Uncategorized
Bosnian Jews mourn Moris Albahari, one of Sarajevo’s last Ladino speakers
(JTA) — Moris Albahari, a Holocaust survivor, former partisan fighter and one of the last Ladino speakers in Bosnia and Herzegovina’s dwindling Jewish community, passed away at the age of 93 last month.
It is believed that he was one of four native Ladino speakers remaining in a country where the Judeo-Spanish language once flourished and was spoken by luminaries like Flory Jagoda, the grande dame of Ladino song, and Laura Bohoretta, the founder of a uniquely Sephardic feminist movement in Bosnia.
Bosnia’s small Jewish community — with barely 900 members throughout the country, 500 of whom live in Sarajevo — are mourning the loss of a living link to communal memory as well as a dear friend.
“From you, uncle Moco, I learned a lot about Judaism, about life, about nature and especially about people. About both the good and the evil,” Igor Kožemjakin, the cantor of the Sarajevo Jewish community, wrote in a memorial post on Facebook, referring to Moris as “Čika,” or uncle, a term of endearment in Bosnian.
“It is a terrible loss, especially for Sarajevo. Our community is very small, especially after the Holocaust,” Eliezer Papo, a Sarajevo-born Jew and scholar of Ladino language and literature at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “We’re not speaking just in terms of prominent members of the community, we’re speaking in terms of family members. Everyone is like a family member.”
When Albahari was growing up in the 1930s, the Jewish community of his native Sarajevo numbered over 12,000. Jews made up more than a fifth of the city and it was one of the most important centers of Jewish life in the western Balkans.
In his youth, the city was part of what was then the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. Formed out of the borderlands between the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian empires, it was a multiethnic state composed of Croats, Serbs, Bosniaks, Slovenians, Macedonians, Hungarians, Albanians and more. Among them were many Jewish communities both Ashkenazi and Sephardic.
The unique mix of of Muslim, Jewish, Catholic and Orthodox Christian communities, with their mosques, synagogues and churches defining Sarajevo’s skyline, earned the city the nickname “Little Jerusalem.”
Speaking in a 2015 documentary made by American researchers, “Saved by Language,” Albahari explained that his family traced their roots back to Cordoba before the Spanish Inquisition, and through Venice, before settling in what would become Bosnia when it was part of the Ottoman Empire.
“We didn’t want to ‘just’ write an article about Moris or Sarajevo; we wanted [the audience] to see what we saw and hear what we heard,” Brian Kirschen, professor of Ladino at Binghamton University, who worked on the documentary with author Susanna Zaraysky, told JTA. “This resulted in a grassroots initiative to create the documentary.”
In the film, Albahari takes the researchers and their viewers on a tour through what was Jewish Sarajevo, giving glimpses of the thriving Ladino speaking community in which he was raised and explaining how ithe language would save him many times, when the Nazis and their Croat allies, the Ustaša, came to shatter it.
“In sharing your story of survival during the Holocaust, you opened doors that remained closed for decades,” Kirschen said in a memorial post on Facebook. “Some of your stories were even new to members of your family, but each survivor has their own timeline. While you experienced great pain during your life, from your story, we also learn about moments of kindness and heroism. Through your story, you also taught us about the power of language.”
Albahari wasn’t yet a teenager when, in 1941, Nazi Germany and Mussolini’s Italy invaded Yugoslavia. The Nazis occupied the eastern portion of the country, including what is now Serbia, while they raised up a Croat fascist party, known as the Ustaša, to administer the newly formed “Independent State of Croatia” — often known by its Serbo-Croatian initials, NDH — in the western regions that included the modern-day Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The Ustaša collaborated in the Nazis’ genocidal plans for Europe’s Jewish and Roma comunities, and they had genocidal designs of their own for the Orthodox Serb communities living in the NDH.
To that end they established the Jasenovac concentration camp, which would become known as the Auschwitz of the Balkans. By the war’s end it had become the third largest concentration camp in Europe, and behind its walls the overwhelming majority of Sarajevo’s Jews — at least 10,000 — were massacred. Including Serbs, Jews, Roma and political dissidents of Croat or Muslim Bosniak background, as many as 100,000 people were killed in Jasenovac.
Albahari was 11 years old when the Ustaša came to deport him and his large family to Jasenovac. A former teacher working as an Ustaša guard in the town of Drvar, where the train stopped, warned Albahari’s father, David, about their destination, and he was able to help his son escape from the train.
The teacher helped guide the young Moris to an Italian soldier named Lino Marchione who was secretly helping Jews.
This was the first case when Albahari’s Ladino came in handy. Ladino is largely based on medieval Spanish, with a mixture of Hebrew, Aramaic, Turkish and other languages mixed in. For speakers of Serbo-Croatian, a Slavic language, it’s entirely incomprehensible. But for a speaker of another Romance language such as Italian, it’s not such a stretch to understand, and Moris was able to converse with his Italian savior.
With his family gone, he was taken in by a Serb family, and changed his name to Milan Adamovic to hide his Jewish identity. Still, by 1942, it became clear that neither as Adamovic nor Albahari would he be safe in the town. So he fled to the mountains.
“If there was [a battle] I took clothes from a dead soldier to wear, I lived like a wolf in the mountains, you know. Visiting villages [asking for something] to give me for eating, it was a terrible time,” Albahari recalled in “Saved By Language.”
He would only feel safe in villages under the control of partisan forces. Yugoslavia was the only country in Europe to be liberated from Nazi rule by its own grassroots resistance.
During his time in the mountains, Albahari joined up with a partisan unit aligned with the movement of Josip Broz Tito, who would lead Communist Yugoslavia after the war. By the war’s end, Tito’s partisans numbered over 80,000 and included more than 6,000 Jews, many in prominent positions, such as Moša Pijade, who would go on to serve as vice president of the Yugoslav parliament after the war.
Moris was out on patrol as a partisan when he came upon a group of American and British paratroopers. They raised their weapons at him, thinking he was an enemy. Moris tried to communicate, but he spoke no English.
When he asked the soldiers if they spoke German or Italian, they shook their heads. When he asked about Spanish, one perked up: a Hispanic-American soldier by the name of David Garijo.
In Ladino, Alabahari was able to explain that he was not an enemy but could lead them to a nearby partisan camp where they would be safe.
“Ladino saved my life in the war,” Albahari recalled in the documentary.
At the partisan camp, Morris received even bigger news: The family that he had assumed had all perished after he left the train were in fact alive. The former school teacher and Ustaša guard who had warned his father had met them at the next train junction to help them escape. Furthermore, around half of the Jews in the train car were able to escape using the same hole Moris used during his initial escape.
Ultimately the family all survived the war, unlike so many other Jews of Sarajevo.
“Where is Samuel, where is Dudo, where is Gedala? They never came back,” Albahari lamented, listing missing neighbors while walking through Sarajevo’s old Jewish neighborhood in the documentary. “Maybe we are happy because we are alive after the Second World War, but also unlikely because every day we must cry for these dead people.”
When Moris returned to Sarajevo, it was an entirely different place from the bustling Jewish community he had once known.
Gone was the sound of Ladino in the streets and alleyways of Bascarsija, the market district where so many of Sarajevo’s Jews had once lived. Gone were the synagogues — only one of the many synagogues that had existed before WWII still functions. Gone was the robust Jewish life that was once a central part of Sarajevo.
Moris was still only 14 by the war’s end, so he returned to school and ultimately graduated at the top of his class. He became a pilot and later director of the Sarajevo Airport.
In this new world, Ladino was spoken, if at all, only in the home.
“Always, when I hear Spanish, I hear my father and mother, and all the synagogues, prayers in Ladino and rabbis who spoke Ladino. But that is in the past,” Albahari says in “Saved by Language.”
Eliezer Papo, who is a generation younger than Albahari, recalled that in his youth Ladino had long been reduced to a language of secrets.
“Mostly, Ladino was used when the elders didn’t want youngsters to understand,” Papo said.
Only later, in the 1980s, did community members realize what was being lost and begin to gather to maintain their language, recount what Jewish Sarajevo had been like and share their wartime stories of survival.
“He never took his story to the places of revenge, but he took it and his life experience to a place of ‘Never again,’ not just ‘Never again for Jews’, but never again for anybody,” said Papo.
Like many Sarajevans, World War II would not be the last major conflict Albahari would see. Less than 40 years later, war would once again come to Sarajevo with the break-up of Yugoslavia.
From 1992-1995 the city remained under constant siege by Bosnian Serb forces looking to break away from what would become Bosnia and Herzegovina. Moris joined with other Jews of Sarajevo in working to provide aid to their fellow Sarajevans during the harsh period.
Sarajevo’s synagogue was turned into a shelter and a soup kitchen. The community ran a network of underground pharmacies and a message service allowing Sarajevans to get word to family and friends outside of the city during what became the longest siege of a capital city in the history of modern warfare.
“Moris was an inspirational persona to many members of Jewish community and La Benevolencija,” Vlado Anderle, the current president of that local Jewish humanitarian organization told JTA. “He was a man with such inviting spirit and energy.”
When the dust settled on the breakup of Yugoslavia, and the new Bosnian state rose from its ashes, Moris found himself once again in a new role.
During the communist era in Yugoslavia, religious activity was discouraged. Sarajevo’s Jews emphasized the ethnic character of Jewish culture rather than the religious one. In the new Bosnia and Herzegovina, that was no longer true. So the community worked to reconnect with their religious identity as well.
“Everybody looked up to the people who had Jewish upbringing before the Second World War,” Papo recalled. “This doesn’t mean that they were rabbis. Just that they knew it better than anyone else.”
Moris, whose formal Jewish education ended in his preteen years, was appointed president of the community’s religious committee.
As such it often fell on him to represent Judaism to the Bosnian society at large, often in a very creative way, according to Papo, who in addition to being a scholar of Ladino is ordained as a rabbi and serves the Sarajevo community as a rabbi-at-large from Israel.
In one case, while being interviewed on a major Bosnian television station, Moris was asked why Jews cover their head with a kippah or other hat during prayer. Moris’ response, or rather creative interpretation, as Papo called it, was made up on the spot.
Moris’ interpretation began with the ancient temple in Jerusalem where Jews once had to fully immerse in a ritual bath before entering.
“Since the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed it was reduced to washing the uncovered parts of the body only, before entering a synagogue, similarly to Muslims: the feet, the head, the hands…” Papo recalled him saying. But in Europe, as Moris’ answer went, they began to cover more and more of their body. “In Europe they started wearing shoes, so the feet were not uncovered anymore, and then they started wearing a hat, not to have to wash their head… you know it’s Europe, one could catch a cold if going out with wet hair…”
“A few months later, I came to Sarajevo, and found that everyone has heard this explanation and is talking about it, not just people in the community, but in the street,” Papo said. “And you know, I let it pass, I couldn’t correct them, it was just so beautiful. That was his genius.”
“Identity is all about telling stories. And Moris was one of the great storytellers of the community,” Papo added. And through his stories he expressed an identity which was “made of the same contradictions that Sephardic Judaism is made of, that Sarajevo is made of, that Bosnia and Herzegovina is made and that Yugoslavia was and is made of and that the Balkans are made of.”
Albahari is survived by his wife and a son.
—
The post Bosnian Jews mourn Moris Albahari, one of Sarajevo’s last Ladino speakers appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Uncategorized
Hezbollah enters Iran war, firing on Israel’s north, as US officials say more fighting is to come
(JTA) — Hezbollah fired on Israel for the first time since a 2024 ceasefire on Sunday, opening a new front in the U.S.-Israel war on Iran that began on Saturday.
Israel hammered Hezbollah positions in Lebanon overnight and said it had killed the group’s head of intelligence, Hussein Makled. Israeli officials said they expected further salvos from the Iranian proxy to the north.
The escalation comes as new missile attacks from Iran caused fresh damage and injuries in Beersheba and as the scope of the damage from the first two days of the war have come into focus. That includes sweeping damage in central Tel Aviv, where one woman was killed; a direct strike on a shelter in Beit Shemesh that killed nine, including three teen siblings; and strikes in Jerusalem that both injured Arab Israelis and sent shrapnel close to the holy sites of the Western Wall and Al-Aqsa Mosque.
Both Israeli and U.S. officials say they expect operations to last for some time, with President Donald Trump suggesting a four-week timeline even as he indicated that Iranian officials had indicated a willingness to return to the negotiating table. Iran’s top security official, whom Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had identified as a leader in the case of his assassination, denied Trump’s characterization.
Military officials including War Secretary Pete Hegseth said on Monday morning that they could not offer a timeline or details about the operations but said they were happy with the operations so far, which are designed to thwart Iran’s nuclear ambitions and topple its Islamic Republic regime. Asked about the significance of the fact that Israel killed Khamenei, Hegseth responded, “I think Israel did a great job in the conduct of that operation.”
A fourth U.S. service member who was wounded over the weekend died on Monday, while multiple U.S. planes were shot down by friendly fire over Kuwait; their passengers survived.
The incident in Kuwait comes as Iran continues to fire on Arab states in the region, in a new escalation of regional conflict. An Iranian drone also crashed into a British base in Cyprus, causing Prime Minister Keir Starmer to agree to a U.S. request to use British bases to support efforts to destroy Iranian weapons. German Chancellor Frederich Merz is visiting Trump on Monday and may also agree to play a role in supporting the U.S.-Israeli operations.
The post Hezbollah enters Iran war, firing on Israel’s north, as US officials say more fighting is to come appeared first on The Forward.
Uncategorized
Jewish Democrats split over Trump’s Iran military strikes as Congress weighs war powers
The joint U.S.-Israel military campaign against Iran, launched with a stealth strike early Saturday, has also prompted a political battle in Washington over waging war without authorization from Congress as required by the constitution.
President Donald Trump has offered mixed signals about the operation’s duration, suggesting that it could be prolonged but also floating a possible immediate return to negotiations with Tehran.
At least 10 Israelis and four U.S. servicemembers were killed in Iranian missile strikes over the weekend.
In recent weeks, as the likelihood of war loomed, Jewish Democrats on the Hill highlighted the need for congressional oversight and a formal vote before the U.S. deepens its role in a war with Tehran. Now, as Israeli civilians shelter under sirens and endure repeated missile strikes, the divide has sharpened between members of Congress with longstanding personal and political ties to Israel and those firmly opposed to expanding American involvement in another Middle East conflict.
The divide reflects wider tensions within the Democratic Party in the wake of the Gaza war that are likely to shape the midterm elections. Recent national polls show that Democratic voters as a group have become less sympathetic to the Jewish state. The latest Gallup annual survey found that only 17% of Democrats sympathize more with the Israelis in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, while 65% say they are more aligned with the Palestinians. A new Reuters poll showed that 74% of Democrats disapprove of the attack on Iran, and 87% of them think Trump is willing “too much” to use military force to advance U.S. interests.
Rep. Jerrold Nadler of New York, co-chair of the Congressional Jewish Caucus, called the joint US-Israeli mission an “illegal” and unjustified war that “will bring needless death and destruction.” Nadler is among 84 members who co-sponsored the bipartisan War Powers Resolution, introduced by Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, an open critic of Israel. The measure reasserts the 1973 war powers law, which would limit the president’s ability to deploy U.S. forces or declare war without congressional approval.
The House and the Senate could vote on such a measure this week, though the Republican leadership is opposed to it.
“Congress must do everything in our power to stop Trump from continuing his illegal war,” Nadler said in his statement on Saturday. ”I will vote to pass the resolution to bring an end to these illegal attacks, and I urge my colleagues to do the same.”
In contrast, Reps. Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey and Jared Moskowitz of Florida, two Democrats who have at times crossed party lines in support of Israel, have offered forceful support for action against the Iranian regime both before and after the strikes began.
But after previously declaring their opposition to congressional restrictions, Gottheimer is now urging the Trump administration to follow the war powers law, while Moskowitz is asking the president to follow the provision that requires briefing the full Congress within 48 hours of military action. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida echoed Moskowitz, saying that Trump should immediately consult and fully brief Congress before any further action is taken. “President Trump does not possess a blank check to act without consulting Congress or telling the American people what comes next,” she said.
Rep. Brad Schneider of Illinois, the other co-chair of the Jewish Caucus, said he shifted his position in favor of the war powers resolution after Trump ordered the first wave of strikes in Iran and supported the killing of Ayatollah Khamenei without any engagement with Congress. Yet, like House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, he did not explicitly condemn the strikes.
Sen. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan highlighted Trump’s lack of communication in a speech on Saturday. “He’s taken more military action in his first year than any president in our history,” Slotkin, a former CIA intelligence analyst who served three tours in Iraq, said.
“He’s really become a foreign policy president. He seems to like it and seems to sort of easily engage in it,” added Slotkin, a former Pentagon official who served in the Central Intelligence Agency. “I don’t think he’s interested in the views of many others beyond his maybe inner circle. But whether it’s Venezuela or Iran or the Caribbean, he has shown that he is quick to military action, quicker than most presidents we’ve seen in their first year.”
Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, a longtime critic of U.S. military action and Israeli policy, claimed that Israel and Saudi Arabia pressured the United States into attacking Iran. He added that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s conduct in Gaza and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s authoritarian rule are at odds with their declared support for freedom in Iran.
What Jewish groups are saying
The divide was reflected in the statements from Democratic-aligned Jewish groups. The Jewish Democratic Council of America said the need to confront Iran’s nuclear ambitions requires close coordination with Congress and said it backed the bipartisan measure to limit Trump’s executive powers. “We are gravely concerned about the safety and security of American troops, Israelis, and other civilians in the region, given the lack of a clearly articulated strategy from this White House about its military objectives and what comes next,” JDCA said in a statement.
Meanwhile, J Street, the self-described pro-Israel, pro-peace organization, said it was opposed to open-ended military action, claiming “Iran does not present an imminent threat that requires launching a ‘preventive’ war.”
Speaking at J Street’s annual conference in Washington, D.C. on Sunday, Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland thanked the Jewish advocacy group for its stance on the war. “I would argue it’s not in the interest of the people of Israel or the region.” He added, “We should not be sending America into war for the political ambitions of Prime Minister Netanyahu and the Saudi Crown Prince.”
The Democratic Majority for Israel called the action against Iran a “positive development.” It also urged the Trump administration to consult with Congress and outline a “credible plan” to prevent escalation and “clear criteria for success and drawdown.”
National Democrats on the war in Iran
Jewish Democratic leaders outside of Congress, including Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel — all considered possible presidential candidates in 2028 — also chimed in.
“Americans asked for affordable housing and health care, not another potentially endless conflict,” Pritzker posted on X.
Shapiro, whose staunch defense of Israel and criticism of the pro-Palestinian protests after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks made him a target of progressive backlash, criticized Trump for what he described as a lack of clear objectives and insufficient international backing for the mission.
Emanuel, who was White House chief of staff to former President Barack Obama, said Trump’s remarks that he would seek regime change were a declaration of war that required authorization. It’s a change of government and overthrowing a government,” he said on CNN. “This is not a limited military action.”
The post Jewish Democrats split over Trump’s Iran military strikes as Congress weighs war powers appeared first on The Forward.
Uncategorized
Irish Jews report 143 antisemitic incidents in 6 months through a new reporting system
(JTA) — Jews in Ireland reported over 100 antisemitic incidents through a communal reporting system within six months after it launched, according to a new report.
The findings published early Monday by the Jewish Representative Council of Ireland constitute the first attempt to document antisemitic incidents in Ireland.
Irish Jews, a small community of about 2,200, reported 143 incidents between July 2025 and January 2026. These were dominated by verbal abuse, vandalism, threats, exclusion or discrimination and direct digital hate messages. Physical assault was less common, with only three instances reported.
All incidents were self-reported to the JRCI, which cannot independently investigate or adjudicate them. Ireland does not have an official state mechanism for recording antisemitic incidents, the group said. And while the police record hate crimes based on nationality, ethnicity or religion, they do not isolate crimes motivated by antisemitism.
The JRCI said that 30% of incidents were triggered by cues of Jewish identity or Israeli origin, such as a Jewish symbol, an accent or speaking Hebrew in public. Such patterns often crossed the boundaries of hate driven by nationality, ethnicity and religion.
“These dynamics cannot be adequately addressed through generalized anti-racism frameworks alone,” JRCI chair Maurice Cohen said in a statement. “Antisemitism presents distinct characteristics requiring targeted policy responses.”
Cohen called for “a dedicated, standalone national plan to combat antisemitism in Ireland.”
Of the reported incidents, 25 included “Holocaust distortion” or antisemitic conspiracy theories. These findings add to a Claims Conference survey in January, which said that 9% of Irish adults believed the Holocaust was a myth, while another 17% believed the number of Jews killed had been greatly exaggerated. Half of Irish adults did not know that 6 million Jews were killed in the Holocaust.
At the same time, a November 2025 survey by the European Commission surfaced broad recognition of antisemitism in Ireland. 41% of respondents said that antisemitism was a problem in the country and 47% said it had increased over the past five years.
At a ceremony for International Holocaust Remembrance Day in January, Ireland’s taoiseach (or prime minister) Micheál Martin said, “I am acutely conscious that our Jewish community here in Ireland is experiencing a growing level of antisemitism. I know that elements of our public discourse has coarsened.”
Martin has strenuously criticized Israel’s actions in Gaza, saying at the United Nations last year that Israel committed genocide and demonstrated “an abandonment of all norms, all international rules and law.” Catherine Connolly, a socialist politician who has faced backlash for saying Hamas is “part of the fabric of the Palestinian people,” was elected as Ireland’s president in October.
Ireland has historically supported the Palestinians, a stance often linked to the country’s own history of British imperial rule, and formally recognized a Palestinian state in 2024.
In Martin’s Holocaust commemoration speech, he also condemned the most recent event to inflame the Irish Jewish community. Late last year, a proposal to rename Herzog Park in Dublin — named for Chaim Herzog, the son of the first Irish chief rabbi who became Israel’s sixth president in 1983 — was decried by Irish Jews who said it would erase Irish Jewish history. The proposal was later tabled.
Martin, who also denounced the proposal when it was active, said the Jewish community “has every right to be deeply concerned and to express that concern.”
Gideon Taylor, president of the World Jewish Restitution Organization and an Irish Jew who grew up in Dublin, said the JRCI report showed a picture of antisemitic incidents that were separate from “a debate about the policies of Israel or a debate about the Palestinian state.”
“When you have discontinuation of service because somebody is heard speaking Hebrew, or has a Jewish-identifying symbol on them, that’s not about a political position on the spectrum towards Israel,” said Taylor. “That’s something that crosses into antisemitism.”
Ireland’s chief rabbi Yoni Wieder said the report reflected experiences he already heard from his congregants.
“The report does not claim that antisemitism has become a daily reality for all Jewish people in Ireland — it has not,” said Wieder. “What it does show is that antisemitism surfaces often enough, and in ordinary enough settings, that it cannot be dismissed as rare or confined to the margins of society. This means that for many, Jewish belonging in Ireland feels more fragile than it should.”
The post Irish Jews report 143 antisemitic incidents in 6 months through a new reporting system appeared first on The Forward.