Jacob Kornbluh, the Hasidic Reporter Standing up for Social-Distancing by Avital Chizhik-Goldschmidt
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
YOUR SHABBAT EDITION • MAY 29, 2020 Stories for you to savor over Shabbat and through the weekend, in printable format. Sign up at forward.com/shabbat. Credit: iStock/Forward Montage Life A prophet in his own city: Jacob Kornbluh, the Hasidic reporter standing up for social-distancing By Avital Chizhik-Goldschmidt A group of about a hundred Hasidic men and boys men might reach through the screen and grab you by milled about on a dark street in the Brooklyn the neck. neighborhood of Boro Park, a gleam of fire in the For Kornbluh, the incident was the most intense of a distance. Women watched from balconies above the weeks-long campaign against him by neighbors and street at the crowd that had gathered — in violation of others in the Orthodox community. New York City’s social-distancing guidelines — to celebrate the minor Jewish holiday Lag B’Omer. Since the start of the pandemic, Kornbluh has been tweeting to his 17,000 followers about coronavirus Jacob Kornbluh, a reporter for Jewish Insider who is developments in Boro Park, and reporting violations himself Hasidic and lives in the neighborhood, was when necessary — even as he himself was battling the passing the crowd on his way home when a man virus at home. recognized him — and started screaming “Muser, muser!” Traitor. He is one of several prominent Hasidim who have faced harsh criticism and even threats of violence during the Others started chiming in: In cellphone videos captured pandemic for urging Orthodox Jews to abide by social- both by Kornbluh and other passersby, and then distancing rules and reporting those who don’t to the circulated in Orthodox WhatsApp groups, the mob authorities. chants at Kornbluh as he passes through. Muser, muser! The rage is almost palpable; it feels like those Watching the video of the crowd taunting Kornbluh — A prophet in his own city: Jacob Kornbluh, the Hasidic reporter standing up for social-distancing 1 GET THE LATEST AT FORWARD.COM and watching the larger saga unfold via Twitter these hardware store, then behind a kosher deli-counter in past months — is painful for anyone who cares about Williamsburg, another Hasidic enclave in Brooklyn. the Orthodox world. It is a personal kind of pain for me, Throughout, he was inhaling news voraciously. “In both because I have considered Kornbluh a friend for Shabbos in shul, I was always the one leading the the past seven years, and because I, too, am an conversation about political events,” he said. When Orthodox Jewish journalist often writing about the Twitter launched in 2008, Kornbluh finally found an failings of my community. I, too, have gotten used to outlet for his political interests. “It was my first being called a traitor. opportunity to start communicating with others, Kornbluh, who turned 39 last week, is a fast-thinking, sharing my views,” he said. “I started writing, even fast-talking reporter with a velvet yarmulke and peyos though my English was bad.” whose byline, tweets and physical presence have By then, Kornbluh was running his own business — a become fixtures of the Jewish world. Pre-pandemic, if pizza shop in Boro Park. But on the side, he began you walked into any major Jewish event in New York blogging about the 2008 presidential election in the City, you’d undoubtedly see him (and, depending on United States, and the elections for Israel’s Knesset. In your social status, might or might not make it into his 2011, he started getting more engaged on the New York “spotted” list in the next morning’s Insider newsletter). political scene, tweeting, blogging and engaging in He and I are often seated together at conferences or conversations with local elected officials. charity dinners, the only two in Orthodox uniform alongside the bevvy of colleagues in jeans. By 2013, as the race for mayor took off, Kornbluh had sold his pizza shop to his brothers and decided to try After I saw the Lag B’Omer video, which had been his hand at journalism — to “run around to all the free shared on frum WhatsApp groups, I called Kornbluh to events, press conferences, candidate forums and check how he’s doing. campaign launches,” as he recalled in our recent “Rebbetzinnn,” he drawled. That’s how he always conversation. “I live-tweeted the events, got to know greets me — I happen to be married to a rabbi, but it’s the candidates on a more personal level.” That year, he not even about that: it’s a half-traditional, half-jesting got hired as a political reporter for Yeshiva World News, frum address to a woman. and a few months later, moved on to Jewish news site JP Updates, where he covered New York City Hall. “How are you doing?” I asked. “Are you OK?” At public hearings and AIPAC conferences alike, he was “I’m fine,” he said in his usual calm demeanor. Because always an unusual sight. “People see this Hasidic guy nothing — not even an angry mob — fazes Kornbluh. with a long jacket, and they’re thinking, is he a lobbyist? A political junkie? No, I’m actually conducting The most famous Hasidic journalist in America interviews, reporting on this,” he said. Back home in Boro Park, at shul and on the street, there was a Kornbluh’s English is British with a tinge of Yiddish: he different sort of discomfort. “It was very hard for my grew up in a Belzer Hasidic family in the Stamford Hill community to digest that one of them is out there, neighborhood of London, the fifth of seven children. He posting pictures that include women, asking hard spoke mostly Yiddish with his father, a writer and local questions,” he said. community activist, English with his mother, who worked as a wig-maker and chef. “Both of my parents “I don’t have a high school diploma, no degrees,” are very booksmart,” he said. “So I read a lot, and I Kornbluh told me. “I learned on my own from reading. listened to the radio and read newspapers all the time.” When I needed a word, I googled it. I am self-made, because I am so passionate about it, that I really At 16, Kornbluh was sent to yeshiva in Israel; at 20, he wanted to do it.” moved to Brooklyn, was introduced to and married a woman from Williamsburg, and started working at a He quickly earned the attention of readers — and A prophet in his own city: Jacob Kornbluh, the Hasidic reporter standing up for social-distancing 2 GET THE LATEST AT FORWARD.COM respect from sources. David Greenfield, a former still Jacob from JP Updates, who instead of going member of the New York City Council who is now chief drinking with the other reporters went to the Kotel and executive of Met Council, a Jewish charity serving New to Meah Shearim.” York’s needy, described Kornbluh as a reporter of Until the coronavirus hit, Kornbluh tried to integrity who is careful to protect his sources. compartmentalize his work and his community. “I do “We have had people from the Hasidic community this six days a week,” Kornbluh told me, referring to his break into politics,” noted Greenfield, who is also journalism. “But there’s always the seventh day, when Orthodox.“But Jacob is the first to break into political you have a different role, as a member of the Hasidic journalism. I saw him once in the supermarket, back community and not as a journalist.” when he was just a blogger, and I told him, ‘You are going to become the most famous Hasidic journalist in Enemies of the people America.’” Then came the pandemic. In October 2015, Kornbluh moved on to Jewish Insider, In March, when some Hasidic shuls and schools were which aspired to be the Politico of the Jewish world, slower than secular institutions to shut down, Kornbluh with a must-read morning briefing. “The fact that for was a strong voice on Twitter and on community the past five years, I’ve written for a national Jewish WhatsApp groups urging people to take social publication, not an Orthodox one, helped me,” he said. distancing seriously. “I informed the community about “It’s not like I work for a Hasidic publication where I those guidelines,” he later explained to me. “I have to adhere to certain rules, where I couldn’t profile communicated with local officials about the issues a woman, for example.” raised by the community, and also about how very Kornbluh reports on Jewish politics, from New York to challenging it is for us to actually practice those Washington, D.C. to Jerusalem. He isn’t usually focused guidelines.” on the Orthodox beat, but he does regularly comment Early on, Kornbluh got sick himself — for three weeks, on community issues, on Twitter and elsewhere. “At the he chronicled his illness and recovery on Twitter. (His same time, outside, I am in this position where I can test later showed negative for antibodies.) One by one, shine a positive light on my community,” he said, “not Kornbluh watched family members, neighbors, and only tell the stories you read in the New York Post, the friends contract the virus — in Boro Park, in sex abusers and the slumlords.” Williamsburg, in Lakewood and back in his hometown Kornbluh has five children, yet seems to essentially of Stamford Hill. Eight of his relatives and friends died. work 24/6 (his phone is of course off for Shabbos). He Over Passover, he walked by his own synagogue and seems to know just about everyone, and to live-tweet was shocked to see 40 men davening inside, despite it events as easily as he breathes.