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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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The post YouTuber Drew Binsky makes a travel video about Hasidic Brooklyn appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Hamas Uses Sydney Terror Attack to Reaffirm Its Doctrine of Killing Jews Worldwide
A Palestinian man points a weapon in the air after it was announced that Israel and Hamas agreed on the first phase of a Gaza ceasefire, in the central Gaza Strip, October 9. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa
Following Sunday’s terror attack in Sydney where Muslim terrorists murdered at least 15 people and wounded 29 others, Hamas’ official television channel, Al-Aqsa TV, published a post seeking to legitimize the killing of one of the victims, Rabbi Eli Schlanger.
The post emphasized that Rabbi Schlanger had traveled to Israel in October 2023 and met with Israeli soldiers to show support following Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre. Al-Aqsa TV published photos of the rabbi with Israeli soldiers, portraying this act of solidarity as evidence that he had “assisted” Israel in what Hamas calls a “war of annihilation.”
Posted text:“Pictures published on the pages of settlers of Rabbi Eli Schlanger, an emissary of the Chabad Movement who was killed [on Dec. 14, 2025] in an attack on a Jewish [Hanukkah] celebration in Sydney at a time when he was meeting with soldiers from the occupation [i.e., Israeli] army in order to assist them in the war of annihilation.”
[Al-Aqsa TV (Hamas), Telegram channel, Dec. 14, 2025]
Under this framework, Hamas portrays a Jewish religious leader attending a holiday celebration in Australia as a legitimate target because he once expressed solidarity with Israelis after October 7.
Hamas, however, does not need a military connection, political activity, or personal responsibility to legitimize the killing of Jews by Muslims.
The claim that Rabbi Eli Schlanger met with Israeli soldiers is merely a post-hoc rationalization, designed to disguise Hamas’ core belief that Jews must be killed because they are guilty of the crime of being Jews.
In one of its music videos calling for Palestinians to murder Jews, Hamas published this poster with the words: “Killing Jews is worship that draws us close to Allah:”
This principle is also enshrined explicitly in its charter — and it defines how Hamas views Jewish civilians and acts of terror against Jews everywhere.
Article 7 of the Hamas Charter presents this as a divine command, quoting an Islamic hadith:
The time (of Resurrection) will not come until Muslims will fight the Jews; until the Jews hide behind rocks and trees, which will cry: ‘O Muslim! There is a Jew hiding behind me—come and kill him!’
[Sahih Muslim, Book 041, Number 6985]
This is not a call to fight Israelis. It is not a reference to soldiers. The target is Jews as Jews, wherever they are.
What happened in Sydney was a direct application of Hamas’ ideology.
Ephraim D. Tepler is a contributor to Palestinian Media Watch (PMW). Itamar Marcus is the Founder and Director of PMW, where a version of this article first appeared.
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Australian authorities confirm that Bondi Beach attackers were affiliated with Islamic State terror group
(JTA) — The father-and-son duo who killed 15 people during an attack on a Hanukkah celebration in Sydney on Sunday were motivated by “Islamic State ideology,” Australian authorities have confirmed.
Australian media had reported on Monday that the country’s intelligence service had previously investigated Naveed Akram, the son, over his ties to members of an Islamic State cell in Sydney.
On Tuesday, officials confirmed the account and revealed that both Naveed Akram and his father Sajid spent most of November in a region of the Philippines where the Islamic State maintains a stronghold. Officials believe the pair received military training there, though they would not say whether the trip had alarmed security officials at the time.
“It would appear that there is evidence that this was inspired by a terrorist organization, by ISIS,” Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said at a press conference on Tuesday. He confirmed that Islamic State flags had been found in Naveed Akram’s car, abandoned at the scene of the shooting.
The revelations complicate the narrative that emerged immediately after the attack connecting it to Australia’s recent pro-Palestinian protest movement, which has at times featured antisemitic displays and attacks on Jewish sites.
But the Islamic State and Hamas, the leading Palestinian liberation organization whose attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, triggered the war in Gaza, have historically been at odds, with the Sunni Islamic State openly viewing Hamas as insufficiently Islamic and an avatar of Iran and Shia Islam.
The Islamic State is a decades-old terrorist group that for a time acted as al-Qaeda’s affiliate and promotes Islamic fundamentalism; its enemy, broadly speaking, is the West and its targets have ranged from Christian churches to concerts to public festivities. Last year, an Islamic State-inspired operative killed 14 people at a New Year’s street party in New Orleans, and the group claimed credit for an attack on a Moscow concert hall that killed more than 140.
Hamas, on the other hand, sought to impose some strictures of Islamic law in Gaza, which it has controlled, but allows a far more permissive religious and cultural environment. Its express goal is the elimination of Israel, and attacks staged by its affiliates abroad, typically supported by Iranian cells, have tended to target Jewish and Israeli sites — as has been the case in Australia, which recently expelled the Iranian ambassador over his country’s alleged ties to a string of attacks on synagogues.
In the immediate aftermath of the Oct. 7 attack, the Israeli government promoted an equivalency between the two groups, citing their similarly brutal tactics. But some experts in terror movements balked at the comparison.
“The Islamic State literally views Hamas as apostates and IS supporters have been pillaging Hamas online since Saturday bc they are tools of Shia Iran and also don’t actually implement sharia [Islamic law] according to IS’s interpretations,” Aaron Zelin, a senior fellow Washington Institute for Near East Policy, tweeted at the time.
But two years of war in Gaza that activated pro-Palestinian sentiment in many places around the world may have shifted the distinctions between the movements, according to terrorism experts, who also say the Islamic State has become more decentralized over time.
Rommel Banlaoi, a political scientist focused on terrorism in the Philippines, told the New York Times this week that a December 2023 attack on a Catholic mass there had marked a turning point for the group.
“Before, the focus was on creating an Islamic state,” Banlaoi said. “Now it has transformed to helping Muslims, Palestinians displaced by the Middle East violence.”
In part, the shift may reflect an opportunistic approach to the masses of people activated online in support of the Palestinian cause. A “Worldwide Threat Assessment” prepared by the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency in May said the Islamic State and al-Qaeda were showing signs of trying to capitalize on a new audience.
“Both groups continue to reference Israeli operations in Gaza to galvanize their global networks, recruit new members, generate revenue, and enable or inspire attacks against U.S., Israeli, Jewish, and European interests worldwide,” the report said.
An unnamed “senior Arab security official” told the Washington Post in the wake of the Bondi Beach attack that online activism tied to the Islamic State had surged during the war in Gaza. “They are exploiting the emotional outrage of Muslims and use reports of [Muslim] women and children being killed or allegedly starved as tools of recruitment,” the security official said.
Counterterrorism experts also believe that an increased focus on threats related directly to the war in Gaza could have undercut those trying to monitor and stop the Islamic State. Brett Holmgren, then a top counterterrorism official in the Biden administration, for example, said at an event hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies last year that the Islamic State was regrouping “as governments shifted attention and resources to the conflict in Gaza.”
The Islamic State has not claimed responsibility for the Bondi Beach attack, which was immediately condemned by the governments of Arab states that are supportive of the Palestinian cause. Authorities have not said whether the attackers left any record of their intentions or motivation beyond the Islamic State flags found in their car.
The post Australian authorities confirm that Bondi Beach attackers were affiliated with Islamic State terror group appeared first on The Forward.
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New footage emerges of Jewish man trying to disarm Bondi Beach shooters before massacre
(JTA) — An elderly Jewish man sought to stop the Bondi Beach Hanukkah attackers and was their first victim, according to dramatic dashcam footage that emerged on Tuesday.
Boris Gurman, 69, came upon the attackers as they exited their car and confronted them, according to the footage, which first appeared on Chinese social media after being posted by a Sydney resident and has been verified by Australian media as well as his family.
The grainy footage shows Gurman appearing to have been able to take hold of one gun before the attacker retrieves another weapon and shoots him. The footage shows Gurman, wearing a purple shirt, being thrown to the ground during the confrontation with the attackers, whom authorities have identified as Sajid and Naveed Akram.
Boris Gurman’s wife Sofia, 61, was also murdered at the outset of the attack, which ultimately killed 15 people who had gathered for a Chabad Hanukkah celebration on the beach.
The couple, immigrants to Australia, had been married for nearly 35 years and had retired from their jobs as a mechanic and postal worker.
“In the moments before their passing, Boris — with Sofia courageously beside him — attempted to intervene to protect others,” said a statement accompanying a crowdfunding campaign to benefit their family, including son Alex. “This act of bravery and selflessness reflects exactly who they were: people who instinctively chose to help, even at great personal risk. While nothing can lessen the pain of this loss, we feel immense pride in their courage and humanity.”
The footage adds new details to what is known about the massacre, which unfolded over more than 10 minutes on Sunday evening, the first night of Hanukkah.
A different man who tried and failed to stop the shooting by tackling and disarming one of the shooters, Ahmed al Ahmed, has been hailed for his heroism and had more than $1.3 million raised on his behalf, including from Jewish donors from around the world.
Meanwhile the daughter of Reuven Morrison, a Jewish man killed in the massacre, said he had been the one caught on camera throwing bricks at the shooter after al Ahmed’s intervention.
“If there was one way for him to go on this earth, it would be fighting a terrorist,” Sheina Gutnick told CBS News about her father. “There was no other way he would be taken from us. He went down fighting, protecting the people he loved most.”
The post New footage emerges of Jewish man trying to disarm Bondi Beach shooters before massacre appeared first on The Forward.