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YouTuber Drew Binsky makes a travel video about Hasidic Brooklyn
(New York Jewish Week) — For eight years now, vlogger Drew Binsky has made a living traveling the world, creating content that aims to lift the curtains on remote communities for his 3.6 million YouTube subscribers.
He’s visited places as hard to reach as North Korea and South Sudan. But in his most recent video, Binsky, who is Jewish, doesn’t even leave the country. Instead, he takes his camera to Brooklyn to explore the different Hasidic movements, members of what he describes as “the most religious and closed-off community in America.”
“I’m really interested in different belief systems of every religion,” Binsky, whose real last name is Goldberg, told the New York Jewish Week via phone from his home base in Arizona. “Micro-communities and people that take anything to the extreme are fascinating to me.”
The 43-minute video, twice as long as a typical Binsky production, has garnered nearly 800,000 views since it was posted on YouTube on Monday. In it, Binsky, who grew up Reform, explains the history of Hasidism in New York and the customs and traditions of the insular community.
The video took six months and a team of five to film and produce, Binsky, 31, said. It begins in Washington Heights, with Binsky on camera talking to Yeshiva University students about how Hasidic Judaism is different from their brand of Modern Orthodoxy — and featuring some seriously delicious-looking shawarma from an Amsterdam Avenue eatery called Golan Heights — before heading to the Hasidic enclaves of South Williamsburg and Borough Park.
In Brooklyn, Binsky is accompanied by ex-Hasidic community member and transgender activist Abby Stein. Together they eat matzah ball soup, sesame chicken and stuffed cabbage at Gottlieb’s Deli, visit Eichlers Judaica shop and drop by both a newsstand and synagogue to learn more about worship and local customs. At the close of the video, Binsky celebrates Shabbat with the family of Shloime Zionce, a Hasidic Jew and fellow travel vlogger, who lends him a bekishe (a traditional black overcoat) and shtreimel (a fur hat) to help him look the part of a Hasidic man.
“As a Jew and someone who has celebrated Shabbat in many countries around the world, I must say that this one was the most special,” Binsky says in the video.
The idea for a video about Hasidic Brooklyn stemmed from the years-long online friendship between Binsky and Stein. After connecting on social media, the pair began to plan an excursion to Williamsburg to learn more about Stein’s life and childhood: Stein had grown up in the community, became a rabbi, married a woman and had a son before leaving the community when she came out as transgender in 2012.
“I think it’s helpful to see Williamsburg and the Hasidic community to really get a better sense of things and the work I’m doing to support LGBTQ people,” Stein, 31, told the New York Jewish Week. “As we were doing that, I think that’s when Drew basically realized, there’s a larger story about the community as a whole.” That, in turn, led the pair to explore Borough Park and its environs as well. Stein explains that Borough Park is slightly more open to outsiders than Williamsburg, and so Binsky may have better luck with interviews.
Famous for having visited every country in the world, it’s rare for Binsky to make videos about life in the United States — he estimated only 1% of his 1,000-plus videos are about American communities. “It’s nothing against the U.S. As an American, I’m more fascinated with other places because this is my own country. But if I can find these insular pockets, that’s really interesting,” Binsky said. “The most extreme Jews are Hasidic but it wasn’t until I actually went to South Williamsburg and to Lee Avenue, deep into the community, that I really got to learn about it.”
Haredi Orthodox communities have been bristling under the attention they’ve received of late, starting with criticism for the way many members flouted COVID-19 rules early in the pandemic and lately after a series of New York Times investigations said Hasidic yeshivas were failing to provide adequate education in secular subjects.
Orthodox activists say such coverage fosters stereotypes that have led to an uptick in street attacks on visibly Orthodox Jews. In January, Agudath Israel of America pushed back with a billboard and website campaign, called KnowUs.org, meant to “dispel stereotypes” about the community. Most of its content defends the yeshiva system.
Stein understands why Americans are fascinated with Hasidim. “Americans and American TV have been obsessed with cults and fundamentalist communities for a long time,” she said. “In some ways, [the fascination] is an opportunity — to lean in, to raise awareness, to help people who have left or people who want to leave, and also to affect potential positive change within the community for people who are happy being there.”
In the video, in which Binsky talks to both members and ex-members of the community of all ages (though aside from Stein, Binsky briefly talks to only one other woman). He’s rebuffed by some passersby but is embraced by others who are eager to share their stories.
“They really didn’t want to talk to me, they didn’t want to be interviewed,” Binsky said, adding it was one of the more challenging videos he’s made in a first-world country. “To not be welcomed by my own community is really frustrating.”
Still, he said, “I thought I told a well-balanced story. Non-Jewish and secular Jewish viewers have told me it’s the best video I’ve ever made.”
The only backlash he’s received, Binsky said, has been from a handful of Hasidic community members who criticized his friendship with Stein and his decision to center her narrative in the video. In some emails he’s received, Binsky said she was referred to as “Abe” and misgendered by her ex-community.
“I knew that shooting with Abby would be controversial, but I did it because I wanted to have that story about the community,” Binsky said. “But I also want to be like, look, she’s a real person, and you guys have to deal with it.
The top comments on the YouTube video are indeed positive. “This was absolutely beautiful,” wrote one user. “As a semi hasidic Jew myself I was touched by your coverage. I was moved to tears watching Shlomo bless his children on Friday night.”
“I have loved every single one of your travel videos — but this may honestly be your best work yet,” another viewer wrote. “To get this level of insight is incredible and brings a human element to the mystery!”
While the pair acknowledged that the video could be seen as exploiting a community that Americans are already obsessed with, neither Stein nor Binsky felt it was done in bad taste. “I would say when you’re working with people in the community, it’s not that it’s OK for us to tell our stories, it’s important for us to be able to,” Stein said.
In the past, Binsky has made videos about Jews in Ethiopia, Turkmenistan and Yemen, and in 2019 he visited Zebulon Simontov, who was famous for being the last remaining Jew in Afghanistan. He is currently planning a trip and to create a video about the Igbo Jews in Nigeria.
“I have a very global audience, so I try to educate people about the world and make high-quality content that can be viewed by any age and any nationality,” Binsky said. “My shtick is to have a lot of courage and go to places and just share the real story from my perspective.”
“Am I ‘exploiting’ them? Yes, to some degree,” he added. “But I still feel like I have to do that as part of my mission to tell the story. Otherwise, the story won’t get told.”
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Maryland kosher pizzeria to furloughed federal workers: You can pay us back later
Earlier this month, Josh Katz noticed a dip in sales at his kosher restaurant, Ben Yehuda Pizza in Silver Spring, Maryland.
He knew the culprit, and it wasn’t antisemitism or an anti-Israel boycott. The federal government’s shutdown had left hundreds of thousands of federal employees across the country furloughed, and his regular customers were tightening their belts.
“People are being a little bit more vocal about their financial insecurities at the moment,” said Katz. “They’re just not sure when they’re going to be getting a paycheck.”
In Silver Spring alone, the headquarters of the Food and Drug Administration draws over 10,000 federal employees. In the greater Washington, D.C. area, roughly 280,000 workers are employed by the federal government. With all of those workers going multiple weeks without paychecks, Katz said he’d heard from members of his community who were feeling the financial strain.
So last week, he posted an offer on Facebook: “Order now, and pay us down the road when the paychecks come in.” Soon, the first requests started rolling in.
“We’re not giving anything away for free here, but I realized by just allowing people to defer payments, that could really help with their sense of normalcy,” Katz said.
The post did not take a stance on the shutdown, which has hinged on a stalemate between Democratic and Republican senators over competing spending bills and does not appear to be near resolution. “We try to avoid politics at Ben Yehuda,” it said. “We support the Pizza Party, but that’s about as far as we go.”
Ben Yehuda Pizza is located in Kemp Mill, a neighborhood of Silver Spring with a sizable Orthodox Jewish population and multiple synagogues and Jewish community centers. Katz said that while the deal was open to all federal workers, most of his regular customers are Jewish.
He said the timing of the shutdown, which began on Oct. 1 and coincided with the beginning of Yom Kippur, had further compounded the strain on local Jewish families he serves.
“When it started during the holidays, all of a sudden we have massive food bills, because we have to pay for all these festive meals,” said Katz. “When you’re not sure when the next check is going to come, you tighten the belt, or maybe you’re not as festive as you’d ideally like.”
Jewish leaders and groups across the country have mobilized to support unpaid federal government workers affected by the shutdown, some of whom are working essential roles without being paid.
In San Diego, the local branch of the Jewish Family Service began distributing bags of groceries to affected federal workers just days into the shutdown. It has has since provided over 5,700 meals to about 1,000 families.
And multiple free loan societies have created special programs for federal workers, echoing an initiative offered by the Hebrew Free Loan Association of Greater Washington during the 2018 shutdown that lasted 35 days, setting a record that could soon be eclipsed. The Hebrew Free Loan Society of New York, for example, is providing interest-free loans of up to $7,500 for federal employees affected by the current shutdown.
On Friday, Katz said two families had already signed up for Ben Yehuda’s payment deferment deal. But far more community members, he said, had reached out asking how they could contribute a meal to a federal employee.
“That’s really what inspires me, is seeing people who are willing to do that,” he said. “That’s really been the most beautiful thing that comes out of this.”
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Rep. Randy Fine denounces Tucker Carlson as ‘most dangerous antisemite in America’
LAS VEGAS — Most of the Republicans denouncing an explosion of antisemitism on the right at this weekend’s Republican Jewish Coalition convention refrained from naming names.
Not so for Randy Fine, one of four Jewish Republicans in Congress.
“Make no mistake. Today, Tucker Carlson is the most dangerous antisemite in America,” he said during an address Saturday morning. “He has chosen to take on the mantle of leader of a modern-day Hitler Youth.”
He continued by listing Carlson’s offenses: “To broadcast and feature those who celebrate the Nazis, those who call for the extermination of Israel, to defend Hamas, to even criticize President Trump for stopping Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Friends, make no mistake: Tucker is not MAGA.”
In front of Fine, dozens of student volunteers held up signs with that message that the RJC had prepared. The group’s convention has taken place under a shadow cast by Carlson, the former Fox News host who last week hosted the white supremacist Nick Fuentes on his popular streaming show.
In their first-ever joint appearance, the duo discussed “these Zionist Jews” at length, with Carlson and Fuentes both expressing opposition to U.S. support for Israel and Fuentes describing his views on Jews and Judaism at length.
The interview spurred distress from some on the right who saw it as evidence of a broad mainstreaming of antisemitism within the Republican Party. It also elicited a striking response from the Heritage Foundation, the conservative think tank that envisioned many of the policies being advanced by the party today.
On Thursday, the foundation’s president, Kevin Roberts, announced in a video statement that not only was he rejecting calls to cut ties with Carlson, but he saw Carlson’s critics as evidence of a “venomous coalition” threatening the party from within.
“If those who support Tucker Carlson want to see a venomous coalition, all they need to do is go look in the mirror,” Fine said, announcing that he was canceling a planned appearance at a Heritage Foundation event next week.
Fine declared that he would no longer allow Heritage staffers entry to his Capitol Hill office.
“I will be calling on all of my colleagues on the Republican side to do the same,” he said.
Fine, who represents a district in central Florida, has the backing of President Donald Trump and has sought to carry the mantle of Trump’s MAGA movement. Calling himself the “Hebrew Hammer,” he has drawn attention for his pugnacious style and unwavering support for the Israeli government.
Fine began his speech by boasting of being the first member of Congress to wear a kippah on the House floor — a move he said was motivated by defiance, not religious piety. He also railed against multiple liberal and pro-Palestinian politicians who are a frequent target of his ire: Reps. Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib, as well as New York City mayoral frontrunner Zohran Mamdani, whom he has called to have deported.
But Fine quickly shifted gears to direct his attention to his own party — and explain why he was one of the few speakers to criticize Carlson explicitly.
“It’s easy to talk about antisemitism on the left. I want to talk about the dark force rising on our side,” he said. “Multiple speakers have talked about the rise of antisemitism on the right. But it is not enough to speak in platitudes or generalities about the fight. We must call evil by its name.”
In addition to Carlson, he also condemned two far-right Republicans in Congress by name: Thomas Massie and Marjorie Taylor Greene, each of whom has criticized U.S. support for Israel and drawn censure for advancing antisemitic conspiracy theories.
As the crowd booed at their names, Fine said, “Some days I marvel at their stupidity. Other days, at their evil. It makes my stomach crawl that I have to sit in the same room as them.”
Fine likened their presence in the party to what he said was a once-fringe presence of antisemitism on the left that had metastasized over time.
The Democrats “said, ‘It’s no big deal. They’re the fringe, no one listens to them, no one will believe them.’ And they didn’t do anything about it, and look where we are now,” he said.
Echoing a message broadcast at the start of the RJC confab by Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, he then said: “So now we have to choose: Will we ignore these embarrassments to our party? Will we pretend that they don’t matter or don’t exist? Will we make the same mistakes the Democrats made so many years ago? I know what I’m going to choose. I’m going to choose to fight.”
Fine did not mention another prominent Republican who has recently ignited antisemitism concerns of his own: Vice President JD Vance, who earlier this month downplayed a Young Republicans’ group chat in which some participants praised Hitler and this week sidestepped an antisemitic question posed to him by a student at the University of Mississippi.
In an interview, Fine said thought Vance was right to forgive the Young Republicans’ chat, saying, “Kids do stupid things.” (Most of the people on the chat were young professionals, some in their 30s.)
But he said he could not comment on Vance’s Ole Miss encounter. “I haven’t seen it, so I couldn’t comment about it,” he said. “I think that was a pretty long event so I haven’t watched it.”
He said he was proud of his own advocacy around college campuses, citing both his activism against pro-Palestinian student protesters at universities and the engagement of the young Jewish Republicans who joined his speech.
“It was very cool for me to have all those kids down there,” Fine said. “It’s part of why I do what I do — to make sure kids feel safe on college campuses.”
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Turkish FM Hosts Hamas Delegation Ahead of Guarantors Meeting in Istanbul
Turkey’s Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan speaks during a press conference following the inaugural meeting of the Balkans Peace Platform, a Turkish-led initiative aimed at fostering dialogue and cooperation across the Western Balkans, in Istanbul, Turkey, July 26, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Murad Seze
i24 News – Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan met with Hamas chief Khalil al-Khayya and other senior members of the jihadist group’s political bureau in Istanbul on Saturday.
Al-Hayya, a senior Hamas negotiator, was among the terror chiefs surviving an Israeli strike on their Doha residence last month. Topics of discussion, according to the Turkish foreign ministry, included the state of the ceasefire and the flow of humanitarian aid.
The meeting comes ahead of Monday’s Istanbul gathering of the foreign ministers of the so-called “guarantor countries” as stipulated in the ceasefire plan put forth by the U.S. administration of President Donald Trump. The countries include Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Turkey and Saudi Arabia.
Meanwhile Israel determined that partial remains of three deceased individuals handed over to Israel by Hamas in Gaza overnight were not those of any of the hostages held in the war-ravaged enclave.
The bodies of 11 hostages are thought to still be in Gaza. Hamas has released 20 living hostages and handed over the remains of 17 others since a U.S.-brokered ceasefire took effect on October 10, bringing to a halt the two-year war sparked by the October 7, 2023 massacre.
The U.S.-brokered truce, which left thorny issues like the disarmament of Hamas unresolved, has seen the jihadist group reassert its control over parts of Gaza by brutal reprisals against Palestinians perceived to be hostile to its rule. The outbreaks of violence by Hamas against both Gazans and Israeli forces have tested the fragile truce.