Elad Nehorai (born September 23, 1984) is an American writer, activist, and social and political commentator. A left-wing, formerly Orthodox Jew, his writing and activism typically revolves around social justice, mental health, religion, opposition to antisemitism, and advocacy for arts education, particularly within the Jewish community.
Nehorai came to prominence through his blog Pop Chassid, where he looked at pop culture through a Jewish lens. In 2014, he co-founded Hevria, a Jewish arts and culture website and in-person community, where he was an editor-in-chief and head event organizer until January 2020. Following the 2016 United States presidential election and the ascendancy of Donald Trump, Nehorai became involved with the organization Torah Trumps Hate, a Jewish-run social justice advocacy group.
He has written for The Guardian, HuffPost, The Forward (where he was a columnist), The Times of Israel, Haaretz, Chabad.org, The Daily Beast, and the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, and has appeared on HLN, i24 News, and BBC Radio. Nehorai was included in The Jewish Week's annual "36 Under 36" list in 2016, and in 2018 the Jewish Telegraphic Agency listed him among its "50 Jews Everyone Should Follow on Twitter".
Early life
Nehorai grew up in Branford, Connecticut and Highland Park, Illinois. He is the child of Israeli parents and is three-quarters Sephardi Jewish and quarter Ashkenazi Jewish, and he has written about being subjected to racist teasing and "terrorist" jokes by classmates due to his Middle Eastern appearance.
Nehorai attended Arizona State University, where he was a member of ASU for Israel, a division of the campus Hillel branch focused on pro-Israel activism, and often spoke at the group's rallies. He also became involved with the school's Chabad house, led by Rabbi Shmuel Tiechtel, which contributed to him becoming a baal teshuva later in life. He later attended Mayanot Institute in Israel, graduating in 2012.
Notable projects and activism
Pop Chassid
Nehorai began blogging as Pop Chassid in 2010. The blog initially focused on movies and chassidus, examining pop culture through a Jewish lens, but gradually Nehorai began writing about more personal topics such as his struggles with addiction and mental health, his marriage, and his views on religion and politics.
In April 2013, in honor of Yom HaShoah, Nehorai published a Pop Chassid post entitled "20 Photos That Change The Holocaust Narrative", in which he sought to challenge the perception of Holocaust victims as helpless and destitute by showing images of Jews defying and ultimately surviving Nazi persecution. The post subsequently went viral, reaching 22,000 likes on Facebook and temporarily crashing the Pop Chassid site due to the traffic. Nehorai later published a sequel post, "20 More Photos That Change The Holocaust Narrative", in 2016.
Another post published in 2013, "I Didn't Love My Wife When We Got Married", wherein Nehorai discussed his relationship with his wife and his thoughts on love in general, went similarly viral. Tracy Moore, writing for Jezebel, said of the piece: "It's worth a read for its unique perspective, but also for its universal truths: Your definition of love changes as your relationship grows; it becomes more about the effort you make and less about a feeling that has consumed you."
"I Have A Therapist" In 2013, Nehorai helped launch "I Have A Therapist", a campaign intended to promote mental health awareness and destigmatize therapy. The campaign took the form of a Tumblr blog which published photos of people holding signs reading "I have a therapist", "Therapy is awesome", and similar messages, as well as accounts by visitors of their personal experiences with mental illness. Nehorai was inspired by conversations with Chasidic singer-songwriter Esther Freeman, as well as his own experience with bipolar disorder, and financed the blog through Charidy, a web fundraising startup of which he was co-founder and chief marketing officer. More than 5,400 people visited the site between October 16 and November 4, 2013.
"Sleeping on Strangers on the Subway" photo and video
That same year, Nehorai discovered a photo on Reddit showing 65-year-old Jewish man Isaac Theil allowing a tired fellow passenger on the Brooklyn-bound Q train to rest on his shoulder. Moved by the image, Nehorai shared the photo to the Charidy Facebook page; the picture subsequently went viral, garnering over one million likes and nearly 200,000 shares on Facebook.