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The German Consulate in NYC welcomes its newest citizens: Jewish New Yorkers
(New York Jewish Week) — “Wilkommen,” David Gill, the German Consul General of New York, told a group of Jewish New Yorkers who had gathered at the Consulate last week. A slideshow behind him rotated through scenes of sweeping German landscapes, skylines and tourist attractions.
Nearly all of the 70 people in attendance had recently become German citizens under a law that allows for victims of Nazi persecution and their descendants to reclaim their German citizenship, of which Jews were stripped during the Nazi era. Though the law was enacted in 1949, sweeping changes in the last four years have allowed many more descendants to become eligible for citizenship.
Last Wednesday’s event, called “Discover Germany: Politics, Culture, and Jewish Life,” was the first of its kind to welcome these new Jewish citizens of Germany, and help them learn about German culture and the country’s Jewish life. (Both the United States and Germany recognize dual citizenship.) The aim, said Jordan Rothschild, a consulate representative, was to show these new nationals their future as German citizens, such as scholarship opportunities and a coveted EU passport.
“There is a German diaspora community in New York that has a very specific point of reference for Germany: their parents, grandparents, great grandparents were stripped of their citizenship — often they were survivors of the Holocaust and they have a very specific historical experience with Germany,” Rothschild, a Jewish New Yorker who became a naturalized German citizen 15 years ago at age 7, told the New York Jewish Week.
“There is a huge information gap about modern Germany because of that loss,” he continued. “So it’s very important that [the German Consulate] engages with this community because they’re German and it’s very important that we engage with them as the American Jews as well because that’s what we are.”
Among the event’s attendees, who sipped wine and snacked on German pretzels and mustard, were Harlen Pincus and Judy Pincus. The siblings grew up in New York with a German Jewish mother who fastidiously documented her German ancestry, despite losing her citizenship.
“Going back 200 years, she had all of the synagogue records, birth certificate and deaths and marriages; our grandparents’ original German passports,” Judy Pincus, 59, said. “In that we found letters that our great-grandfather had sent to the regional government talking about his persecution as a Jew and having to flee Germany and the losses he faced economically.”
Letters like that are exactly the type of evidence the German government looks for when extending naturalization. The Pincuses received their citizenship in 2022.
Although Judy Pincus said she has no plans to move there, the siblings traveled to Germany for a two-week trip to visit their grandparents’ hometowns in 2019. She became a citizen, she said, in part so that her two sons could easily travel and study there.
“I think she’d be happy,” Pincus said of her mother. “If she had the opportunity [to recover her citizenship], she would have done it.”
German Jewry has seen a major resurgence in its numbers since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989; in the decades since, many Soviet Jews relocated there as well as survivors and descendants who came back. Today there are about 118,000 Jews in the country, according to the World Jewish Congress, including some 20,000 Israelis.
The national flags of Israel and Germany wave at the city hall in Frankfurt, Germany, Oct. 14, 2023. (Kirill Kudryavtsev/AFP via Getty Images)
Germany is also a major ally of Israel — Chancellor Olaf Scholz was one of the first foreign ministers to visit the country after the Hamas attacks on Oct. 7. As Gill told the room in New York: “In this moment, we feel very close to our Jewish partners and friends, in a time of unseen threats against Israel and the Jewish people.”
Gill did not, however, mention the Molotov cocktails that were thrown at a Berlin synagogue earlier that morning. The firebombs landed on the sidewalk and caused no damage.
The event included a crash course on the German political system, an introduction to German cultural offerings in New York, as well as a presentation about scholarship opportunities for studying in German universities. Guests were a range of ages, from teenagers with parents to seniors.
“The night that Donald Trump was elected president, I was living in a Republican area and I came home that night and people were celebrating by shooting guns in the air to celebrate. I was terrified and wanted an option of somewhere else to go,” said Sarah Myerson, the cantor at Kane Street Synagogue, who became a German citizen last year. “I always had a positive relationship with Germany. I lived there and met my husband there. My grandmother always had a positive relationship with Germany, as well. Germany was her country.”
The New York Consulate naturalized roughly 900 citizens who are descendents of Holocaust survivors in the last two years. said Anna Miebach, a deputy consul who handles the naturalization applications. “German citizenship is often seen as an added sense of security, so if the political situation maybe is a bit troubling, we see an uptick in applications,” she told he New York Jewish Week. She said that in 2022, there were just over 8,000 naturalizations to German citizenship from around the world; roughly a quarter of them were American.
Miebach added that while the consulate doesn’t track the number of newly naturalized citizens who permanently move to Germany, she thinks it is rare. However, “visiting and studying is very common,” she said, and traveling to Europe with ease is a big part of the motivation of many who apply.
Miebach added that since 2020, there have been several changes in the naturalization law, called the Article 116 Par. 2 Basic Law. The changes allowed even more Jewish descendants to apply for and receive citizenship, including descendants who could trace their lineage through the matrilineal line as opposed to just the patrilineal line.
“We are here to support you in this journey, which can be very emotional,” Miebach said. “I think often when people want to start this process it feels a bit isolating. Every family member may not be on board with them getting citizenship. These outreach events are very important to make the whole process more personalized.”
The event concluded with a discussion between Rothschild and Sami Vingron, a German Jew who grew up in Berlin and is now in his final year of rabbinical school at the Jewish Theological Seminary uptown.
Vingron said that Jews in Germany find themselves in a unique position of being forced to acknowledge the atrocities of the Holocaust on a daily basis — as he put it, “I learned to windsurf at the Wannsee,” site of a meeting in which Nazi officials planned the genocide.
But this aspect of German Jewish identity makes the Jewish community feel a certain closeness and responsibility towards each other, he added. “There’s a very strong sense of collective identity, of being there for each other in Germany,” said Vingron, who plans to return to Germany. “Jews in our times want to preserve what was there but also want to go into the future and have a diverse Judaism.”
For Rose Freymuth-Frazier, a New York City based-artist who created a Facebook group for newly naturalized citizens, meeting other people who went through the same process as her has been a major bonus to the experience.
“When I walked into this room I got a bit choked up. Every time I walk into the Jewish space, I think, of course, we’re all related,” she said. “But the feeling is even more pronounced among German Jews. There’s a closeness here. We’ve all been through the same experience. It’s an amazing feeling.”
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Harvard Faculty Oppose Deal With Trump, Distancing From Hamas Apologists: Crimson Poll
Harvard University president Alan Garber attending the 373rd Commencement Exercises at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, US, May 23, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Brian Snyder
A recently published Harvard Crimson poll of over 1,400 Harvard faculty revealed sweeping opposition to interim university President Alan Garber’s efforts to strike a deal with the federal government to restore $3 billion in research grants and contracts it froze during the first 100 days of the second Trump administration.
In the survey, conducted from April 23 to May 12, 71 percent of arts and sciences faculty oppose negotiating a settlement with the administration, which may include concessions conservatives have long sought from elite higher education, such as meritocratic admissions, viewpoint diversity, and severe disciplinary sanctions imposed on students who stage unauthorized protests that disrupt academic life.
Additionally, 64 percent “strongly disagree” with shuttering diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs, 73 percent oppose rejecting foreign applicants who hold anti-American beliefs which are “hostile to the American values and institutions inscribed in the US Constitution and Declaration of Independence,” and 70 percent strongly disagree with revoking school recognition from pro-Hamas groups such as the Palestine Solidarity Committee (PSC).
“More than 98 percent of faculty who responded to the survey supported the university’s decision to sue the White House,” The Crimson reported. “The same percentage backed Harvard’s public rejection of the sweeping conditions that the administration set for maintaining the funds — terms that included external audits of Harvard’s hiring practices and the disciplining of student protesters.”
Alyza Lewin of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law told The Algemeiner that the poll results indicate that Harvard University will continue to struggle to address campus antisemitism on campus, as there is now data showing that its faculty reject the notion of excising intellectualized antisemitism from the university.
“If you, for example, have faculty teaching courses that are regularly denying that the Jews are a people and erasing the Jewish people’s history in the land of Israel, that’s going to undermine your efforts to address the antisemitism on your campus,” Lewin explained. “When Israel is being treated as the ‘collective Jew,’ when the conversation is not about Israel’s policies, when the criticism is not what the [International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism] would call criticism of Israel similar to that against any other country, they have to understand that it is the demonization, delegitimization, and applying a double standard to Jews as individuals or to Israel.”
She added, “Faculty must recognize … the demonization, vilification, the shunning, and the marginalizing of Israelis, Jews, and Zionists, when it happens, as violations of the anti-discrimination policies they are legally and contractually obligated to observe.”
The Crimson survey results were published amid reports that Garber was working to reach a deal with the Trump administration that is palatable to all interested parties, including the university’s left-wing social milieu.
According to a June 26 report published by The Crimson, Garber held a phone call with major donors in which he “confirmed in response to a question from [Harvard Corporation Fellow David M. Rubenstein] that talks had resumed” but “declined to share specifics of how Harvard expected to settle with the White House.”
On June 30, the Trump administration issued Harvard a “notice of violation” of civil rights law following an investigation which examined how it responded to dozens of antisemitic incidents reported by Jewish students since the 2023-2024 academic year.
The correspondence, sent by the Joint Task Force to Combat Antisemitism, charged that Harvard willfully exposed Jewish students to a torrent of racist and antisemitic abuse following the Hamas-led Oct. 7 massacre, which precipitated a surge in anti-Zionist activity on the campus, both in the classroom and out of it.
“Failure to institute adequate changes immediately will result in the loss of all federal financial resources and continue to affect Harvard’s relationship with the federal government,” wrote the four federal officials comprising the multiagency Task Force. “Harvard may of course continue to operate free of federal privileges, and perhaps such an opportunity will spur a commitment to excellence that will help Harvard thrive once again.”
The Trump administration ratcheted up pressure on Harvard again on Wednesday, reporting the institution to its accreditor for alleged civil rights violations resulting from its weak response to reports of antisemitic bullying, discrimination, and harassment following the Oct. 7, 2023 massacre.
Citing Harvard’s failure to treat antisemitism as seriously as it treated other forms of hatred in the past, The US Department of Educationthe called on the New England Commission of Higher Education to review and, potentially, revoke its accreditation — a designation which qualifies Harvard for federal funding and attests to the quality of the educational services its provides.
“Accrediting bodies play a significant role in preserving academic integrity and a campus culture conducive to truth seeking and learning,” said Secretary of Education Linda McMahon. “Part of that is ensuring students are safe on campus and abiding by federal laws that guarantee educational opportunities to all students. By allowing anti-Semitic harassment and discrimination to persist unchecked on its campus, Harvard University has failed in its obligation to students, educators, and American taxpayers.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Harvard Faculty Oppose Deal With Trump, Distancing From Hamas Apologists: Crimson Poll first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Balancing Act: Lebanese President Aoun Affirms Hope for Peace with Israel, Balks At Normalization
Lebanese President Joseph Aoun attends a joint press conference with French President Emmanuel Macron at the Elysee Palace in Paris, France, March 28, 2025. REUTERS/Sarah Meyssonnier/Pool
Lebanese President Joseph Aoun on Friday carefully affirmed his country’s desire for peace with Israel while cautioning that Beirut is not ready to normalize relations with its southern neighbor.
Aoun called for a full Israeli withdrawal from Lebanese territory, according to a statement from his office, while reaffirming his government’s efforts to uphold a state monopoly on arms amid mounting international pressure on the Iran-backed terror group Hezbollah to disarm.
“The decision to restrict arms is final and there is no turning back on it,” Aoun said.
The Lebanese leader drew a clear distinction between pursuing peace and establishing formal normalization in his country’s relationship with the Jewish state.
“Peace is the lack of a state of war, and this is what matters to us in Lebanon at the moment,” Aoun said in a statement. “As for the issue of normalization, it is not currently part of Lebanese foreign policy.”
Aoun’s latest comments come after Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar expressed interest last month in normalizing ties with Lebanon and Syria — an effort Jerusalem says cannot proceed until Hezbollah is fully disarmed.
Earlier this week, Aoun sent his government’s response to a US-backed disarmament proposal as Washington and Jerusalem increased pressure on Lebanon to neutralize the terror group.
While the details remain confidential, US Special Envoy Thomas Barrack said he was “unbelievably satisfied” with their response.
This latest proposal, presented to Lebanese officials during Barrack’s visit on June 19, calls for Hezbollah to be fully disarmed within four months in exchange for Israel halting airstrikes and withdrawing troops from its five occupied posts in southern Lebanon.
However, Hezbollah chief Sheikh Naim Qassem vowed in a televised speech to keep the group’s weapons, rejecting Washington’s disarmament proposal.
“How can you expect us not to stand firm while the Israeli enemy continues its aggression, continues to occupy the five points, and continues to enter our territories and kill?” said Qassem, who succeeded longtime terrorist leader Hassan Nasrallah after Israel killed him last year.
“We will not be part of legitimizing the occupation in Lebanon and the region,” the terrorist leader continued. “We will not accept normalization [with Israel].”
Last fall, Israel decimated Hezbollah’s leadership and military capabilities with an air and ground offensive, following the group’s attacks on Jerusalem — which they claimed were a show of solidarity with the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas amid the war in Gaza.
In November, Lebanon and Israel reached a US-brokered ceasefire agreement that ended a year of fighting between the Jewish state and Hezbollah.
Under the agreement, Israel was given 60 days to withdraw from southern Lebanon, allowing the Lebanese army and UN forces to take over security as Hezbollah disarms and moves away from Israel’s northern border.
However, Israel maintained troops at several posts in southern Lebanon beyond the ceasefire deadline, as its leaders aimed to reassure northern residents that it was safe to return home.
Jerusalem has continued carrying out strikes targeting remaining Hezbollah activity, with Israeli leaders accusing the group of maintaining combat infrastructure, including rocket launchers — calling this “blatant violations of understandings between Israel and Lebanon.”
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Peace Meals: Chef José Andrés Says ‘Good People’ On Both Sides of Gaza Conflict Ill-Served By Leaders, Food Can Bridge Divide
Chef and head of World Central Kitchen Jose Andres attends the Milken Institute Global Conference 2025 in Beverly Hills, California, US, May 5, 2025. Photo: Reuters/Mike Blake.
Renowned Spanish chef and World Central Kitchen (WCK) founder José Andrés called the Oct. 7 attack “horrendous” in an interview Wednesday and shared his hopes for reconciliation between the “vast majority” on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian divide who are “good people that very often are not served well by their leaders”
WCK is a US-based, nonprofit organization that provides fresh meals to people in conflict zones around the world. The charity has been actively serving Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank since the Oct. 7 massacre in southern Israel. Since the Hamas attack, WCK has served more than 133 million meals across Gaza, according to its website.
The restaurateur and humanitarian has been quoted saying in past interviews that “sometimes very big problems have very simple solutions.” On Wednesday’s episode of the Wall Street Journal podcast “Bold Names,” he was asked to elaborate on that thought. He responded by saying he believes good meals and good leaders can help resolve issues between Israelis and Palestinians, who, he believes, genuinely want to live harmoniously with each other.
“I had people in Gaza, mothers, women making bread,” he said. “Moments that you had of closeness they were telling you: ‘What Hamas did was wrong. I wouldn’t [want] anybody to do this to my children.’ And I had Israelis that even lost family members. They say, ‘I would love to go to Gaza to be next to the people to show them that we respect them …’ And this to me is very fascinating because it’s the reality.
“Maybe some people call me naive. [But] the vast majority of the people are good people that very often are not served well by their leaders. And the simple reality of recognizing that many truths can be true at the same time in the same phrase that what happened on October 7th was horrendous and was never supposed to happen. And that’s why World Central Kitchen was there next to the people in Israel feeding in the kibbutz from day one, and at the same time that I defended obviously the right of Israel to defend itself and to try to bring back the hostages. Equally, what is happening in Gaza is not supposed to be happening either.”
Andres noted that he supports Israel’s efforts to target Hamas terrorists but then seemingly accused Israel of “continuously” targeting children and civilians during its military operations against the terror group.
“We need leaders that believe in that, that believe in longer tables,” he concluded. “It’s so simple to invest in peace … It’s so simple to do good. It’s so simple to invest in a better tomorrow. Food is a solution to many of the issues we’re facing. Let’s hope that … one day in the Middle East it’ll be people just celebrating the cultures that sometimes if you look at what they eat, they seem all to eat exactly the same.”
In 2024, WCK fired at least 62 of its staff members in Gaza after Israel said they had ties to terrorist groups. In one case, Israel discovered that a WCK employee named Ahed Azmi Qdeih took part in the deadly Hamas rampage across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Qdeih was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza in November 2024.
In April 2024, the Israel Defense Forces received backlash for carrying out airstrikes on a WCK vehicle convoy which killed seven of the charity’s employees. Israel’s military chief, Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, said the airstrikes were “a mistake that followed a misidentification,” and Israel dismissed two senior officers as a result of the mishandled military operation.
The strikes “were not just some unfortunate mistake in the fog of war,” Andrés alleged.
“It was a direct attack on clearly marked vehicles whose movements were known by” the Israeli military, he claimed in an op-ed published by Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharonot. “It was also the direct result of [the Israeli] government’s policy to squeeze humanitarian aid to desperate levels.”
In a statement on X, Andres accused Israel of “indiscriminate killing,” saying the Jewish state “needs to stop restricting humanitarian aid, stop killing civilians and aid workers, and stop using food as a weapon.”
The post Peace Meals: Chef José Andrés Says ‘Good People’ On Both Sides of Gaza Conflict Ill-Served By Leaders, Food Can Bridge Divide first appeared on Algemeiner.com.