I am a staff writer for the Forward, the nonprofit Jewish news outlet. I’ve covered sexual abuse and misconduct, politics at every level, the Hasidic world, anti-Semitism, identity and representation, health and education.
I live in Manhattan, and when people in the city ask me where I’m from, I say I’m from Minnesota—but my mom is from Queens. That tends to mollify the more diehard New Yorkers who can’t always find Minnesota on a map.
I graduated with honors from the University of Chicago, where I wrote for the wonderful and groundbreaking South Side Weekly.
Hobbies include cooking, dancing, collage and travel whenever possible — that’s me in Tel Aviv on the left, and the top photograph is one I took in Patagonia.
Got tips? Contact me at ariephraimfeldman(at)gmail(dot)com, or via the encrypted messaging app Signal, at 862 239 4949.
The pandemic and the protests
Black Jews have a message for white Jews: Change your relationship to the police. Forward, June 2020
A Black church and an Orthodox synagogue are searching for their shared history in a once-integrated Baltimore neighborhood. Forward, August 2020
Awards and recognition
Stanley Rosenfeld spent nearly fifty years teaching Jewish children – and admitted to molesting hundreds. Winner of the New York Press Club’s 2019 Nellie Bly Cub Reporter award. Forward, August 2018
National stories
How a big-hearted insurance magnate doomed his legacy project: the world’s only pluralistic Jewish boarding school. Forward, June 2019
Why do Jewish American teenagers join the IDF? Forward, May 2018
What it’s like to be a rabbi in Parkland, Florida, in February 2018. Forward, February 2018
Confederate monuments are being torn down — so why are there no monuments to the Jewish Confederate? Forward – August 20, 2017
23andMe’s latest theory about Jews? That they’re descended from Khazars. Wait, who? Forward, August 29, 2017
Synagogues, coast to coast!
A Hebrew Israelite congregation needs money to rebuild their destroyed synagogue. Will the mainstream Jewish community give it to them? Forward, January 2019
A local Chabad chapter wanted a synagogue’s building. So they took over the board, with the board’s help. Forward, August 2018
An unremarkable synagogue was made a landmark against its will. In order to survive, they need the designation overturned. Forward, August 2018
You’ve heard of the Thanksgiving Turkey Drop. Introducing Chabad’s Hanukkah helicopter gelt drop. Forward, December 2018