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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.”

—
The post These Holocaust survivors were once classmates in a DP camp. They just reunited after 76 years. appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

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Romanians Stabbed Journalist in London at Behest of Iran, UK Court Told

People walk past a mural depicting the late leader of the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, and the late Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in Tehran, Iran. Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS

A team of Romanian men, acting as proxies for the Iranian government, carried out a knife attack on a journalist working for a Persian-language media organization in London, prosecutors told a British court on Monday.

Pouria Zaratifoukolaei, known as Pouria Zeraati, a British journalist of Iranian origin who works for Iran International, was stabbed in the leg three times as he was attacked near his home in Wimbledon, southwest London, in March 2024.

At the start of the trial of two of the three men accused of carrying out the stabbing, prosecutor Duncan Atkinson said they had targeted Zeraati, whose Saudi-funded TV employer is critical of Iran‘s government and has been designated a terrorist organization by Tehran.

‘DELIBERATE, PLANNED VIOLENCE’

“This was no robbery, no fight that got out of control, it was deliberate, planned violence to achieve what it did, that is serious injury to its target,” Atkinson told London‘s Woolwich Crown Court.

They had “committed a planned attack preceded by reconnaissance, and which was ordered by a third party acting on behalf of the Iranian state,” the prosecutor said.

Iran has denied any involvement in the incident.

Nandito Badea, 21, and George Stana, 25, both deny charges of wounding with intent and unlawful wounding. The third man accused of involvement, David Andrei, was arrested in Romania but is not involved in the trial.

Atkinson said Zeraati was an “obvious and readily identifiable target for violence to be inflicted by proxies” acting for Iran. He said posters had been put up in Tehran in November 2022 featuring pictures of journalists including Zeraati, under the heading “Wanted: dead or alive.”

“In recent years, since 2005, the Islamic Republic has turned less to its own operatives and increasingly to use proxies such as criminal gangs to meet their threatened violence on their behalf,” Atkinson said.

“That has included attacks on persons in this country who have become targets of Iranian intimidation and, effectively, terror.”

Atkinson said Zeraati had been subject to “extensive reconnaissance,” and a year before Stana had been arrested in the garden of his apartment with another man, in possession of latex gloves, scissors, and a mask.

On the day of the attack, Badea and Andrei confronted Zeraati as he crossed the street from his home to his car, the prosecutor said. Andrei held him, while Badea stabbed him at the top of his thigh before they fled to a getaway car driven by Stana, the prosecutor added.

The men, who were motivated by money, dumped the car and some clothing, and then took a taxi to Heathrow Airport from where they flew to Geneva, Atkinson said.

The trial, which is expected to last more than two weeks, continues.

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‘Beyond Ironic’: Mamdani’s ‘Nakba’ Video Features Non-Arab Woman Critics Say Has European Roots

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani (D) speaking with the press in the Bronx, New York City, May 18, 2026. Photo: Michael Brochstein/ZUMA Press Wire via Reuters Connect

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani marked the Palestinian “Nakba” with an official City Hall video featuring a woman presented as a survivor of Israel’s founding war, but critics quickly identified her family as “European settlers” from Bosnia who left Arab-controlled territory.

The backlash came as leaders of mainstream Jewish groups said they would reject invitations to Mamdani’s “Jewish Heritage” celebration at Gracie Mansion on Monday evening.

The video, posted on Friday, features New York resident Inea Bushnaq, identified as a “Nakba survivor,” recounting her family’s departure from their home because, as she termed it, “the Zionists were coming into Jerusalem.”

Nakba is Arabic for “catastrophe,” a term Palestinians use for Israel’s founding and the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Arabs during Israel’s 1948 War of Independence. The Palestinian demand for a “right of return” for the refugees’ millions of descendants is viewed by many Israelis and Jews as a call that would end Israel’s existence by demographic means. Critics said the video’s assertion that the Nakba “continues to this day” echoed that position.

Text in the video says the Nakba refers to the “expulsion and displacement of more than 700,000 Palestinians between 1947 and 1949 during the creation of the State of Israel” and says Israel’s pre-state militaries, “the Haganah, Irgun, and Lehi militias, among others, destroyed more than 400 Palestinian villages and cities, killing thousands of Palestinians and carrying out dozens of massacres.”

“May 15 is the annual commemoration of the Nakba. For Palestinians, their displacement and the Nakba continue to this day,” the video text reads.

The video makes no mention of Arab attacks on Jews before and during the 1948 war, the invasion by Arab armies after Israel’s declaration of independence meant to eradicate the nascent state, the rejection of the UN partition plan that would have created a Jewish and an Arab state, or the expulsion of Jews from parts of Jerusalem that came under Jordanian control.

Speaking in a British accent in the video, Bushnaq, who is described as Palestinian-American, explains how keys have become a Palestinian symbol of the right to return. “You have the key but not the house,” she says.

Tom Gross, a Middle East expert, noted that the video omitted the expulsion of Jews from Arab countries while relying on what he called a flawed account of Palestinian history.

“Not only does Mamdani’s video fail to mention the numerically greater 850,000 Jews driven out of their homes in the Arab world; he can’t even get his narrative right regarding the so-called Palestinian Nakba,” he told The Algemeiner.

In a post shared widely on social media, Gross cited research by the historian and influencer who posts as J0sh_a to challenge Bushnaq’s portrayal as a Palestinian refugee.

“It turns out that the ‘Nakba Survivor’ who stars in Mayor Mamdani’s official NY City Hall Palestinian propaganda video yesterday, is literally a ‘European settler,’” the post said. 

Bushnaq’s grandparents were Muslim Bosnians who left Bosnia for Ottoman Syria in the late 19th century after Austria-Hungary took control of Bosnia. The family later moved to Tulkarem, which came under Jordanian control after 1948, not Israeli control. Bushnaq was born in Jerusalem because of the city’s medical facilities, but her family remained based in Tulkarem, the post said. 

Bushnaq’s father worked in England in the 1930s, returned to what was then known as Mandatory Palestine under British administration, and then in 1948 the family chose to go back to England.

“They were not expelled, and no one forced them to move to England. In any case, Tulkarem, and the old city of Jerusalem remained under Jordanian Arab control. No Arabs were forced to leave from Tulkarem in 1948,” Gross wrote.

“So, in summary, this is a European with no strong roots in the land of Israel, whose family made the decision to immigrate back to the continent of their grandparents instead of remaining under Arab control in what was part of Jordan after 1948.”

Critics also pointed to a poster seen on Bushnaq’s wall in the video. The “Visit Palestine” image was not Palestinian nationalist artwork, they said, but a Zionist-era tourism poster designed by Jewish artist Franz Kraus to encourage travel to the Holy Land.

“It is beyond ironic that the only person featured to represent Palestinian Arabs in his video appears to be someone from a recently arrived European settler family – from Bosnia – and not Arab at all,” he told The Algemeiner. 

Gross also argued that Bushnaq’s family story pointed to a wider part of the history often left out of Palestinian nationalist accounts, saying many Arab families in the land in 1948 had arrived within a generation or two, drawn by British rule or by economic opportunities created by Jewish development. He cited surnames such as Al-Masri and Masarwa, both linked to Egypt, Fayumi, from Fayum in Egypt, Ismaili, from Ismailia, Al-Horani, from Hauran in Syria, Sidawi, from Sidon in Lebanon, and Al-Hijazi, from the Hijaz in Saudi Arabia. 

Jewish groups, leaders and members of Congress slammed the post.

The UJA-Federation of New York accused Mamdani of leaving out critical context, writing on X that “the refugees you post about exist because 22 Arab states launched a war to destroy Israel,” after rejecting the UN plan that also called for a Palestinian state.

Referencing the translation of Nakba, US Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) wrote on X, “The only catastrophe here is a mayor of New York who lets antisemitic mobs run wild to terrorize law-abiding Jewish New Yorkers while he spreads anti-Israel propaganda.”

“Rewriting history to portray the existence of Israel itself as the original sin is not education or remembrance. It is propaganda,” said New York Assemblymember Sam Berger. “This mayor constantly tries to market himself as an ally to the Jewish community while amplifying narratives that fuel hatred against the Jewish people.”

New York State Assembly member Simcha Eisenstein wrote, “Still wondering why hatred against Jews is so high in NYC? We have a mayor who is using government resources to disseminate a narrative and incite hostile propaganda.”

The post came the same day as anti-Zionist demonstrators gathered in Manhattan for Nakba Day rallies, with footage showing protesters carrying a Hezbollah flag, stepping on Israeli flags, shouting for Israel’s destruction, and confronting police.

The timing also contrasted with Mamdani’s own statement days earlier praising law enforcement for arresting a man accused of planning an Iran-backed attack on a New York synagogue. Mamdani had said the arrest “comes amid an alarming rise in antisemitism across the country.”

“Let me be clear: Antisemitism, violent extremism, and terrorism have no place in our city. This kind of hate is despicable,” he said.

The UJA-Federation later said it would not attend Monday night’s Jewish American Heritage Month celebration at Gracie Mansion because it was being hosted by a mayor who “denies a core pillar of our heritage — the State of Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people,” according to a statement carried by the New York Post.

Mark Treyger, CEO of the Jewish Community Relations Council, said he would also skip the event. His group organizes the Israel Day Parade at the end of the month, which Mamdani has said he will not attend, breaking with past mayoral practice.

New Yorkers “expect leadership that lowers the temperature, brings people together, and makes every community feel seen, respected, and safe, including Jewish New Yorkers,” Treyger wrote in an X post criticizing Mamdani’s Nakba Day video.

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Pakistan Sends New Iranian Peace Proposal to US

A woman walks past an anti-US billboard depicting US President Donald Trump and the Strait of Hormuz, in Tehran, Iran, May 17, 2026. Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS

Iran sent a new peace proposal to the United States with terms that appeared similar to offers Washington has previously rejected, although a senior Iranian official told Reuters on Monday that the US had softened positions on some issues.

A Pakistani source confirmed that Islamabad, which has conveyed messages between the sides in the war in the Middle East since hosting the only round of peace talks last month, had shared the latest proposal with Washington. But the source suggested progress had been difficult.

The sides “keep changing their goalposts,” the Pakistani source said, adding: “We don’t have much time.”

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei confirmed that Tehran’s views had been “conveyed to the American side through Pakistan” but gave no details. Washington did not immediately comment.

The Iranian proposal, as described by the senior Iranian source, appeared similar in many respects to Iran’s previous offer, which US President Donald Trump rejected last week as “garbage.”

It would focus first on securing an end to the war, reopening the Strait of Hormuz – a major oil supply route that Iran has effectively blockaded – and lifting maritime sanctions.

Contentious issues around Iran’s nuclear program and uranium enrichment would be deferred to later rounds of talks, the source said.

However, in an apparent softening of Washington’s stance, the senior Iranian source said the United States had agreed to release a quarter of Iran’s frozen funds – totaling tens of billions of dollars – held in foreign banks. Iran wants all the assets released.

The Iranian source also said Washington had shown more flexibility in agreeing to let Iran continue some peaceful nuclear activity under supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Iran’s Tasnim news agency separately quoted an unidentified source as saying the US had agreed to waive oil sanctions on Iran while negotiations were under way.

Iranian officials did not immediately comment on Tasnim’s report, which a US official, who declined to be named, said was false.

FRAGILE CEASEFIRE

A fragile ceasefire is in place after six weeks of war that followed US-Israeli airstrikes on Iran. But talks mediated by Pakistan have stalled and Trump has said the ceasefire is “on life support.”

Washington has previously demanded Tehran dismantle its nuclear program and reopen the Strait of Hormuz, which normally carries one-fifth of the world’s seaborne oil and liquefied natural gas supply.

Iran has been demanding compensation for war damage, an end to a US blockade of Iranian ports and a halt to fighting on all fronts, including in Lebanon, where Israel is battling the Iran-backed Hezbollah terrorist group.

Trump said in a post on Truth Social at the weekend that “the Clock is Ticking” for Iran, adding that “they better get moving, FAST, or there won’t be anything left of them. TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE!”

Trump is expected to meet top national security advisers on Tuesday to discuss options for resuming military action, Axios reported.

Baghaei said Tehran was prepared for all scenarios.

“As for their threats, rest assured that we are fully aware of how to respond appropriately to even the smallest mistake from the opposing side,” he told a televised weekly press conference.

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