the church to exercise due discernment in this age of false prophets and other religious charlatans. Furthermore those who do not fall in lock step with the abominable “unconditional security” teaching are also called “Pharisees”. Most people who throw this name out have no idea what the real Pharisees represent, they just call...

A doctor treating clients in a Hasidic village in upstate New York said in an interview on Tuesday that none of the roughly 500 people he has treated for coronavirus symptoms has required hospitalization. He said he has been using an experimental treatment based around a drug touted by President Trump, and Sean Hannity has discussed his work on the Fox News Channel.Dr. Vladimir Zelenko, a board-certified family practitioner who runs a family clinic near the village of Kiryas Joel, acknowledged that his regiment was new and untested, and it was too soon to assess its long-term effectiveness. But...

ORANGE COUNTY (VINnews) — A Hasidic man who had an appointment at a Toyota Service Center in Orange County on Monday morning, was asked to leave without getting service. When he confronted them, pointing to the fact that he had an appointment, and they were clearly servicing other customers, he was told “because you are spreading the virus.” The Toyota center has been identified as Johnstons Toyota in New Hampton, NY.

Doesn’t fit the narrative. The Southern Poverty Law Center has remained completely silent about the domestic terror attack against Hasidic Jews, presumably because it was carried out by a non-white person. Grafton E. Thomas entered a a rabbi’s home and stabbed five people as they celebrated Hanukkah in an Orthodox Jewish community in New York City on Saturday night. Gov. Andrew Cuomo quickly announced that the stabbings were an act of domestic terrorism “spurred by hate.” Another attack earlier this month on a kosher grocery store in New Jersey was carried out by assailants motivated by black supremacist ideology. Despite...

A Facebook campaign ad from an upstate New York county’s Republican Party has been slammed as anti-Semitic and “deeply disturbing.” Titled “A storm is brewing in Rockland,” the video takes aim at the large and growing hasidic Jewish community in the county, the specter of “overdevelopment” and a proposed yeshiva campus. The video, which appeared to have been removed on Thursday morning, features menacing music, the slogan “If They Win, We Lose” and a warning that “they” will “change our way of life.” “Aron Wieder and his Ramapo bloc are plotting a takeover,” the video intones, referring to a Hasidic...

Developers say local leaders in the Hudson Valley are blocking a housing project in order to keep out Hasidic Jews. In a peaceful corner of the Hudson Valley, a broad expanse of land sits at the ready for hundreds of homes ranging between 2,500 and 3,400 square feet, with views of the surrounding hills. There will be a recreation center and tennis courts, and nearly half of the development’s 117 acres will be kept as open space. But if it were up to town officials, the houses would never be built. They openly fret about the size and density of...

A black fashion student says he was brutally attacked by a gang of Hasidic men who shouted anti-gay slurs at him while he was walking through Williamsburg after a night of partying, the Daily News has learned. Taj Patterson, 22, was headed home to Fort Greene around 4:30 a.m. on Dec. 1 when he says more than a dozen ultra-Orthodox Jewish men began assaulting him on Flushing Ave. and yelling, “Stay down, f----t!” “I’m walking down some block by myself and then the next thing I know, I’m surrounded by a group of Hasidic Jewish men and they’re attacking me,”...

Footsteps is a Jewish organization that helps Hasidic Jews wishing to leave their ultra-orthodox community become integrated members of secular society and work through the profound difficulties of leaving behind their past and, in most cases, being disowned by their families.PBS and A Journey Through NYC Religions report the varying responses of current members of the Hasidic community and individuals who have chosen a new way of life.Sol Feuerwerker is glad he left. I think thatÂ’s what surprises most people, you know, most outsiders, is that how can something this insular be happening right here in the middle of New...

An unlicensed therapist who was a prominent member of an ultra-Orthodox Jewish community in Brooklyn was sentenced on Tuesday to 103 years in prison for repeatedly sexually abusing a young woman, beginning the attacks when she was 12. Mr. Hynes has said he believes the case may be a turning point for ultra-Orthodox victims of sexual abuse. In addition to convicting Mr. Weberman, his office also charged seven Hasidic men with bribery and intimidation of Mr. Weberman’s victim, who testified over four days. Prosecutors say they know of more victims who were too afraid to testify. “If there is one...

Aron Rottenberg is recovering at Westchester Medical Center with burns on 50 percent of his body. The pain is excruciating, his family says. He was burned when he and his son wrestled with a would-be arsonist who on 4 a.m. Sunday had placed flammable rags on Rottenberg's wooden back porch in New Square and tried to light them, according to police. Four hours later, cops arrested Shaul Spitzer, 18, who lives nearby. He had burns on his hands. He was charged with arson, attempted murder, and assault. Rottenberg's wife and daughters were at home sleeping when his son saw on...

This ain't kosher! A Hasidic paper in Williamsburg digitally erased Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton from the instantly iconic photo of the White House Situation Room as President Obama and his staff watched the raid on Osama bin Laden's compound.

On a windy Monday night, Pete’s Candy Store—a bar in Williamsburg with a railcar-shaped performance space in the back—is crammed to capacity with the thin and the bearded. Almost no one is drinking. The mood is pregame, expectant and nervous. We’re at one of the oddest New York City powwows in recent memory: a panel designed to quell a metastasizing dispute between bicyclists and Hasidic Jews. Except no Hasids are present. For a moment, it looks like the bicyclists will have to debate themselves. At immediate issue is the Bedford Avenue bike lane. It’s the longest in Brooklyn and runs...

It's every aspiring actor's dream -- the big break. So 25-year-old Abraham Karpen was the envy of every Shia Lebouf wannabe when he was cast as Natalie Portman's husband in the film "New York I Love You." But Karpen isn't going to be on the red-eye to La-la-land any time soon because last week the Hasidic Jew from Williamsburg, Brooklyn, said goodbye to his budding acting career and quit the film. "He really didn't grasp that this was a movie and that Natalie Portman was a star. He thought it was more of a commercial, a short thing," said Isaac...

Junior High School 22, in the South Bronx, had run through six principals in just over two years when Shimon Waronker was named the seventh. On his first visit, in October 2004, he found a police officer arresting a student and calling for backup to handle the swelling crowd. Students roamed the hallways with abandon; in one class of 30, only 5 students had bothered to show up. “It was chaos,” Mr. Waronker recalled. “I was like, this can’t be real.” Teachers, parents and students at the school, which is mostly Hispanic and black, were equally taken aback by the...