The hesitancy among many in the Orthodox community to engage in online culture wars has fallen away over the last decade, as Orthodox Jews have come to see how influential one may be on social media, said David Bashevkin, an Orthodox educator who writes about the community’s engagement in the secular world. In the runup to the 2020 election, Orthodox Trump supporters rallied in the streets for him in Brooklyn and demonstrated against the pandemic restrictions he mocked the son of a prominent Brooklyn judge who led a national Orthodox synagogue group was present among the rioters, while some Orthodox publications blamed leftists for the siege or downplayed the gravity of the Capitol mob’s actions. She claimed to be present during the Jan. Raichik, in previous incarnations on Twitter, has embraced former President Donald Trump’s lies about the results of the 2020 presidential election. It also is renewing conversation about how deeply some members of the Orthodox community are embedded in the American far right. Meanwhile, the Post’s revelation of Raichik’s name and of her faith affiliation spurred outrage among conservatives, who accused the newspaper of antisemitism and of “doxing” her, or revealing her identity in order to harm her. Who Chaya Raichik is, and if and how she might be connected to that dynasty, spurred speculation among many Jews on Tuesday. Raichik is a prominent name associated with Orthodox Jews in South California, where Rabbi Shmuel Dovid Raichik was an early emissary of the Chabad movement and where his son Shimon was a top leader until his death last year.
Get The Jewish Chronicle Weekly Edition by email and never miss our top stories The newspaper reported nothing else about Raichik’s Jewish identity, but it said she recently moved from New York City to Los Angeles. That information was contained at one point in Raichik’s Twitter bio, where users often share elements of their identities, The Washington Post reported.