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Jooish

Jewish Breaking News

Arabic Billboard Appears in NYC

Aug 10, 2026·1 min read

Rabbi Elchanan Poupko, a Jewish advocate who is prolific on X, posted a photo of a billboard he passed in New York City Sunday.

The sign was in Arabic.

An Arabic-language billboard was spotted in New York City. (Credit: Rabbi Poupko)

Poupko argued that it’s “beautiful” to have billboards in Arabic, but asked why there aren’t billboards in Yiddish or Spanish.

“22.7% of New Yorkers speak Spanish, followed by Chinese at about 5.4%, Russian at 2.5%, Bengali at 2.1%, Yiddish at 1.1%, Hebrew at approximately 0.6%, Haitian at about 0.5%, Korean at 0.5% and Arabic at 0.4%,” he noted.

The sign is innocuous, merely saying that “Your health comes first, and your celebration is assured. And [the] festivals are at your service.” Smaller text at the bottom reads, ““We’re waiting for you at any of our celebrations/holidays.”

While anyone can pay for a billboard to say anything they want, it has not occurred to far larger minorities to post billboards in their native languages.