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When Will the Need to Proclaim, ‘Never Again’ Ever End?
People with Israeli flags attend the International March of the Living at the former Auschwitz Nazi German death camp, in Brzezinka near Oswiecim, Poland, May 6, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Kuba Stezycki
The familiar mantra “Never Again” echoes through the ages as often as Jews have been set upon by their enemies. Will the need to proclaim, “Never Again” ever end?
Let us scroll back to the era of the First Temple in Jerusalem, 2,600 years ago. The Babylonians, under the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, destroyed the holy temple and drove the Jews from the Kingdom of Judea into exile. Forty-eight years later, during the reign of Cyrus the Great, the Jews returned to Jerusalem and under King Solomon’s sovereignty were able to build the Second Temple. Then in 70 CE, the Jewish people suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of Titus of Rome, and — except for a remnant who managed to remain in Israel — Jews were exiled, enslaved, or murdered by the conquerors.
The surviving Jews found themselves a landless people, sometimes welcomed or begrudgingly tolerated by the inhabitants of foreign lands. The First Crusade erupted in 1096 in Western Germany along the Rhine River, a thousand years after the Jews lost their homeland. The Crusade led to the mass slaughter of Jews who had settled in Rhineland, and the same fate awaited them later in the Holy Land.
One of the worst antisemitic massacres of the Middle Ages took place in England in 1190; it is known as the York pogrom. The city’s entire Jewish community was trapped by an angry mob inside the tower of York Castle. Members of the Jewish community were forcibly baptized or murdered by the attackers. The survivors of the carnage were summarily expelled from England.
For over two millennia, we Jews have suffered a long and woeful history of oppression, expulsion, and murder. What began in Babylonia, continued in Rome as a never-ending stream of persecution that persisted during the Crusades which flowed into the infamous Spanish pogrom of 1391, when Sephardic Jews were given the option of conversion to Catholicism or death. By 1492, any Jews fortunate to survive, were expelled from Spain.
Following those dark and dangerous days, the remaining Jews scattered throughout the world in what is called the Diaspora. Unfortunately, instead of receiving a friendly and neighborly welcome, they were greeted by Eastern Europe populations with a succession of attacks and massacres in their small villages, known as shtetls. Most notable was the uprising of Cossacks in what is known as the Khmelnitsky pogrom that swept through Poland, Lithuania, and Ukraine. Tens of thousands of Jews were brutally murdered during the massacres between the years 1648 and 1667.
Two-hundred years passed before Europe’s festering antisemitism once again erupted into violence. Beginning in 1881, the renewal of pogroms plagued the Jewish communities in southern Russia, when thousands of shtetls and their inhabitants were eliminated, culminating in the murder of 250,000 Jews in Ukraine between the years of 1918 and 1920.
Then came the Holocaust. From 1933 to 1945, Germany, with the assistance of all too willing European collaborators, embarked upon the state-sponsored persecution and industrialized murder of six million European Jewish men, women, and children.
Three years after the end of World War II, the modern State of Israel was established. But only one day after Israel’s declaration of Independence in 1948, five Arab armies sought to purge the region of Jews. This time it was different; the Jews once again had a homeland to defend. They successfully defeated the existential threat of annihilation posed by the neighboring Arab countries.
The question of, will “Never Again” ever end, was abruptly and savagely answered again on the morning of Oct. 7, 2023, when approximately 1,200 people were murdered and 250 others abducted into Gaza, including children and infants. Today, the vulnerable Jewish shtetls of yesteryear no longer exist because the IDF (Israel Defense Forces), world Jewry, and morally driven Gentiles, have Israel’s back.
The Oct. 7 jihad occurred because of the genocidal aims of Hamas and its supporting cast of radical Islamist terrorists to rid Israel of its Jews. After thousands of years of being murdered simply for who we are, a vital lesson has been learnt. Elie Wiesel expressed it best: “I learned to trust the threats of enemies before the promises of friends.”
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Trump’s Travel Ban on 12 Countries Goes Into Effect Early Monday
US President Donald Trump attends the Saudi-US Investment Forum, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, May 13, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Brian Snyder
US President Donald Trump’s order banning citizens of 12 countries from entering the United States goes into effect at 12:01 am ET (0401 GMT) on Monday, a move the president promulgated to protect the country from “foreign terrorists.”
The countries affected by the latest travel ban are Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen.
The entry of people from seven other countries – Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela – will be partially restricted.
Trump, a Republican, said the countries subject to the most severe restrictions were determined to harbor a “large-scale presence of terrorists,” fail to cooperate on visa security, have an inability to verify travelers’ identities, as well as inadequate record-keeping of criminal histories and high rates of visa overstays in the United States.
He cited last Sunday’s incident in Boulder, Colorado, in which an Egyptian national tossed a gasoline bomb into a crowd of pro-Israel demonstrators as an example of why the new curbs are needed. But Egypt is not part of the travel ban.
The travel ban forms part of Trump’s policy to restrict immigration into the United States and is reminiscent of a similar move in his first term when he barred travelers from seven Muslim-majority nations.
Officials and residents in countries whose citizens will soon be banned expressed dismay and disbelief.
Chad President Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno said he had instructed his government to stop granting visas to US citizens in response to Trump’s action.
“Chad has neither planes to offer nor billions of dollars to give, but Chad has its dignity and its pride,” he said in a Facebook post, referring to countries such as Qatar, which gifted the U.S. a luxury airplane for Trump’s use and promised to invest billions of dollars in the U.S.
Afghans who worked for the US or US-funded projects and were hoping to resettle in the US expressed fear that the travel ban would force them to return to their country, where they could face reprisal from the Taliban.
Democratic US lawmakers also voiced concern about the policies.
“Trump’s travel ban on citizens from over 12 countries is draconian and unconstitutional,” said US Representative Ro Khanna on social media late on Thursday. “People have a right to seek asylum.”
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Israeli Military Says It Struck Hamas Member in Southern Syria
Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa speaks during a joint press conference with French President Emmanuel Macron after a meeting at the Elysee Palace in Paris, France, May 7, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Stephanie Lecocq/Pool
The Israeli military said on Sunday that it struck a member of the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas in southern Syria’s Mazraat Beit Jin, days after Israel carried out its first airstrikes in the country in nearly a month.
Hamas did not immediately comment on the strike.
Israel said on Tuesday it hit weapons belonging to the government in retaliation for the firing of two projectiles towards Israel for the first time under the country’s new leadership. Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz held Syria’s President Ahmed al-Sharaa accountable.
Damascus in response said reports of the shelling were unverified, reiterating that Syria does not pose a threat to any regional party.
A little known group named “Martyr Muhammad Deif Brigades,” an apparent reference to Hamas’ military leader who was killed in an Israeli strike in 2024, reportedly claimed responsibility for the shelling. Reuters, however, could not independently verify the claim.
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Israel Orders Military to Stop Gaza-Bound Yacht Carrying Greta Thunberg
FILE PHOTO: Activist Greta Thunberg sits aboard the aid ship Madleen, which left the Italian port of Catania on June 1 to travel to Gaza to deliver humanitarian aid, in this picture released on June 2, 2025 on social media. Photo: Freedom Flotilla Coalition/via REUTERS/File Photo
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz told the military on Sunday to stop a charity boat carrying activists including Sweden’s Greta Thunberg who are planning to defy an Israeli blockade and reach Gaza.
Operated by the pro-Palestinian Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC), the British-flagged Madleen yacht set sail from Sicily on June 6 and is currently off the Egyptian coast, heading slowly towards the Gaza Strip, which is besieged by Israel.
“I instructed the IDF to act so that the Madleen .. does not reach Gaza,” Katz said in a statement.
“To the antisemitic Greta and her Hamas-propaganda-spouting friends, I say clearly: You’d better turn back, because you will not reach Gaza.”
Climate activist Thunberg said she joined the Madleen crew to “challenge Israel’s illegal siege and escalating war crimes” in Gaza and highlight the urgent need for humanitarian aid. She has rejected previous Israeli accusations of antisemitism.
Israel went to war with Hamas in October 2023 after the Islamist terrorists launched a surprise attack on southern Israel, killing more 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages back to the enclave.
Katz said the blockade was essential to Israel’s national security as it seeks to eliminate Hamas.
“The State of Israel will not allow anyone to break the naval blockade on Gaza, whose primary purpose is to prevent the transfer of weapons to Hamas,” he said.
The Madleen is carrying a symbolic quantity of aid, including rice and baby formula, the FFC has said.
FFC press officer Hay Sha Wiya said on Sunday the boat was currently some 160 nautical miles (296 km) from Gaza. “We are preparing for the possibility of interception,” she said.
Besides Thunberg, there are 11 other crew members aboard, including Rima Hassan, a French member of the European Parliament.
Israeli media have reported that the military plans to intercept the yacht before it reaches Gaza and escort it to the Israeli port of Ashdod. The crew would then be deported.
In 2010, Israeli commandos killed 10 people when they boarded a Turkish ship, the Mavi Marmara, that was leading a small flotilla towards Gaza.
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