Ami Magazine

Ami Magazine (Hebrew: עמי, "My people") is an international news magazine that caters to the Orthodox Jewish community. It is published weekly in New York and Israel. The magazine was launched in November 2010 by Rabbi Yitzchok Frankfurter (previously Torah Editor for Mishpacha) and his wife Rechy Frankfurter (previously Mishpacha's American Desk Editor).^[1][2][3]

Ami Magazine

Publisher	Rabbi Yitzchok Frankfurter
First issue	November 2010
Company	Ami Magazine
Country	United States
Based in	Brooklyn, New York
Language	English
Website	http://amimagazine.org/
ISSN	2638-9894
OCLC	941069076

Coverage

 

Jake Turx at the press briefing featured on the cover of the magazine

 

Ami Magazines for sale in Lakewood, New Jersey

Ami has featured interviews with celebrities both Jewish and non-Jewish, including former White House Press secretaries Sean Spicer^[4] and Ari Fleischer^[5] as well as John Dean who served as White House Counsel during the Watergate scandal for United States President Richard Nixon from July 1970 until April 1973.^[6] Ami has also interviewed rabbis including Rav Yissachar Dov Rokeach (fifth Belzer rebbe),^[7] Rabbi Yisrael Horowitz of Kaliv,^[8] Rabbi Dovid Soloveitchik, Rabbi Baruch Mordechai Ezrachi, Rabbi Nissan Kaplan, Rabbi Manis Friedman, Rabbi Reuven Feinstein, and Rabbi Nosson Scherman.^[9] Ami also has had exclusive interviews with President Donald Trump,^[10] Senator Ted Cruz, Senator Marco Rubio, Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul, George Pataki,^[11][12] and Ben Carson.

Ami's political correspondent Jake Turx became the magazine's first member of the White House press corps with the start of the Donald Trump administration.^[13] During a February 16, 2017 press briefing, Turx began asking a question about the government's response to antisemitic threats across the United States, but was stopped in mid-question by Trump, who felt he was being personally attacked and denied being antisemitic or racist.^[13][14][15] Merriam-Webster reported that following the Trump-Turx exchange "anti-Semitism" look-ups spiked that week.^[16]

Some rabbis in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn asked that Ami (along with the Jewish publications of Mishpacha and Hamodia) not be read after the magazine published a piece about Jewish religious terrorism perpetrated by Sikrikim and sympathizers of the Jerusalem-based Edah HaChareidis organization. The Satmar Rebbe of Kiryas Joel, Rav Aaron Teitelbaum, along with various other Jewish leaders, have since that time condemned some of the communities which make up the Edah HaChareidis for alleged extremism.^[17][18][19]

Ami also produces a women's magazine called Ami Living and a tween magazine called Aim!.^[13] They publish a standalone food magazine Whisk that is packaged with the rest of the Ami Magazine sections, as well as Ami Business,^[20] a section in the main magazine featuring LunchBreak-interviews by Nesanel Gantz with businessmen and entrepreneurs, JTank-"the Jewish version of sharktank",^[21] and more.^{[citation needed]} The issue released in the week before a Jewish festival often include two different main magazines.

Ami journalists and writers have traveled to several continents and numerous countries, spanning North Korea, Saudi Arabia , Malta, Cuba, Iraq, the Nevada desert surrounding Area 51, Chernobyl, Afghanistan, a possible location of Mount Sinai, the burial place of Aharon HaKohen in Jordan, Murphy Ranch in California, and more.

The Exclusive Ami Magazine Poll

On December 11, 2019, shortly before the Impeachment trial of Donald Trump, Ami published a poll it had taken among 723 Orthodox Jews, asking five questions, four of them pertaining to the presidency of Donald Trump, with an overwhelming majority expressing themselves in favor. The first question, Do you approve of the job Donald Trump is doing as president? showed 89 percent approving, 6 percent undecided, and five percent disapproving. Answering to whether Trump should be impeached, 91 percent answered in the negative; when asked who they trusted more in regard to fighting anti-Semitism, Trump and the Republicans or Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats, 92.5 percent of those answering chose Trump and the Republicans, while 6 percent were undecided and 1.5 chose Pelosi and the Democrats; and when asked which president they felt accomplished the most for Israel's security, 82.5 percent responded with President Trump, 9.5 percent chose Ronald Reagan, with the remaining 8 percent divided among George W. Bush, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama. The last question asked was whether the pollees were registered as Republicans, Democrats, or Independents, and showed 39.5 percent as Republicans, 26 percent as Democrats, 16.5 as independents, ad 18 percent as unregistered.

The poll, titled The Exclusive Ami Magazine Poll, What Orthodox Jews really think about President Trump , gained much fame after Trump tweeted it.^[22][23]

Notable staff

• John Loftus, columnist^[24]
• Rafael Medoff, columnist
• Rabbi Mordechai Kamenetzky (rosh yeshiva of Yeshiva of South Shore)
• Rabbi Moshe Taub,^[25] rabbinic editor and weekly contributor
• Rabbi Shais Taub, weekly advice columnist
• Jake Turx, White House correspondent^[26]
• Nesanel Gantz, columnist
• Shloime Zionce
• Isaac Horowitz

Controversy

Lev Tahor.[27] The article was written by Ami Magazine's Editor-in-Chief Rabbi Yisroel Adler. 

References

1. Adlerstein, Yitzchok (February 28, 2011). "Reading, Writing, and a New Periodical for the Jewish Home". Cross-currents. Retrieved March 16, 2013.
2. Berger, Zackery Sholem (August 8, 2012). "Haredi Women's Lit Explodes". Tablet Magazine. Retrieved March 16, 2013.
3. "See New Ami Magazine - Yeshiva World News".
4. Magazine, Ami (April 7, 2017). "In this week's mega double issue of Ami: Ami's White House Correspondent, @JakeTurx, sits down for a one-on-one with @PressSec Sean Spicer". twitter.com. Retrieved September 11, 2017.
5. Frankfurter, Rabbi Yitzchok (March 15, 2017). "Between The President and The Press / A one-on-one with former White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer". amimagazine.org. Retrieved September 11, 2017.
6. Frankfurter, Rabbi Yitzchok (July 19, 2017). "A Witness to Presidential Corruption // John Dean, Who Brought Down President Nixon In an Explosive Interview". amimagazine.org. Retrieved September 11, 2017.
7. "Media - American Friends of Hidabroot". www.hidabrootchannel.org.
8. "A Conversation with the Present Kaliver Rebbe About Fulfilling His Promise to the Previous Kaliver Rebbe | Ami Magazine". April 29, 2020.
9. "A Conversation with Rabbi Nosson Scherman on Chinuch | Ami Magazine". June 21, 2017.
10. Ti, Tomim (May 4, 2016). "The Partial View: Ami Magazine gets Trump". thepartialview.blogspot.com. Retrieved September 11, 2017.
11. Frankfurter, Rabbi Yitzchok (February 1, 2012). . Ami. Archived from the original on January 11, 2014. Retrieved October 9, 2013.
12. Turx. . Ami. Archived from the original on March 5, 2016. Retrieved October 9, 2013.
13. Goodstein, Laurie (February 17, 2016). "A Jewish Reporter Got to Ask Trump a Question. It Didn't Go Well". The New York Times. Retrieved February 17, 2016.
14. Oppenheim, Maya (February 18, 2017). "Donald Trump accuses Jewish reporter of lying and tells him to 'sit down' in response to anti-semitism question". The Independent. from the original on February 17, 2017. Retrieved February 19, 2017.
15. "Trump shouts down ultra-Orthodox reporter who asks about anti-Semitism". The Times of Israel. February 16, 2017. Retrieved February 17, 2017.
16. "Merriam-Webster Reports 'Anti-Semitism' Lookups Spiked after Trump Mention". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved June 28, 2018.
17. TheJewishSongs (July 4, 2017). "Satmar Rebbe Reb Aaron Teitelbaum Speaks About Israeli Draft". Retrieved September 11, 2017 – via YouTube.
18. Hoffman, Rabbi Yair (July 16, 2012). "Op-Ed: On Vigilantism And AMI Magazine". Vosizneias. Retrieved March 16, 2013.
19. "Holier Than Thou – 16 Satmar Rabbanim Ban Frum Magazines". On This and On That. January 22, 2012. Retrieved March 17, 2013.
20. https://www.amimagazine.org/category/ami-business/120.^{[dead link]}
21. "JTank Submissions | Ami Magazine".
22. "President Trump Tweets Ami Magazine's Poll On Orthodox Jews". Vosizneias.com. December 11, 2019. Retrieved October 1, 2020.
23. "Trump has strong support among Orthodox Jews, poll shows". Foxnews.com. Fox News. December 11, 2019. Retrieved October 1, 2020.
24. "John Loftus | Ami Magazine". www.amimagazine.org. Retrieved April 20, 2020.
25. "Rabbi Moshe Taub". Buffalo Vaad Hakashrut. Retrieved October 23, 2014.
26. Goodstein, Laurie (February 17, 2017). "A Jewish Reporter Got to Ask Trump a Question. It Didn't Go Well". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved April 20, 2020.
27. Editor, Y. W. (May 1, 2014). "Cults and the War of the Jewish Magazines". The Yeshiva World. Retrieved July 7, 2022. {{cite web}}: |last= has generic name (help)

External links

• Official website
• Zev Brenner interviews Rabbi Frankfurter, publisher of Ami magazine, on the topic of child sexual abuse within the charedi community (14 December 2011)
• "How Ami Magazine Convinced Me to Celebrate Yom HaAtzmaut"