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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.
—
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Israeli President Isaac Herzog’s selection as JTS commencement speaker roils graduating class
The selection of Israeli President Isaac Herzog as the Jewish Theological Seminary’s commencement speaker has divided undergraduates at the school, with several seniors and dozens of other current students and alumni signing a letter calling on the school’s chancellor to disinvite Herzog.
The letter accused Herzog of inciting violence against civilians in Gaza — a characterization shared by some human rights groups — and criticized him for not taking action against settler violence in the West Bank.
The students added that Herzog’s involvement in the schoolwide May 19 ceremony — when he will also receive an honorary degree from the seminary — would leave them “morally conflicted about attending.”
“There are many places for members of the JTS community to engage with difficult ideas in nuanced conversation,” they wrote, “but we believe the commencement stage is not the place to engage with such a particularly divisive figure.”
The letter leaked to Chancellor Shuly Rubin Schwartz before it was finalized, according to two of the six seniors who signed it, leading to a meeting during which Rubin Schwartz took issue with the group’s approach and held firm on the decision.
Meanwhile, other JTS seniors affirming the speaker choice wrote a letter of their own that has gathered 24 signatures, representing roughly half of the senior class.
The controversy unfolded amid ongoing tensions around Israel in Conservative Jewish spaces and at Columbia University, which has a joint undergraduate program with JTS. The flagship academic institution of the Conservative movement, JTS includes in its mission deepening students’ connection to Israel, and requires its rabbinical students to spend a year learning there.
Speaking out
Herzog has faced criticism for comments he made after the Oct. 7 attacks, in which he said that it was “an entire nation” that was responsible. Some said the remark carried an implication that there were no innocent civilians in Gaza. (Herzog later said it had been taken out of context and that he did believe there were innocent Palestinians there.)
The Forward has reached out to Herzog’s office for comment.
In an interview, one of the students who signed the letter, granted anonymity out of concern for professional repercussions, said he had wanted to fight back against a culture of silence around Palestinian suffering in the Jewish world.
“I do feel powerless,” the student said. “I feel like there’s a genocide happening. And the silence is killing all of us.”
Four current JTS rabbinical students signed the letter opposing Herzog, though none was in the class of 2026. JTS rabbinical students walk at the commencement ceremony but are ordained in a smaller gathering the next day.
Rubin Schwartz said in a statement that most of the JTS community was excited about Herzog’s address and honorary degree, but that it welcomed “thoughtful discussion and differing opinions” from students, faculty and staff.
“President Herzog, like all 10 previous presidents of Israel, represents the state and its people, rather than its government,” Rubin Schwartz added. “We look forward to honoring him at this year’s ceremony.”
Gabriel Freedman-Naditch, who signed the second letter, said he had been happy to learn Herzog would be the commencement speaker. He applauded Herzog’s leadership during Israel’s judicial overhaul saga, but said the Israeli presidency was mostly a “figurehead” position anyway. And while he said he was not closely attuned to Herzog’s actions since Oct. 7, he was willing to countenance a speaker he did not perfectly align with.
“We’ve all learned to listen to people we disagree with,” Freedman-Naditch said. “We should be able to listen to people who we find upsetting.”
A messy rollout
The group of six seniors who wrote the anti-Herzog letter drafted and circulated it privately among select students and alumni, planning to share it with Rubin Schwartz in a private meeting only once it was finalized.
Then Freedman-Naditch, who had not been aware of the letter, was forwarded the letter by his mother, who had received it from a JTS graduate who had signed it. Freedman-Naditch then shared it with the senior class group chat, asking why they hadn’t all been made aware of it. The organizers replied that they were worried that the letter would be leaked along with their names.
Not long after, Rubin Schwartz requested permission through Google Documents to view the letter. The group then emailed the chancellor proposing a meeting to discuss it.
In her office Tuesday, Rubin Schwartz asked the group why they hadn’t first come to her directly, according to the two students who spoke with the Forward. They replied that the JTS administration doesn’t take seriously what undergraduate students have to say, and that voices that diverge from the pro-Israel consensus tend to be silenced.
“She was basically like, ‘It saddens me to hear you say that there isn’t a culture of dissent here,’” one of the students said. “But at the same time, she’s calling our letter of dissent a hostile act.”
“What I said was that their choice to send a letter, rather than speak directly with me or others, felt aggressive,” Rubin Schwartz said in an email. “My point was that it would have felt more respectful to have had a conversation about their feelings instead of initiating the letter campaign.”
Herzog is not the only figure from the realm of Israeli politics slated to address 2026 graduates. Yeshiva University announced Thursday its own commencement speaker: U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee.
The post Israeli President Isaac Herzog’s selection as JTS commencement speaker roils graduating class appeared first on The Forward.
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Playing with bows and arrows and other Lag BaOmer shtetl customs
עס קומט באַלד דער יום־טובֿ ל״ג־בעומר — דער 33סטער טאָג פֿון ציילן ספֿירה, די טעג צווישן פּסח און שבֿועות.
ל״ג־בעומר איז אַ טאָג פֿון פֿרייד אין מיטן פֿון זיבן וואָכן טרויער און ערנסטקייט. מע דריקט אויס די פֿרייד אויף פֿאַרשיידענע אופֿנים. דאָס ווערטל „אַ ל״ג־בעומר-גענעראַל איז נאָר אויף איין טאָג“ פֿאַררופֿט זיך אויפֿן מינהג, אין וועלכן חדר־ייִנגלעך פֿלעגן גיין אויף אַ שפּאַציר אין וואַלד מיטן מלמד, און שיסן פֿײַל־און־בויגנס (נישט קיין אמתע, נאָר שפּילעכלעך). איין חדר־ייִנגל האָט מען אויסגעקליבן צו זײַן דער גענעראַל איבער די „שלאַכטן“, וואָס האָבן נאָכגעמאַכט בר־כּוכבאס קאַמף קעגן די רוימער מיט צוויי טויזנט יאָר פֿריִער.
דעם בולטן מיליטאַריסטישן מינהג האָט מען אויסגעטײַטשט מיט אַ מער „ייִדישלעכן“ טעם — אַזוי ווי קיין רעגנבויגן האָט זיך נישט באַוויזן בעתן לעבן פֿון רב שמעון בר־יוחאי, אַ תּנא פֿון דער מישנה, דינט דער בויגן פֿונעם פֿײַל־און־בויגן ווי אַ דערמאָנונג נאָך זײַן טויט. ווי עס ווערט געזאָגט אינעם קבלה־ספֿר, דער „זוהר“, וואָס, לויט דער טראַדיציע, האָט בר־יוחאי מחבר געווען, וועט אַ רעגנבויגן מיט כּלערליי קאָלירן זיך באַווײַזן איידער דער משיח וועט קומען. האָט דער בויגן, במילא, אויך אַ טײַטש ווי אַ טייל פֿון אונדזער ייִדישער אמונה אין משיחן.
ל״ג־בעומר אינעם דאָרף מירון, נישט ווײַט פֿון צפֿת, פּראַוועט מען דעם יום־טובֿ מיט גרויס פּאַראַד; אַ מינהג, וואָס ציט זיך עטלעכע הונדערט יאָר צוריק און נעמט זיך פֿון דעם, וואָס רבֿ שמעון בר־יוחאיס קבֿר געפֿינט זיך דאָרטן. די געלערנטע האַלטן, אַז דעם „זוהר“ האָט מען ערשט אָנגעשריבן מיט אַ טויזנט יאָר שפּעטער. אין שפּאַניע, אינעם 13טן יאָרהונדערט, האָט זיך צום ערשטן מאָל באַוויזן דאָס ווערק, אַרויסגעגעבן פֿון משה דעלעאָן, אָבער דעלעאָן האָט דאָרטן געשריבן, אַז בר־יוחאי האָט עס געשאַפֿן — יוחאי האָט געקליבן די אַנטפּלעקונגען וואָס משה רבינו האָט באַקומען פֿונעם אייבערשטן און זיי געדרוקט אינעם „זוהר“.
גרשון שלום האָט געהאַלטן, אַז דעלעאָן האָט נישט נאָר אַרויסגעגעבן דעם „זוהר“, נאָר אים אויך אָנגעשריבן. ל״ג־בעומר הייסט אויך „חילולא דרבֿ שמעון בן־יוחאי“ און חילולא מיינט חתונה, מיטן מיין, אַז דער טויט פֿונעם גרויסן רבֿ האָט געבראַכט אַ שלומדיקע האַרמאָניע אין דער וועלט, וואָס מע קען געפֿינען אין זײַן „זוהר“. נישט אַלע רבנים זענען געווען צופֿרידן מיט דעם, וואָס מע הייבט אַרויס דעם „זוהר“ און זײַן מחבר אינעם טאָג פֿון ל״ג־בעומר. אָבער די פּאָפּולערע טראַדיציעס זענען געבליבן, אַזוי ווי צו שפּילן מוזיק בײַ זײַן קבֿר און אָפּשערן צום ערשטן מאָל די האָר פֿונעם קינד (בשעת ספֿירה ציילן טאָר מען נישט שערן די האָר.)
די ספֿרדישע ייִדן רופֿן דעם טאָג „ל״ג־לעומר“, נישט „בעומר“ און האָבן אַנדערע מינהגים ווי די אַשכּנזים. למשל, אין אַשכּנזישע פֿרומע קרײַזן טאָר מען נישט חתונה האָבן בשעת מע ציילט ספֿירה, אַ חוץ ל״ג־בעומר. אָבער בײַ די ספֿרדישע ייִדן מעג מען יאָ האָבן חתונה אין אַלע טעג פֿון ניסן נאָך פּסח; די סירישע ייִדן מעגן חתונה האָבן פֿון ל״ג־בעומר אָן ביז שבֿועות. ווען מע הייבט אָן צו ציילן עומר בײַ די ייִדן פֿון מאַראָקאָ באַקומט יעדער ייִד אין בית־הכּנסת אַ ביסל זאַלץ אין קעשענע, אַ דערמאָנונג צו ציילן ספֿירה, אָבער דאָס זאַלץ איז אויך אַ סגולה קעגן שלעכטס.
פֿון אַ פֿאָלקלאָריסטישן קוקווינקל קען מען באַטראַכטן אַ סך מינהגים מיט זאַלץ ווי אַ מיטל אַוועקצוטרײַבן בייזע רוחות — למשל, דאָס אײַנטונקען די חלה אין זאַלץ פֿרײַטיק־צו־נאַכטס. בײַ די מיזרח־אייראָפּעיִשע ייִדן האָט מען געוואָרפֿן זאַלץ אין די ווינקלען פֿון שטוב פּטור צו ווערן פֿון די נישט־גוטע, און מע האָט געשיט אַ ביסל זאַלץ אין די אַרבע־כּנפֿות פֿונעם קינד. ווען אַ ציגײַנער איז אַרויס פֿון שטוב האָט מען געוואָרפֿן זאַלץ, דאָס מזל זאָל נישט געשטערט ווערן.
אין אַנדערע מינהגים האָט דאָס זאַלץ אַן אַנדער אויסטײַטש. ס׳איז געווען אַ מינהג, אַז אויב מע וואַרפֿט זאַלץ אין אַ ווינקל, וווּ מע וועט עס נישט אַוועקקערן, וועט מען ווערן אָרעם. אין ענגלאַנד און האָלאַנד (ספֿרדישע ייִדן) האָט מען געגלייבט, אַז אויב מע שיט זאַלץ אויס, וועט דאָס ברענגען אַ שלעכט מזל. אין שודטס בוך פֿון „ייִדישע מערקווירדיקייטן“ [מאָדנע זאַכן] פֿונעם אָנהייב 18טן יאָרהונדערט, שרײַבט ער, אַז אַ ייִדישע פֿרוי פֿון דײַטשלאַנד האָט אים געעצהט אויפֿצוהענגען זאַלץ מיט ברויט אויף די העלדזער פֿון זײַנע קינדער, אַוועקצוטרײַבן דעם עין־הרע.
דער פּראָפֿעסאָר פֿון רעליגיע, טעאָדאָר גאַסטער, דער זון פֿונעם חשובֿן פֿאָלקלאָריסט הרבֿ משה גאַסטער, האָט ליב צו פֿאַרגלײַכן ייִדישע מינהגים מיט נישט־ייִדישע; צי ער טרײַבט איבער די פֿאַרגלײַכונגען מיט אַנדערע קולטורן איז אַ קשיא, אָבער אינטערעסאַנט, פֿון דעסטוועגן, זענען זײַנע שטודיעס. די טעג פֿון עומר פֿאַרגלײַכט ער אָן אַ „להבֿדיל“, צו דעם קריסטלעכן „לענט“ — די זעקס וואָכן פֿאַר פּאַסכע, ווען די קריסטן פֿאַסטן אָדער זענען מוותּר אַנדערע פֿאַרגעניגנס.
לויט גאַסטערן דאַרף מען באַטראַכטן ל״ג־בעומר ווי אַ פֿרילינגדיקן מײַ־פֿעסטיוואַל. ער שרײַבט, אַז דאָס שיסן פֿײַל־און־בויגנס איז געווען פֿאַרשפּרייט אין אייראָפּע דעם 1טן מײַ, ווײַל די נאַכט פֿריִער איז געווען „וואַלפּורגיס־נאַכט“ — „דער שבת פֿון די מכשפֿות“. די פֿײַלן האָבן אַוועקגעטריבן די בייזע רוחות. ל״ג־בעומר פֿלעגן די ייִדישע קינדער אויך גיין אויפֿן בית־עולם, נישט נאָר אין וואַלד, און גאַסטער באַטאָנט, אַז דאָס טאַנצן און פֿרייען זיך אויפֿן בית־עולם איז אויך פֿאָרגעקומען דעם ערשטן מײַ צווישן די פּויערים.
אין אַ זאַמלונג ייִדישע מעשׂיות פֿון אַראַבישע לענדער, רעדאַקטירט פֿון דן בן־עמוס, געפֿינט זיך אַ מעשׂה, דערציילט פֿון יוסף זיוו, וועגן די ייִדן פֿונעם טוניזישן אינדזל דזשערבאַ און די ניסים פֿון ל״ג־בעומר. בײַ זיי איז געווען אַ מינהג אָנצוצינדן אַ גרויסע מנורה און זי טראָגן מיט גרויס שׂימחה פֿון דער ייִדישער געגנט צו דער גרויסער סינאַגאָגע “אַל־גאַריבאַ”. די נאַכט האָט מען אָנגערופֿן „די נאַכט פֿון דער מנורה“, און מע האָט געזונגען, געשפּילט און רעציטירט פּאָעמעס מיט גרויס פֿרייד, גייענדיק אין גאַס.
איין יאָר האָט אַ גרופּע שׂונאי־ישׂראל באַשלאָסן, אַז מע טאָר נישט דערלאָזן, אַז די ייִדן זאָלן אַזוי זיך משׂמח זײַן. די באַנדע האָט געקליבן געווער — מעסער, העק, שטעקנס — און בדעה געהאַט צו באַפֿאַלן די פֿריילעכע ייִדן און זיי צעטרײַבן. אַלע אין דער גרופּע האָבן מסכּים געווען. אָבער אין דער נאַכט פֿונעם יום־טובֿ האָט מיט אַ מאָל אַ שטראַל ליכט אַ שײַן געטאָן פֿון דער מנורה און זיי פֿאַרבלענדט די אויגן. „דער גאָט פֿון די ייִדן איז געקומען אונדז אומברענגען, אַנטלויפֿט!“ — האָט דער פֿירער אויסגעשריגן, אָבער בלינדערהייט האָבן זיי נישט געזען וווּ צו לויפֿן.
ווען זיי האָבן סוף־כּל־סוף ווידער אָנגעהויבן זען, האָבן זיי זיך געפֿונען אין מיטן פֿון די טאַנצנדיקע, זינגענדיקע ייִדן. קיין ברירה האָבן זיי נישט געהאַט און געמוזט מיטטאַנצן און מיטזינגען ביז דער סינאַגאָגע. „און אין יעדן דור דערציילט מען וועגן דעם נס פֿון דעם ליכט, און וועגן דעם נס פֿון דער מנורה אין דער נאַכט פֿון ל״ג־בעומר. זאָלן אַלע אינטריגעס פֿון אונדזערע שׂונאים אָפּגעשאַפֿן ווערן, און גאָט זאָל אונדז ראַטעווען פֿון אַלע פֿײַנט.“
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‘Don’t give up on us now’: Israel peace summit convenes thousands to aim for elusive progress
TEL AVIV, ISRAEL — On Thursday’s bright, sun-drenched morning during a rare pause in the multi-front war Israel has been locked into for nearly three years, in between the protests, funerals and steady drumbeat of violence and trauma, something decidedly more hopeful was taking place.
In one of the city’s largest conference centers, thousands gathered for the third annual People’s Peace Summit under the banner “It must be. It can be. It will be.” The event was organized by the It’s Time coalition, a partnership of more than 80 grassroots peacebuilding and shared society organizations.
Young activists in T-shirts representing their various causes stood alongside older attendees, some in kippot, others in hijabs. Diplomats in business attire moved through the crowd, as did the handful of Israeli politicians still publicly associated with the peace camp – familiar faces in a political landscape where their ranks have thinned considerably. Outside the main arena, Hebrew mingled with Arabic and English as participants strolled through art installations and an organizational fair showcasing the work of It’s Time’s partners.
While previous events took place at the height of war — while hostages remained in captivity and Gaza endured devastating destruction — this year’s summit unfolded during a fragile lull in fighting, the tenuous ceasefires with Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps allowing, however briefly, for conversations to move beyond issues of immediate survival. Speakers tackled settler violence in the West Bank, looming elections, the immense challenge of rebuilding Gaza and the broader question of how to move Israel and Palestine beyond its default state of perpetual conflict. Inside the packed sessions, the tone was equal parts practical, sober and hopeful.
After a quick coffee break, the thousands of participants came together for an evening of stirring speeches and raucous musical performances. When Israeli pop icon Dana International took the stage with a familiar anthem of peace, the crowd rose to its feet, wrapping their arms around one another and belting out the words.
Despite the joyous atmosphere, the event — and the coalition behind it — is not immune from criticism. Some critiques appear to have been internalized: this year’s programming leaned more heavily into policy, strategy and the hard realities of war than previous gatherings. Other issues remain unresolved. Palestinian participation, while present, was still markedly limited, which organizers attribute largely to government-imposed restrictions on movement rather than a lack of interest. Still, the question of whether a civil society movement like this can translate hope and optimism into concrete political change remains to be seen.
That tension between aspiration and reality extends well beyond Israel. In the United States, support for Israel, particularly among younger American Jews, is waning. A 2024 Pew survey found that fewer than half of American Jews under 30 say they feel “very attached” to Israel, while a JFNA poll released in February 2026, found that just 37% of all American Jews identify as Zionists. Both numbers represent a sharp decline from older generations.
For Shira Ben Sasson, Israel director of the New Israel Fund, it is precisely the peace camp which could hold the answer to this growing disillusionment. If the state itself no longer reflects the values that once anchored many American Jews’ connection to Israel, she suggests, perhaps their more natural partner is the small but determined coalition of Israelis working to change it.
“I appreciate how difficult it is to be a Jew who cares about Israel right now,” she told the Forward as the conference, which New Israel Fund helped support and coordinate, got underway. “People are struggling with what they are seeing — the way Israel is conducting itself. Its policies. They are watching the value set that once connected them so strongly to the Jewish state disappear.”
Her response is one of both reassurance and redirection.
“Thank you for continuing to care,” she said. “But remember — the Israeli government is not your partner. We are. Pro-democracy civil society is your partner. Those of us who are fighting for equality here, for the rights of non-Israeli Jews and the rights of non-Jewish Israelis are your partners. This is where those shared values still live.”
If that message feels unfamiliar to those in the diaspora, Ben Sasson suggests the reason ultimately comes down to lack of exposure.
“We, the Israeli peace camp, need to be in many more places than we are right now,” she said. “We must get the word out that while we might not be the majority here, we are not only growing in number, we are expanding our diversity as well.”
She pointed to the rising number of Orthodox Jews, like herself, who have joined the movement as one example.
Ben Sasson also emphasized that, as with any strong partnership, the relationship must move in both directions. Israeli peace activists, she said, must make themselves more visible to American Jews. But American Jews also need to be willing to open their eyes.
“The mainstream Jewish community has to challenge itself,” she said. “They have to be able to voice their concern for Israeli democracy, for the violence in the occupied territories. And they have to be willing to engage in an honest discussion about peace.”
She is less worried about reaching individuals whose support for Israel may be wavering — many of whom, she believes, will connect with the movement’s vision — than she is about the institutions that have long shaped American Jewish engagement with Israel. Those institutions, she said, have been slow to open themselves to this kind of messaging.
“I think there’s fear,” Ben Sasson explained. “The word ‘peace’ has come to sound political. And once something is labeled political, these legacy institutions don’t want to touch it.”
But that avoidance, she warned, comes at a cost.
“They cannot afford to just stick with the same old stale perception of Israel,” she argued. “If you aren’t willing to talk about the real-life issues that Israelis are facing, you simply won’t be relevant anymore — particularly for the young people in your community.”
“Do not be afraid of controversy,” she added. “Do not be afraid to invite an Arab and a Jew to your event, where there may be disagreement. That’s okay. Struggling and wrestling is a core part of our identity.”
While Ben Sasson contends there is a critical mass of people who are hungry for an alternative way to relate to Israel, the question of feasibility remains; the same question that follows the peace movement inside Israel: Does its growing visibility reflect real political momentum, or is it simply too late to reverse course?
To those who are ready to walk away altogether, Ben Sasson points out that Israel stands to lose not only their support, but also the values and organizing traditions American Jews have long brought to the relationship.
“You’ve helped us achieve so many things in Israel for decades,” she said. “You helped us get a state. And now we need a different kind of support. The Jewish values that you offer — the concept of tikkun olam, which is not at the heart of Israeli Judaism but is at the heart of American Judaism — this is the support you can offer us right now.”
Her final plea was simple.
“Do not give up on Israel,” Ben Sasson said. “There have been so many times when things felt insurmountable and you did not give up on us. Don’t give up on us now.”
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