Tuesday, April 18, 2023

04/18 Links Pt2: Netanyahu tells survivors: ‘You chose life. You believed in good. You helped others,’; Commemoration of the Holocaust Must Involve Knowledge of the Jews—and of Those Who Hate Them

From Ian:

Herzog urges Israelis to set disputes aside in ‘sacred days’ honoring survivors
“I appeal to you, citizens of Israel, with a simple prayer: Let us leave these sacred days, which begin tonight and end on Independence Day, above all dispute,” said Israeli President Isaac Herzog. “Let us all come together, as always, in partnership, in grief, in remembrance.”

Herzog spoke at the state opening ceremony for Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Day 2023 at Yad Vashem on April 17.

He referred to the time, culminating with Israel’s 75th Independence Day next week, as one of “majesty, mercy and truth,” during which “we can truly hear the heartbeats of an entire nation, standing before their ‘Days of Awe.’ ”

He cited many of the Nazi atrocities, including the aim to create a museum in France of the extinct and inferior Jewish race. “My sisters and brothers, with human courage and divine assistance, the Allies overcame the forces of tyranny,” he said. “With human courage and Divine assistance, spirit triumphed; the spirit of our people, who raised themselves up with scarred wings from the gruesome depths of the Holocaust. It was this spirit that triumphed.”

Seventy-five years ago, there was a “miracle” of rebirth and of light triumphing over darkness, said Herzog, calling Holocaust survivors heroes of resurrection who “serve us as a source of inspiration and hope. Every day, including now.”

The Jewish state provides a stable home for Jews, who no longer must depend on others for mercy, said Herzog. He added that the evil of the Nazis and the Holocaust was unique.

“Even in the grips of ferocious disagreements about fate, about destiny, about faith, about values, we must be careful to avoid any comparisons, any equivalences—not

with the Holocaust and not with the Nazis,” he warned.

“At the high point of this sacred day, it seems that even the obvious must be stated: for the Nazi monster, opinions within our nation made not the slightest difference,” he added. “None of the ideologies, beliefs or ways of life—none of the differences or varieties within our people—bore any meaning.”
‘You chose life. You believed in good. You helped others,’ Netanyahu tells survivors
A Hungarian Jew, whose whole family was killed in the Holocaust, was sent to various concentration camps. At Mauthausen in Austria, an SS officer would wake him and other prisoners up every day. “‘You dream of Jerusalem?’ the officer would yell at them. ‘You will never get to see Jerusalem. You will only see Jerusalem only through chimneys of the furnaces,’ ” said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

But the Jewish man never gave up, survived the Holocaust and moved to Israel. He didn’t live in Jerusalem, but he never forgot that city. He started a large family, and as an older man, began working at the Western Wall (Kotel), as Netanyahu told it, speaking at the state opening ceremony for Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Day 2023 at Yad Vashem on April 17.

“That was the greatest victory over the Nazis,” Netanyahu said. Working every day at the Kotel, the man, who passed away at 95 a year-and-a-half ago, felt there was a great turn from Holocaust to rebirth and resurrection.

“A true symbol of our triumph over our enemies,” said Netanyahu.

The scars of the pain of the Holocaust remain forever, he continued. But he also said to the survivors: “You chose life. You believed in good. You helped others.” Many started large families, he noted.

“The height of this victory is the independence of our 75-year-old country. Israel is a vibrant, free, democratic country, with so many achievements,” he said.


Commemoration of the Holocaust Must Involve Knowledge of the Jews—and of Those Who Hate Them
The Passover Haggadah takes care to emphasize that Pharoah wasn’t the only figure to threaten the Jews’ existence, but “in each and every generation they rise up against us to exterminate us.” David Wolpe applies this lesson to Yom HaShoah, which began yesterday evening, and warns of the danger of seeing the Holocaust unmoored from the context of the history of anti-Semitism, and the even greater danger of educating Jews and non-Jews about the history of the Holocaust while teaching them nothing about Jews and Judaism.




Argentina Replaces Indonesia as Host of FIFA U-20 World Cup Following Protest Over Israel’s Involvement
FIFA announced on Monday that Argentina will host the 2023 Under-20 World Cup after Indonesia was stripped of hosting rights due to protest in the country regarding the participation of Israeli athletes in the soccer tournament.

“FIFA is delighted to announce that this year’s edition of the FIFA U-20 World Cup will take place in Argentina, as the home of the world champions opens its doors to tomorrow’s superstars of world football,” FIFA President Gianni Infantino said in a statement. “I would like to thank the [Argentinian Football Association] AFA and particularly its President Claudio Tapia, as well as the governmental authorities, for their commitment to hosting this magnificent event at such short notice.”

He added that “having this year’s edition taking place in a country that lives and breathes football will be a tremendous inspiration for the stars of tomorrow.”

FIFA announced the decision to remove Indonesia as host of the U-20 World Cup on March 29, mere weeks before kick-off, following protests in the capital against Israel’s involvement in the tournament and after Bali’s governor announced that he would not allow Israeli athletes on his island for the competition’s official draw. A number of Muslim groups in Indonesia also called for Israeli soccer players to be banned from the tournament. Indonesia is the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation and the country has no formal diplomatic relations with Israel.

AFA submitted a bid to be the new host of the U-20 World Cup and an inspection by a FIFA delegation of proposed tournament venues and other infrastructure in Argentina took place last week, FIFA said.
Florida CFO tells Norway it would be a mistake to divest from Israel
Ahead of a visit to Israel by Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, the Sunshine State’s chief financial officer told JNS that Norway is out of line in considering divesting from the Jewish state.

Jimmy Patronis, the Florida CFO, sent a letter late last month to Heidi Olufsen, Norway’s consul general in New York, to “express serious concerns regarding reports that Norway’s Sovereign Wealth Fund is reviewing recommendations by your nation’s ethics committee to add Israel to its excluded funds list.”

Among the world’s largest investors, Norway’s Government Pension Fund Global is reportedly approaching a decision whether to pull its funds from Israeli banks and potentially cease further investment in the Jewish state.

“We have taken a series of steps over the past years whenever we have seen anti-Israel, BDS stuff taking place. So we have a familiarity when people pick fights with our friends in Israel,” Patronis told JNS.

“I think it’s unfortunate and short-sighted that the Norwegian sovereign wealth fund is making this type of a position or change in their investment strategy,” added Patronis. “I think it’s important to call them out.”

The Norwegian fund, which manages assets worth $1.3 trillion in 70 countries and about 9,400 companies worldwide, is examining some of the policies and processes by which Israeli banks grant credit and loans to companies that operate beyond the so-called “Green Line.” Florida CFO Jimmy Patronis. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.

The fund compiled the list of banks it is investigating based on a controversial 2020 blacklist released by the U.N. Human Rights Council.
Morningstar deflags Motorola from watchlist over its Israeli business
Morningstar, a Chicago investment ratings firm with $1.9 billion in revenue, has been embroiled in allegations of anti-Israel bias for more than a year, and multiple U.S. states are investigating it and subsidiary Sustainalytics, in part, for potential violations of anti-BDS laws.

JNS has learned exclusively that Morningstar has removed U.S.-based Motorola Solutions from its Global Screening Standards watchlist. According to Morningstar, the GSS list assesses “the extent to which a company causes, contributes or is linked to violations of international norms and standards.”

Despite ongoing follow-through on a review process to which Morningstar agreed with a coalition of American Jewish and pro-Israel organizations, critics say problems remain. Morningstar pledged to stop presuming that every business with activity in Judea and Samaria and eastern Jerusalem has human-rights concerns.

But if Morningstar is indeed living up to that pledge, there appears to be no tangible positive effect on the controversy scores of any of the 28 companies operating in territories that Israel controls, which Sustainalytics flagged.

Richard Goldberg, a senior adviser at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told JNS that the lack of positive impact is evidence that Morningstar and Sustainalytics are employing a form of BDS, wherein a company can only repair a controversy rating by halting any type of business in Judea and Samaria and eastern Jerusalem.

“First, we had a U.N. blacklist of Israel-based companies, and now we have a Morningstar blacklist of Israel-based companies,” said Goldberg. “Why is Morningstar engaged in economic warfare against every Israeli bank and cell-phone company? This isn’t ESG. It’s BDS.” (ESG refers to the “environmental, social and corporate governance” movement, which is supposed to help guide the decisions of socially conscious investors.)
A New York Court Affirms That Parents, Not Schools, Are Responsible for Educating Their Children
In a recent ruling in the ongoing dispute between the New York State Education Department (NYSED) and several ḥasidic schools, a state court decided in favor of the latter. NYSED claims that the schools in question, because of their strong emphasis on religious over secular education, do not fulfill the state’s legal requirement that private educational institutions provide a curriculum “substantially equivalent” to that offered by public ones. On these grounds, it seeks to close the schools down. The schools’ lawyers argue that such a move would violate the religious freedom of both parents and children. Michael A. Helfand explains Judge Christina Ryba’s verdict and its implications:
According to Judge Ryba, the constitutional challenges were premature: the new regulations [issued by NYSED] did not add substantive educational requirements; they only outlined a process for reviewing schools’ compliance with preexisting educational requirements. As a result, any legal challenge arguing that the regulations imposed educational requirements that trespass on the rights of schools and parents must fail—at least for now—because the regulations did not, in fact, impose any new substantive requirements.

But while the court sidestepped the constitutional claims, it still interpreted existing New York law as vindicating a parallel principle of parental authority. Thus the court struck down perhaps the most significant elements of the regulations: the NYSED’s authority to close a school for failing to provide a substantially equivalent education. According to the court, New York’s education law makes clear why: “the statutory scheme places the burden for ensuring a child’s education squarely on the parent, not the school.” This implication, argued the court, is clear from various provisions of New York’s education laws—Education Law 3212, for example, which obligates those in a “parental relation” with a child to ensure that the child is receiving the required education. . . . Nowhere, however, does New York law authorize the imposition of penalties on a nonpublic school.

By locating the substantial-equivalence obligation with parents, the court interpreted New York law to require the state to consider alternative ways in which parents might meet this standard. Thus, if a nonpublic school is not providing a “substantially equivalent” education, “the parents should be given a reasonable opportunity to prove that the substantial equivalency requirements for their children’s education are satisfied by instruction provided through a combination of sources.”


CAA writes to University of Gloucestershire over Visa and Immigration Officer’s incendiary comments about Zionists and Hamas
Campaign Against Antisemitism is writing to the University of Gloucestershire over incendiary comments made by its Visa and Immigration Officer about Zionists and Hamas.

Comments posted to the Twitter account of Joe Sucksmith, who is said to work at the University in the student-facing role, included saying that “Zionists should stfu (shut the f*** up) on the topic of racism” and that “Zionism is racism”.

According to the International Definition of Antisemitism, “Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination (e.g. by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavour)” is an example of antisemitism.

Other comments from Mr Sucksmith’s account included writing “Oh f*** off about the Hamas charter” and professing support for the disgraced academic David Miller, whose employment was terminated after Campaign Against Antisemitism brought a lawsuit on behalf of students at the University of Bristol against the institution, which alleged unlawful harassment on the basis of Jewish ethnicity and Judaism, amounting to breaches of the Equality Act 2010, as well as breaches of contract.

A spokesperson for Campaign Against Antisemitism said: “Comments minimising the racist hatred of the antisemitic genocidal terrorist group, Hamas, showing solidarity with the disgraced former Bristol professor David Miller, and telling ‘Zionists’ that they have no right to speak about racism, are reprehensible. They have no place even on social media, let alone coming from an official in a university’s administration. The University of Gloucestershire has adopted the International Definition of Antisemitism. It must now show that this was not an empty gesture, and urgently investigate and sanction this individual. We will be writing to the University.”


PreOccupiedTerritory: ‘Pro-Palestine’ Activists Construe Yom HaShoah As Celebratory (satire)
Holocaust Remembrance Day occurs today, on the 80th anniversary of the 1943 launch of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, a day that a number of anti-Zionists have decided to observe despite the occasion’s official status as an Israeli government institution, because, observers report, those definitely-not-antisemitic opponents of Jewish sovereignty in the ancestral Jewish homeland have interpreted the tone of the day as festive.

Activists with IfNotNow and Students for Justice in Palestine, among other groups, seized on Yom HaShoah as conveying an aspirational message, to the effect that greater success by the Nazis and their local collaborators in Europe and North Africa in perpetrating genocide against the Jews could have prevented Palestinian displacement and loss in the Holy Land – and that, though they try not to say this part out loud, that remains the solution to the Jewish Problem.

The State of Israel adopted Yom HaShoah – officially titled Yom HaZikkaron LaShaoh V’Lag’vurah, “Memorial Day for the Holocaust and Resistance” – to mark both the horrific Jewish experiences under Nazi oppression and to acknowledge Jewish efforts to fight their murderers, even under hopeless circumstances. Palestinians and their international supporters, however, have found Jewish survival and reestablishment of sovereignty inconvenient at best; their only-sometimes-unspoken attitude includes ambitions of having the opportunity, if not pursuing it to the same extent, that the Nazis did. Wartime Palestinian leaders openly allied with the Nazis and formulated plans to bring the Final Solution to Palestine if the Third Reich were to oust the British from the territory.

Last night and this morning, handfuls of confused INN and SJP activists sought in vain Yom HaShoah events with the tone they expected, stymied again and again as each advertised lecture, meeting, film screening, panel discussion, or other observance they encountered either implied or created expectation of a mournful, reproachful, or at least somber perspective on the Holocaust, rather than the relish with which the activists assumed it must carry.
More uncritical BBC amplification of church leaders’ claims
However she refrains from clarifying that the percentage of Christians in Jerusalem’s population is of course relative to the numbers of people of other faiths living in the city. While her claim that a quarter of Jerusalem’s population were Christians “a century ago” is in itself debatable, she does not explain that the municipal boundaries of Jerusalem today include Arab neighbourhoods that were not part of the city in 1923 or that during the Jordanian occupation of Jerusalem (1948 – 1967), the Christian population of the city fell by roughly half.

Also notable is Knell’s categorisation of any property in Jerusalem purchased by Jews (including those sold by the Greek Orthodox church) as a ‘settlement’ and the buyers as “settlers”:
“Jewish settlers are also taking over more and more properties. Settlements are seen as illegal under international law, but Israel disagrees.”

While there is no doubt that, like other sectors of the population, Christians in Jerusalem do experience racially or religiously motivated attacks, there is an important distinction to be made between that and the following unevidenced claim promoted in Knell’s article:
“Many Christians feel that the growing hostility towards them is meant to push them out.”

Knell’s report includes just two paragraphs of comment from the Israeli police but no response from the Jerusalem municipality.

Notably, Knell’s article is remarkably similar to reports published by other media outlets around the same time.

In the five days between April 12th and April 16th the BBC News website published three reports which uncritically and unquestioningly amplify various claims made by church leaders in Jerusalem without adequate presentation of additional aspects of the stories. While there is certainly nothing novel about such uncritical amplification of church publicity campaigns on the part of the BBC (see ‘related articles’ below), it obviously seriously undermines the corporation’s claim to provide accurate and impartial reporting.
Adbusters Magazine Quotes Palestinian Saying First Palestinian Intifada An “Artistic Project”
In the most recent edition of Adbusters Magazine released in April, the Vancouver-based publication which describes itself as a “a global collective of writers, artists, designers, musicians, poets, philosophers and punks,” published a lengthy question-and-answer article entitled: “First Intifada was an Artistic Project,” featuring an interview between Croatia-based journalist Lela Vujanić and Khaled Hourani, a Palestinian artist based in Ramallah.

In the article, both Hourani and Vujanić repeated both highly misleading and outright false accusations about Israel.

In the introductory paragraph, Vujanić described the situation of Palestinians in 1987 – at the outset of the First Intifada, or Palestinian uprising – as having been impacted by “decades of Israeli dispossession, violence and occupation.”

Despite Vujanić’s oversimplistic depiction of alleged Israeli transgressions, the truth is far more nuanced.

If by “decades of Israeli dispossession,” Vujanić is referring to the 1948 War of Independence, when Israel was invaded by neighbouring Arab countries following its declaration of independence, then the facts are entirely different than her accusation suggests.

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Prior to Israel becoming a sovereign state in 1948, the British Mandate proposed converting the historical Land of Israel into a Jewish State and an Arab State, with an international zone for Jerusalem. The Jewish representatives accepted, but Arab representatives rejected this compromise, and when Israel declared its independence, it was almost immediately invaded by surrounding Arab countries, intent on destroying the newly reborn Jewish State.
Father of Antisemitic Hate Crime Victim Pleads for Justice at New York City Council Hearing
The father of a Jewish man who was brutally assaulted and pepper sprayed in a 2021 antisemitic hate crime has criticized Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg on Thursday for lightly punishing his son’s assailants.

Joseph Borgen was returning home from a pro-Israel event in New York City in 2021 when five men shouting antisemitic slurs, including 23-year-old Waseem Awawdeh, attacked him for being Jewish. Awawdeh repeatedly hit Borgen, who was wearing a kippah, with a metal crutch.

Despite the severity of the incident, in January, DA Bragg offered Awawdeh, who reportedly said he would commit a similar act if given the chance, just six months in jail and five years probation. He is currently free on $10,000 bail.

“They have film of this in black and white from people in the street and Times Square, it’s an open and shut case, and DA Bragg is just schlepping the case along with no solution,” the elder Borgen said during a judiciary committee hearing at the New York City Council. “One fellow, Waseem Awawdeh, was hitting my son with crutches and was offered a sweetheart deal, didn’t take it, yet he was let out on probation.”

Borgen added that Awadeh was allegedly involved in a road rage incident that violated the conditions of his bail.

“Bragg brought him again, nothing, just ‘go out and behave yourself,’ this will just embolden him and he doesn’t care,” Borgen continued. He also criticized Democratic lawmakers US Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Congressman Jerry Nadler (D-NY).


Barcelona Mayor Attracts Criticism After Historic Synagogue Vandalized With ‘Free Palestine’ Grafitti
The Jewish community in the Spanish city of Barcelona has blamed the anti-Israel stances of local political leaders for creating “fertile ground” for antisemitic acts such as the vandalism of the historic Maimonides Synagogue on Monday.

In a statement released on Monday, the Jewish Community of Barcelona (CIB) denounced the vandalism as an “antisemitic attack.” The vandals, identified as three men in some local news reports, painted the slogans “Free Palestine from the River to the Sea” and “Solidarity with the Palestinian People” in large red letters on the synagogue’s outer wall earlier in the day. The first slogan refers to the Palestine Liberation Organization’s goal of a single state of Palestine to replace Israel in the territory between the Mediterranean Sea and the River Jordan.

Noting that this slogan “has traditionally been used by Arab radicals to demand that the Jewish people living in Israel be thrown into the sea,” the CIB stated that “holding Jews in general and, in this case, the Jews of Catalonia, to be responsible for the policies of the government and the State of Israel is an obvious example of antisemitism.”

In February, Barcelona’s Mayor, Ada Colau, announced that the city was suspending ties with Israel in protest at what she termed its “apartheid” policies. In a letter to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, she said that the suspension would remain in place the suspension would remain in place “until the Israeli authorities put an end to the system of violations of the Palestinian people and fully comply with the obligations imposed on them by international law and the various United Nations resolutions.”

Colau’s decision resulted in José Luis Martínez-Almeida, the Mayor of Madrid, offering to step into the breach through a “partnership agreement” with the Israeli city of Tel Aviv.


Man who shared antisemitic messages and Hitler quotes jailed for twelve months
A man who shared antisemitic messages and quotes from Adolf Hitler online has been jailed for twelve months after being found guilty of stirring up racial hatred.

Gareth Anthony Brett, 35 from Poole, used his Twitter and Telegram platforms to disseminate the racist posts to his 2,000 followers, Bournemouth Crown Court heard.

Mr Brett reportedly became obsessed with COVID-19 conspiracy theories in 2020, leading him down a “rabbit hole” that saw him posting incendiary messages about people who were not of “Aryan” or European descent.

Prosecutor Amy Packham said of Mr Brett’s online activity: “There are posts highlighting the physical traits of Jewish people, coupled with images and symbolism which is well known to be antisemitic and antisemitic views used by neo-Nazis.

“He also on that account documented that he had taken a sample of his own DNA to determine his heritage and he implied that he would take his own life if the results showed that he was to be even one percent Jewish.”

Other messages contained extracts from Mein Kampf and content about white supremacy.

Ms Packham said: “This was not simply Mr Brett finding material that he was attracted to and resharing it, he was creating images such a white man wearing a swastika thumping on the back of a Jewish man with his mouth open against what is either a rail or a curb.”
Emily Schrader: The courageous Jewish woman who fooled the Nazis
"She said that while she was being interrogated by the Nazis, she was required to give the names of the members of the underground and had stood firm with courage and heroism and did not give any names": Shmuel Harel speaks of his mother's acts of courage, for which he will receive on her behalf a special award - Honor of the Jewish Rescuers Citation.

On Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day, Tuesday,) a special honor of the Jewish Rescuers Citation will be bestowed on a Holocaust survivors who not only lived through the unthinkable, but actively saved Jews from the horrors of the Holocaust, risking their own life in the process. Every year, B'nai Brith World Center and KKL-JNF grant this special award to Jews who rescued other Jews in the Holocaust. This year Shmuel, the son of Rachel (Didi) Harel (Hertz)-Roos, will receive the honor on behalf of the heroism of his late mother who passed away in 1989.

Didi was born 1923 in Rotterdam to a Dutch Jewish family. She met her Marcel Hertz, an architect, in her twenties and they quickly got engaged, but by summer 1942, the Netherlands was already controlled by the Nazis, and the Hertz family was to be sent to Eastern Europe. An employee of the family, Marta Nagtegaal, offered to hide them instead with her family. But Didi quickly grew tired of hiding, and she obtained forged identity cards in order to join the underground resistance.

Posing as a non-Jew, Didi and her husband both joined the Dutch underground and worked in the Aida region. Didi’s role was to establish contact between the underground commanders and the activists who were focused on finding hiding places for Jews and dissidents.

“She volunteered for the underground as a barmaid for the commander of the underground… and in her role as a barmaid she would pass on instructions and orders to the underground fighters far away, as well as take care of hiding places for the British paratroopers and Jews without a place to hide,” said Shmuel Harel, her son.
Holocaust survivor stories: From victim of 'Hitler's Butcher' to famed Nazi hunter

The extraordinary tale of the Jewish shoeshine boy to a Nazi commandant
Today marks Yom Hashoah, Israel's day of commemoration for the six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust.

Amidst all the history, destruction and tragedy, one individual’s story stands out for its extraordinary tale of survival. It's the story of Harry Balsam, a Jewish boy who went from shoeshine to a Nazi commandant to a Buchenwald survivor.

His granddaughter, Natalie Meltzer, from London is now writing a book based on his hours of testimony to Steven Spielberg's Shoah Foundation. "I feel it is my duty to dedicate part of my life to Holocaust education. We need to make sure that we never forget - in the hope that one day we learn from the past and take action."

Harry Balsam was born in Gorlice, Poland on August 15 1929 to Moses and Adela. His first nine years of life were happy, always having fun with his four siblings. Harry described himself as a ‘lobbus’ - a mischievous person full of chutzpah.

When the Nazis invaded Poland in September 1939, Harry’s parents decided to leave the country. They loaded as many belongings as they could onto their horse and cart. Harry’s father and eldest brother got onto the train as the rest of them threw up their belongings. Then without warning the train started moving away, travelling too fast for Harry's father and brother to jump off. Harry and the rest of his family rushed to the next station hoping to find them, but they were nowhere to be seen. The train had, in fact, taken them straight into Russia, where they worked in the mines throughout the war.
Her mother and brother were murdered in the Holocaust; then she traced the culprits
Holocaust survivor, 87 years old Esther Zamri from Kibbutz Merhavya, has already participated twice in the March of Life in Poland. This year she received a third invitation to the March – and politely declined. Instead, she chose to remain here in Israel and tell 13 groups and hundreds of people the story of her survival and the murder of her family members. "We are only a few," she says, "someone needs to continue telling the story, so that people don't get up and say that there was no Holocaust – because there was a Holocaust."

Over the years, Esther has told her story hundreds of times, but she says, "Every time I tell it, the story takes me back to my home, as a little girl, and I get a strange feeling every time. Whenever I start telling the story, I can see my house as if I was still sitting in it, and I see my mother lighting the Shabbat candles before my Dad gets back from the synagogue."

Only two survived
Her story is shocking: out of the five members of the Hazan family from the town of Ciechanowiec in Poland, only two survived – Arieh and Esther. Their father was exiled to Siberia, their older brother Gershon was shot in the forest, and their mother Tova was murdered with her brother Yitzhak by antisemites when they were trying to find a piece of bread. This is also the story of one Polish family, the Biali family, who did not remain apathetic and opened their home and hearts to save Jews. And most importantly – this is the story about Ester Zamri (Hazan), the youngest daughter in the Hazan family, who even today, at 87, continues to tell the story to "remember and not forget – and not to forgive," as she claims.

"Our house was quite beautiful and we were quite an affluent family," Esther remembers a time when her childhood still seemed normal. "The town was picturesque; a river ran through it and on Saturdays we would sail on it. I used to play in the streets with my friends."

We realized that we had to escape
Then the war broke out and a ghetto was set up in Ciechanowiec. Esther was only four years old, but she remembers how her life was turned upside down: "Every now and then we would get water, eggs, and bread, and our mother would save the food because we never knew if there would be food the next day. The Jews started discussing that we had to escape," she says. And so it was – Esther's mother fled the ghetto with three of her four children, while her eldest son Gershon joined a group of Partisans, but was murdered in the forest. "We walked 30 kilometers, and reached a nearby village, but they slammed the doors in our faces, house after house," she says. "We reached a small wooden house with animals outside. Mother begged the farmer to open up for us and he smiled and let us onto his porch. He didn't want any money. He risked his life for us."
The 1st Holocaust Memorial in the Arabic world, established to fight Holocaust denial

2023 marks the 80th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising

How did Kristallnacht mark a turning point for Europe's Jews?

Knesset holds annual 'Every Person Has a Name' Holocaust memorial service
Israel's parliament, the Knesset, held its annual "Every Person Has a Name" Holocaust memorial service on Tuesday morning, with President Isaac Herzog, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, High Court Chief Justice Esther Hayut, Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana and many other ministers and Knesset members in attendance.

Ohana told the story of Victor Peretz, born to a Jewish family in Tunisia, who was a world lightweight boxing champion in the 1930s. Peretz was sent to Auschwitz by Nazi occupiers in 1942, where he became a member of the camp's boxing team, which provided entertainment for the Nazi guards. Peretz fought and won 133 matches, all while defending and saving dozens of other inmates. When warned he said, "It does not matter, man's purpose is to help the other." He was shot by a guard at the camp while scavenging for bread for his fellow inmates, Ohana related.

President Herzog read the names of his relatives killed in the Holocaust and shared their individual stories in brief.

"We do not remember numbers; we remember lives," Herzog said. "Human beings. Because the name of every Jew who went up in flames and yet eighty years later is read out loud in Jerusalem, in the heart of the legislature of our Jewish and democratic nation-state, is the greatest victory. I wish to recall the moving remarks by Holocaust survivor Shoshana Weiss last night at Yad Vashem, who called on all of us to come together and find unity, and safeguard our nation and our homeland, for we have no other country. Let’s listen to her," the president said.

Netanyahu spoke about his father-in-law, Shlomo Ben-Artzi, a bible scholar, educator and writer, and recipient of the Ka-Tzetnik Fund Award for Holocaust Literature. Ben-Artzi's family was murdered in the Holocaust, including his twin sister Yehduit, the prime minister said. For his entire life, Shlomo would burst into tears whenever he mentioned her name, Netanyahu recounted.


Israel observes Holocaust Remembrance Day



White House, State Department release statements ahead of Yom Hashoah
Both U.S. President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken released statements this week marking days of remembrance of Holocaust victims.

“During Yom Hashoah and throughout these days of remembrance, we mourn the 6 million Jews who were murdered during the horror of the Holocaust—as well as the millions of Roma and Sinti, Slavs, disabled persons, LGBTQI+ individuals, and political dissidents who were murdered at the hands of the Nazis and their collaborators,” Biden stated in an April 14 proclamation.

“Together with courageous survivors, descendants of victims and people around the world, we renew our solemn vow: ‘never again,’ ” he added.

Biden said he will never forget meeting two survivors last year on the “sacred ground” of Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Memorial Center in Jerusalem.

“The horrors of the Holocaust are painful to recount—the savage murder of innocent families and the systemic dehumanization of entire populations,” he stated. “We remember the cries for help that went unanswered and the bright futures cut short. We must never look away from the truth of what happened.”

He cited present-day swastika graffiti, antisemitic banners, attacks on Jews and Jewish institutions, and Holocaust denialism in the United States as examples of the way that hatred lurks “until it is given the oxygen to emerge again.”

Biden touted his administration’s naming of longtime Emory University professor and historian Deborah Lipstadt as the first ambassador-level special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism (a designation that went into effect before his presidency) and said it is developing a national strategy to counter antisemitism, “mobilizing the full weight of the Federal Government to fight this scourge of hate in America.”


Meta teams up with influences to spread Holocaust education
How to keep the memory of the survivors and the Holocaust alive? Meta utilizes influencers to share Holocaust stories


35th March of the Living honors Jewish heroism in the Holocaust
This year’s March of the Living, the annual tribute to the 6 million held at the site of the former German death camp Auschwitz in Poland, is being conducted under the theme of “Honoring Jewish heroism in the Holocaust.”

The event is taking place Wednesday, on Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Day. It’s the first time since the global pandemic that the March is being held in its full format, with delegations from more than 25 countries and 10,000 participating.

It falls one day before the historical date marking the 80th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.

“Jewish bravery during the Holocaust was for many years left out of general Holocaust consciousness, and Jews were portrayed only as victims who ‘went like lambs to the slaughter,’ ” said Shmuel Rosenman, chairman of the March of the Living, in a press statement.

“Young people in Israel and around the Jewish world are not sufficiently aware of the many acts of bravery carried out by thousands of Jews during the Holocaust, and as an international educational organization it is our responsibility to emphasize this,” he added.

The march from Auschwitz to Birkenau will be led by 42 Holocaust survivors, a stark improvement over last year when only seven survivors participated.

Among the survivors is Warsaw-born Halina Birenbaum from Israel. She was a child during the uprising and was hidden in a bunker until the Germans liquidated the ghetto. She was deported to Majdanek and later to Auschwitz. “I truly experienced the Holocaust in all its horror,” said Birenbaum.

The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising lasted about four weeks (April 19-May 16, 1943). It was the largest single revolt by Jews during World War II and came to symbolize Jewish bravery during the Holocaust, as a few determined Jewish fighters inflicted heavy losses on the German army.
Photographer immortalizes Holocaust survivors

Keeping the memory of the Holocaust alive

Holocaust Survivor Artemis Shares Her Story
This is Artemis, a 94-year-old Holocaust survivor from Ioannina, Greece. She came to Israel to start a new life after the Nazi Regime invaded her hometown. Now, she has a grandson in the Israel Defense Forces, a dream she never imagined could be realized. Watch as she shares her story with her grandson by her side.




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