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These Holocaust survivors were once classmates in a DP camp. They just reunited after 76 years.
(New York Jewish Week) — The last time Michael Epstein, 87, and Abe Rosenberg, 83, were in the same room, they were in Germany, studying in a classroom in a displaced person’s camp in Bavaria after the Holocaust.
On Sunday, March 19, the two men — along with Rosenberg’s older sister, Ada Gracin, who was also in the DP camp — reunited after 76 years. This time around, it was in the social hall of Young Israel of New Hyde Park, New York, where the pair embraced, said the Shehecheyanu prayer to mark their reunion and shared their survival stories with an in-person audience of about 100.
The reunion came together quickly, just a few weeks after the two men learned they lived less than 40 miles from one another — Rosenberg in New Hyde Park, on the eastern border of Queens, and Epstein in Fair Lawn, New Jersey. Originally intended to be an intimate meeting between the two families, the reunion soon broadened to a festive brunch and celebration open to the public.
“The Torah says it’s a mitzvah to relate what happened to us,” Rosenberg said. “Hitler’s goal was to destroy Yiddishkeit, Judaism. When we gather here, we are involved in a victory over him.”
Michael Epstein, Abe Rosenberg and Ada Gracin, left to right, stand together for the first time in 76 years after meeting as children living in a displaced person’s camp after the Holocaust. (Julia Gergely)
The two were brought together by a sharp-eyed videographer. In February, Epstein participated in an interview at a Jewish day school in Edison, New Jersey as part of the “Names Not Numbers” oral history project, which is dedicated to preserving the memories of Holocaust survivors and ensuring their legacies live on in future generations. As part of the project, high school students interview survivors about their experiences, which are filmed and made into mini-documentaries.
During the interview, Epstein presented a photograph of himself as a 7-year-old in “cheder” or elementary school at Feldafing, an all-Jewish displaced person’s camp near Munich, where he lived from 1945 to 1949.
As it happens, the videographer that day recognized the photograph. He had seen the same one during an interview he had filmed the prior year with another survivor — Rosenberg — who was living in Queens. When Epstein and his two daughters learned this, they knew they had to arrange a meeting.
“This is the first time I know of a reunion happening between survivors as a result of our program,” Daniel Mayer, a Names Not Numbers board member, told the New York Jewish Week.
As for Rosenberg, when he got the call from Epstein, “it just concretized the fact that the whole experience [of Feldafing] wasn’t a dream,” he said.
Though the two men did not specifically remember each other — Rosenberg was 8 and Epstein and Gracin were 11 at the time of the picture, taken in 1947 — at the event, they acutely recalled their lives at the DP camp.
Rosenberg and Epstein point themselves out in the picture of their childhood classroom, taken in 1947. (Julia Gergely)
Rosenberg, for example, remembers living in Barrack Nine with his sister and parents. During the war, the Nazis used Feldafing as a training ground for Hitler Youth. In Feldafing, like at other Jewish DP camps, survivors waiting for a country that would taken them in opened Jewish schools, started newspapers, composed music and began to rebuild their identities.
“We were hoping to go to Palestine, to Eretz Yisroel — that was our dream,” Rosenberg said. “It was not available to us” under the British Mandate. “Unfortunately, the doors of the whole world were closed to us.”
“So what did we do?” he continued. “We started to build on Jewish life again.”
On Sunday, as the assembled crowd noshed on bagels, lox and egg salad — and other participants joined via Zoom from California, Florida, New Jersey and Canada — Epstein, Rosenberg and Gracin shared their experiences with those in attendance.
First to speak was Epstein, who brought with him a scrapbook of pictures from his childhood. Epstein was born in Łódź, Poland, in 1935, which his family was forced to flee when Germany invaded in 1939. They went to Bialystok, which soon fell under the control of the Russians, who transported Poles and Jews to labor camps in Siberia via cattle cars. After spending time at a gulag camp in Siberia, Epstein and his family were moved to another in Uzbekistan.
When the war ended, Epstein and his parents returned to Łódź, only to find that their entire extended family had been killed and a Polish family was living in their apartment. With nothing left for them in Poland, they left for Feldafing. They lived there until they could find a way to get to the United States, where they eventually arrived in 1945.
Epstein, who is known as Zayde to his 11 grandchildren and 5 great-grandchildren — many of whom were in the room — left the crowd with a message to invest in Jewish education, and to work to uphold democracy. “We live in ‘di Goldene Medine’ (the Golden Land),” he said. “We thought, in Europe, that meant there was gold on the street. There’s no gold on the street but there is gold on paper in our Constitution, and in our Constitution there is still mining to do. There is still work to be done to make our Constitution’s morals realistic.”
The family of Michael Epstein gathered from New York and New Jersey to celebrate his life story. Epstein, second from the right in the front row, is holding one of his five great-grandchildren. (Julia Gergely)
Rosenberg and Gracin, who spoke next, were also from Łódź. Gracin, born Ada Rosen in 1935, recalled wearing the mandated yellow Jewish star patch on her clothing as a 4-year-old. Her mother was pregnant with her brother when they left Poland for Soviet Georgia, a journey she said was “fraught with peril,” as they were stopped multiple times by the Gestapo. The family lived in Georgia for six years and “fear was a constant.”
When the war ended, the family also returned to Łódź to look for surviving family members — there were none. They connected with the Jewish Agency and HIAS, which helped them get to Feldafing in 1945.
There, “we were referred to as ‘she’arit hapletah,’ the surviving remnants,” Gracin said. “I refer to this period in my life as ‘life reborn,’ as I lost my childhood prior to this. Although we lacked many things, I never felt deprived. The survivors cherished each child as if it were their own. We were precious jewels to them, as they had lost their own children.”
“For the first time in my life, I went to school, made friends, played and laughed,” she added. “I was a happy 9 year old.”
Gracin, her brother and her parents arrived in New York Harbor on April 6, 1949. “At last we were free of fear, free to live and practice our religion and thrive,” she said. “I feel blessed to have been given this chapter in my life and my revenge to Hitler is that I was blessed with three children and six grandchildren.” Two of Gracin’s children and four of her grandchildren were at the event.
In his remarks, Rosenberg recalled the heroism of the parents, teachers and rabbis in Feldafing, many of whom had lost their entire families but made it their mission to educate the few children who made it to the camp. “They were the heroes,” Rosenberg said. “They deserve the accolades — we were kids.” It is in their honor and memory that Rosenberg continued to share his story throughout his life, he said.
Though Epstein and Rosenberg did not stay in touch upon their respective arrivals to the United States, their lives continued to follow similar paths. Both went on to study engineering at the City College of New York and for a time both worked at Bendix Corporation, though in different departments — Epstein in the space program and Rosenberg on the supersonic transport team.
Congregants and community members brunched on bagels and listened to the survival stories in the social hall of Young Israel of New Hyde Park. (Julia Gergely)
Chuck Waxman, a docent at the Museum of Jewish Heritage who moderated the discussion, told the New York Jewish Week he was “blown away” by the event — he said he expected less than half the room to be filled.
But full it was, with family, friends, community members and other survivors who wanted to be a part of the miracle — both the miracle that happened in Feldafing and the miracle of the reunion in Queens.
The event also included speeches from Mayer Waxman, executive director of Queens JCC and Torah commentaries from Lawrence Teitelman, the rabbi of Young Israel of New Hyde Park, where Rosenberg is a member, and Benjamin Yudin, the rabbi of Congregation Shomrei Torah in Fair Lawn, New Jersey, where Epstein is a member.
At the close of the event, the lyrics of “Zog nit keynmol,” the “Song of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising” — which was sung by Jewish partisan groups around Eastern Europe — were passed in sheets around the room. Rosenberg heartily led everyone in Yiddish.
“We plan to meet again in another 76 years,” Rosenberg joked to the New York Jewish Week. “Everyone is invited.”
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Bondi Gunmen Acted Alone, No Evidence They Were Part of Terrorist Cell, Australian Police Say
A CCTV footage shows Naveed Akram and his father, Sajid Akram, both suspects in the shooting attack during a Jewish Hanukkah celebration at Bondi Beach on Dec. 14, carrying items wrapped in blankets, while exiting 103 Brighton Avenue, Campsie, New South Wales, Australia, in this still image taken from a court document released on Dec. 22, 2025. Photo: NSW Police/Handout via REUTERS
Two gunmen who allegedly opened fire on a Jewish celebration on Sydney’s Bondi Beach earlier this month acted alone and there was “no evidence” they were part of a terrorist cell, police said on Tuesday.
Naveed Akram and his father Sajid Akram are alleged to have killed 15 people at a Hanukkah event on Dec. 14, Australia’s worst mass shooting in almost three decades that shocked the nation and led to immediate reforms of already strict gun laws.
Police have previously said the men were inspired by Islamic State, with homemade flags of the terrorist group found in their car after the attack, and a month-long trip by the pair to a Philippines island previously plagued by militancy a major focus of investigation.
But on Tuesday, Australian Federal Police Commissioner Krissy Barrett said there was no indication the men had received formal training on the November trip to Mindanao in the Philippines.
“There is no evidence to suggest these alleged offenders were part of a broader terrorist cell, or were directed by others to carry out an attack,” Barrett told a news conference.
She added the findings were an initial assessment, and authorities in Australia and the Philippines were continuing their investigation.
“I am not suggesting that they were there for tourism,” she said, referring to the Philippines trip.
Sajid Akram was shot dead by police during the attack, while his son Naveed, who was also shot by police, was charged with 59 offenses after waking from a days-long coma earlier this month. Naveed Akram faces charges ranging from 15 counts of murder to terror and explosives offenses.
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The ‘Zombie’ Caliphate: While the World Celebrates the Muslim Brotherhood’s Demise, Its Billion-Dollar Empire Thrives in Plain Sight
Supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood in the Jordanian capital, Amman, chanting pro-Palestinian slogans in April 2018. Photo: Reuters / Muhammad Hamed.
In Washington and Arab capitals, a comforting narrative has taken hold: The Muslim Brotherhood is finished. We are told that the Sisi regime in Egypt has crushed them, that Jordan has shuttered their offices, and that the “Islamist Winter” is finally over. The recent executive order by President Trump to review the group for terror designation is seen as the final nail in the coffin.
But if you look away from the empty political offices and follow the money, you will find a terrifying reality. The Muslim Brotherhood hasn’t gone bankrupt; it has simply gone corporate.
While Western intelligence agencies applaud the closure of dusty headquarters in Amman, they are ignoring the €27 million mega-complexes rising in France, the €4 million real estate fortresses in Berlin, and the terror-linked holding companies trading openly on the Istanbul Stock Exchange. The Brotherhood has transformed from a mass movement into a transnational financial conglomerate — a “Zombie Caliphate” that is legally bulletproof and wealthier than ever.
The Egyptian “Catch-and-Release”
The myth of the Brotherhood’s destruction starts in Egypt. The regime’s “Inventory Committee” boasts of seizing assets worth a staggering 300 billion EGP (approx. $16.7 billion), and liquidating the schools, hospitals, and businesses that formed the movement’s spine.
But the crackdown is porous. In July 2023, an Egyptian court quietly ordered the unfreezing of assets for 146 alleged Brotherhood figures, ruling that the state failed to prove the funds were illicit. This legal “oops” likely allowed millions in liquid capital to flee the country, funneling straight into the offshore networks now appearing in Istanbul and London.
Then there is the case of Safwan Thabet, the tycoon behind Juhayna Food Industries. Arrested for refusing to hand over his empire to the state, he was released in 2023. His survival teaches a harsh lesson: the Brotherhood’s money is so deeply integrated into the legitimate economy that the state cannot tear it out without killing the patient. The “deep state” of Brotherhood finance remains alive, hiding behind the facade of legitimate dairy giants and retail chains.
Turkey: The NATO Safe Haven for Terror Finance
If Egypt is the extraction point, Turkey is the laundromat. Despite President Erdogan’s desperate diplomatic pivot toward Cairo, Istanbul remains the operational heartbeat of this financial insurgency.
Western policymakers need to look closely at the Borsa Istanbul. There, trading openly under the ticker TDGYO, is Trend GYO — a real estate investment trust designated by the US Treasury Department for being 75% owned by Hamas. In a rational world, a NATO member would not host a publicly traded company that funds a designated terror group. In Erdogan’s Turkey, however, Trend GYO continues to develop luxury apartments, such as the recent project in Istanbul’s Alibeyköy district, subcontracting construction to obscure local firms to wash the proceeds.
This is the new model: “Terrorism Inc.” Yemeni billionaire Hamid al-Ahmar, operating freely from Istanbul, chairs Investrade Portfoy, an investment firm that commingles legitimate business with funds allegedly destined for Hamas. Meanwhile, the Brotherhood’s elite send their children to Al-Nahda International Schools in Istanbul — private institutions run by exiled cadres that ensure the next generation is indoctrinated in the ideology of the “Group” while generating tuition revenue.
Europe: The “Concrete” Fortress
As the environment in the Middle East becomes hostile, the Brotherhood has executed a strategic pivot to Europe, replacing “liquid” assets (cash) with “fixed” assets (real estate) protected by Western property laws.
In Austria, the failure of “Operation Luxor” serves as a cautionary tale. In 2020, police raided 60 Brotherhood-linked sites. The result? Zero terrorism convictions. Courts declared the raids unlawful. The Brotherhood didn’t just survive; they lawyered up and won, proving that without a specific designation, European criminal law cannot work against them.
In Germany, the UK-based Europe Trust purchased a massive property in Berlin’s Wedding district for €4 million. This isn’t just a building; it is a command center for the Deutsche Muslimische Gemeinschaft (DMG), insulated from German intelligence by British corporate deeds.
In France, the situation is even more brazen. The Al-Noor Center in Mulhouse — a massive complex featuring a mosque, school, and swimming pool — was built at a cost of €27 million. Intelligence links it to Qatar Charity’s “Ghaith Initiative,” which has poured over €120 million into 140 such projects across Europe. These are not community centers; they are forward operating bases for a parallel society, subsidized by Doha and protected by European property rights.
The West is fighting a 21st-century financial empire with 20th-century police tactics. We raid homes in Vienna while they move crypto in Istanbul. We seize crumbling offices in Jordan while they buy prime real estate in Berlin.
The Muslim Brotherhood is not dead. It is alive, well, and trading on the Istanbul Stock Exchange. Until the US and its allies target the enablers — the Turkish banks clearing Trend GYO transactions, the Qatari transfers to Mulhouse, and the shell companies in London — we are merely cutting the grass while the roots grow deeper.
Amine Ayoub, a fellow at the Middle East Forum, is a policy analyst and writer based in Morocco. Follow him on X: @amineayoubx
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The US Coast Guard Keeps Trying to Loosen Restrictions on Swastikas — Have We Passed a Point of No Return?
People waving Nazi swastika flags argue with conservatives during a protest outside the Tampa Convention Center, where Turning Point USA’s (TPUSA) Student Action Summit (SAS) was being held, in Tampa, Florida, US July 23, 2022. Photo: REUTERS/Marco Bello
It is hard to describe the insanity of what the US Coast Guard just did — or nearly did — without sounding alarmist. But alarm is warranted.
In a quiet, internal policy change, the Coast Guard downgraded swastikas and nooses from explicit hate symbols to what it blandly called “potentially divisive” imagery. Not in a press release. Not after consultation with Jewish or civil-rights groups. Quietly. Bureaucratically. Almost accidentally — until reporters noticed.
Only after Jewish organizations, veterans’ groups, and US senators demanded answers did the Coast Guard scramble to reverse course, insisting all along that nothing had really changed.
Then the Coast Guard tried to do this a second time. Once again, the plan was exposed, and the Coast Guard reversed course. But no one in the administration condemned it.
It seems clear that something has fundamentally changed.
A swastika is not “potentially divisive.”
A noose is not “context dependent.”
They are not ambiguous. They are not debatable. They are among the clearest symbols of hatred in human history — shorthand for genocide, terror, and racial violence. The fact that a uniformed US service sought to allow these symbols on government property in some contexts should disturb every American.
Semantic Cowardice Disguised as Neutrality
The Coast Guard’s revised guidance did not outright permit swastikas in all cases — but it said there should be nuance in deciding when one could be displayed. And it did something extremely corrosive: it reframed them.
By categorizing swastikas and nooses as “potentially divisive imagery,” the policy stripped them of their categorical moral status. Under the new language, commanding officers might intervene. Or they might not. Everything depended on context, interpretation, discretion.
That is not how institutions fight hatred. That is how they avoid responsibility.
Words matter in bureaucracies. Classification determines enforcement. Once something moves from “prohibited hate symbol” to “potentially divisive,” the burden shifts — from the institution to the offended party, from clarity to contestation, from principle to process.
For Jews, the swastika is not merely offensive; it is existential. It is the emblem under which six million Jews were murdered — grandparents, children, entire communities erased. It is not reclaimed. It is not misunderstood. It is not ambiguous.
Calling it “potentially divisive” is not neutral language. It is moral minimization.
The Gaslighting That Followed
What made this episode worse was not just the policy change — but the response to criticism.
Jewish leaders were told, repeatedly, that no downgrade had occurred. That the Coast Guard maintained a zero-tolerance stance. That reports suggesting otherwise were mistaken.
And yet the language was there, in black and white.
When Jewish organizations pointed this out, the reaction was not contrition but deflection. When senators demanded answers, the response was confusion. Only once political pressure became unavoidable did the Coast Guard and the Department of Homeland Security quietly remove the offending language — while still insisting there had never been a problem. And then they tried to do the same thing again!
This is institutional gaslighting.
If nothing changed, why was the language altered?
If the policy was always clear, why did it need “clarification”?
If leadership opposed the downgrade, how did it happen on their watch?
Institutions erode trust not only through bad decisions, but through evasive ones.
Why This Keeps Happening
It would be comforting to chalk this up to ideology — to blame wokeness, antisemitism, or a rogue staffer. But that explanation is too simple, and therefore too comforting.
What actually happened here is more unsettling.
This is what happens when institutions treat offense as a liability to be managed rather than evil as something to be condemned.
In modern bureaucracies, the overriding imperative is not truth or justice but risk mitigation. The goal is to avoid complaints, minimize exposure, and keep controversies from escalating. When everything is framed as “potentially divisive,” nothing is clearly wrong.
Accountability Matters — and Someone Approved This
Policies do not downgrade themselves.
Someone wrote that language. Someone reviewed it. Someone approved it. And someone allowed Jewish groups to be told one thing while the written policy said another.
This is not about vengeance or scapegoating. It is about governance.
Public trust depends on knowing that decisions with moral consequences are made deliberately, transparently, and honestly. When leadership cannot explain how such a change occurred — or insists it never occurred at all — confidence erodes further.
If Federal agencies want credibility when confronting antisemitism, they must show that internal processes match public assurances. Anything less invites suspicion that moral clarity exists only when politically convenient.
Why Jews Are Right to Be Alarmed
Some will say this controversy is overblown — that the policy was technical, that no harm was intended, that the reversal proves the system works.
That response misunderstands the moment.
American Jews are living through a historic surge in antisemitism — on campuses, in cities, online, and increasingly in physical space. Swastikas are not abstractions. They appear on synagogues, playgrounds, dormitories, and subway cars. They are not rare provocations; they are routine intimidation.
In that environment, government institutions do not get the luxury of ambiguity.
When a uniformed service wavers on whether a swastika is unequivocally a hate symbol, Jews hear a message — even if unintended: your history is negotiable; your fear is contextual; your dignity depends on discretion.
For Jews, this is not symbolic politics. It is the language of survival.
This episode does not stand alone. It fits a pattern Jews now recognize with grim familiarity — from college campuses to the streets of major American cities.
History’s lesson is not that hatred begins with shouting. It begins with hedging that is tolerated quietly, normalized bureaucratically, and explained away procedurally until institutions discover they no longer know how to draw lines at all.
And when that happens, Jews are never the only ones at risk — just the first to notice.
Every Federal agency should be required — explicitly and publicly — to designate genocidal and terror symbols as categorically prohibited, without modifiers, caveats, or discretion. No euphemisms. No contextual hedging. No bureaucratic laundering of moral truth.
Moral clarity is not extremism. It is the minimum requirement of authority.
A swastika is not a misunderstanding. It is not “potentially divisive.” It is a warning.
And any institution that hesitates to say so is warning us, too.
Samuel J. Abrams is a professor of politics at Sarah Lawrence College and a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.