new york jew

Ideas

Why Jews should show up and show Mamdani what we stand for

Boycotting City Hall over the mayor’s Israel views won’t change minds, writes a longtime Jewish activist.

A Portuguese-Spanish Jewish Thanksgiving Service Going Back to 1789

When George Washington announced the first national Thanksgiving in 1789, he called for all Americans to gather in their houses of worship, and to thank God for Independence. A group of Jewish New Yorkers heeded that call and gathered at Congregation Shearith Israel, the Spanish and Portuguese synagogue that stood on Manhattan’s Mill Street, in […]

The 1916 Knish War of the Lower East Side

Extra! Extra! Read all about it: Rival restauranteurs battle over knishes! The 1910s were a bustling time for the Lower East Side shtetl-metropolis, where roughly 2 million Ashkenazi Jews were crammed more than 700 people deep per acre. And on one short block of Rivington Street, two knish-makers went to war. In 1916, Max Green, […]