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A moving tribute to Soviet Jewry, with uncomfortable contemporary echoes
The first Yiddish Glory album, the Grammy-nominated Lost Songs of WWII, was, give or take, 70 years in the making.
The idea of preserving Soviet-Jewish culture by way of an anthology of Yiddish folk originally belonged to Moyshe Beregovsky, a Ukrainian-Jewish ethnomusicologist in the Cabinet for Jewish Culture. But Beregovsky was arrested by Stalin’s government on suspicion of so-called Jewish nationalism in 1947. The sizable archive that he and his colleagues had amassed during and immediately after the Shoah — 263 original songs in all, constituting a record of a culture on the brink of oblivion — languished in the basement of a Kyiv library until it was discovered by chance in 1990.
Two or so decades later, a group of archivists, academics and musicians — led by Anna Shternshis, professor of Yiddish studies at the University of Toronto — took up Beregovsky’s task, and out of the jumbled archive they pieced together an album of Yiddish songs. The majority of the archive consisted of just lyrics (that is, without sheet music) so Shternshis teamed up with Russian songwriter Psoy Korolenko to compose new melodies, taking care to match the music to the lyrics’ subject, period and geographic origin. The resulting album, released in 2019, was hailed as a spectacular insight into the experiences of Holocaust-era Soviet Jewry.
Now, seven years later, Shternshis and her collaborators are back with their sophomore effort, The Silenced Songs of WWII. And though it builds upon the achievements of its predecessor, giving poignant expression once more to the sorrow and bravery of Soviet Jewry during the Shoah, it also has another object: confronting the historiographical status quo.
“Every song on this album is there because it challenges the way we understand the history of the Holocaust,” Shternshis told me over a video call.
In “A Priest Murdered in Kalisz,” the singer, Leyb Diament, recounts the 1939 murder of a Catholic priest in a central square in the titular town in Poland, describing how German forces had dragged the priest from his home and forced four Jewish boys to publicly shoot him before burying him in a Jewish cemetery.
Diament then wonders aloud whether the Germans had hoped this final humiliation would provoke a backlash from the local Polish population. No such reprisal ever occurred. “The Poles saw all of this, but no pogrom happened,” he writes in the song. “Afterwards, the Germans captured everyone; they shot some and hanged others.”
“I would say that this is the first Yiddish song of the Holocaust,” Shternshis said. “And how interesting is it that it doesn’t talk about murders of Jews, but about a murder of the Catholic priest, and of Polish solidarity with Jews in the face of Nazi invasion.”
“The Sad Camp,” a plaintive song about Soviet Jewry’s annihilation, was written by Bershad ghetto survivor Isaac Semidubosky, who, after being liberated from the ghetto in late 1944, was drafted into the Red Army and ultimately ended up in Berlin — thought not before he helped liberate Auschwitz. Yet the song also calls into question the scholarly categories that have often governed histories of Soviet Jewry.
“During the war Soviet Jews were either killed or put in a ghetto, served in the Red Army, or were refugees that ended up in Central Asia or Siberia,” Shternshis said. “These three groups are studied separately, but when you look at this song and the story of the person who wrote it, you realize that doesn’t make too much sense.”
Silenced Songs is more than just anguish, though; there’s uplift, too, the same injections of hope, levity and defiance that made the first instalment of Yiddish Glory so memorable.
“I am a Typhus Louse,” written by a teacher at an orphanage in the Mogilev-Podolsky ghetto, in the Transnistria region —which today is Moldova — imagines the war from the perspective of an anti-fascist louse. “Me, I am a Typhus louse; I go from house to house; la-la-la-la-la,” the louse declares, before singing that it, too, is afraid of the German doctors who kill lice.
The anonymously written “Yom Kippur Without Fascists,” meanwhile, looks ahead to a holy day without Hitler. “On Yom Kippur he’ll be our sacrificial rooster,” the lyrics go. “And on Simkhes-Toyrehe he’ll burn like a candle at the pole.”
And while “Transnistrian Lullaby” offers a dark account of refugee life, it still concludes almost wistfully. “A storm doesn’t last forever; the war will end,” writes the again anonymous author. “Again the sun will shine for us.”
The song “In Pechera Camp” is particularly notable for addressing, head-on, the question of Soviet complicity in the Holocaust, long a sore subject for Soviet authorities. (Among the reasons for Beregovsky’s arrest was that the archive revealed instances of Soviet collaboration with the Nazis.) The song describes the brutality of the Russian guards at the Pechera camp, an enclosure designed to kill inmates through starvation in the Vinnytsia region of Ukraine. The Soviet Union never formally acknowledged the camp’s existence.
One guard, Lukyan Smetanski, is singled out in the lyrics as especially merciless: “Smetanski came out with a big rifle, oy, oy, oy; two innocent Jews approached, and he shot them for no reason at all.” Smetanski, according to legend, was killed on the spot by a Jewish officer soon after the Red Army liberated Pechera.
History doesn’t repeat — but it rhymes
Maybe the most important decision Shternshis took as curator, though, was to scrub references to warmongering — both Russian and Jewish — that in view of the ongoing conflicts in Eastern Europe and the Mideast would likely have been poorly received.
For where the first Yiddish Glory album was understood principally as an invaluable window onto a bygone era, the follow-up has acquired rather a lot of contemporary importance. Since 2019, Russia has invaded Ukraine, Israel has destroyed much of Gaza, antisemitism is on the rise and Holocaust literacy has never been lower.
Beregovsky’s archive contains more than a few admiring references to the Red Army, several of which were included in the new album’s initial cut; one even name-checked various cities that the Soviets liberated. Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine, however, meant they were omitted.
“A lot of our songs glorify the Red Army and the Soviet Army, they glorify Stalin and they glorify victory,” Shternshis said. “In 2019, we were thinking about this archive as an interesting historical curiosity. Now, it’s like are we really going to glorify the Red Army? It’s a whole different consideration.”
The same rationale drove the decision to exclude songs that gestured at another thorny topic: Jewish militarism. “There are a lot of songs in the archive that praise Jewish soldiers for being violent and cruel towards their enemies,” Shternshis said. “They’re also not on the album.”
Still, Shternshis is optimistic that any parallels between the present turmoil and the album will amplify what she sees as Yiddish Glory’s abiding message. “This album is focused on the most vulnerable victims of the war,” she said. “This is what happens when civilians are caught in that really horrible violence. That message certainly hasn’t lost its significance.”
The post A moving tribute to Soviet Jewry, with uncomfortable contemporary echoes appeared first on The Forward.
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Tucker Carlson Calls Trump a ‘Slave to Israel’ as Feud Escalates
Tucker Carlson speaks on first day of AmericaFest 2025 at the Phoenix Convention Center in Phoenix, Arizona, Dec. 18, 2025. Photo: Charles-McClintock Wilson/ZUMA Press Wire via Reuters Connect
Far-right podcaster Tucker Carlson repudiated US President Donald Trump as a “slave to Israel” in his morning newsletter on Monday, the latest rhetorical escalation in a growing public feud between the controversial podcaster and the commander-in-chief.
“President Trump is a slave to Israel,” Carlson wrote in his newsletter.
Carlson lambasted Trump for comments he made in a Sunday interview with Fox News host Maria Bartiromo, in which the president condemned the Iranian regime for its reluctance to accept American conditions in ending the US-Israeli war with Iran. Carlson further criticized Trump for maintaining consistent communication with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu regarding the ongoing negotiation efforts with Iranian officials and accused the White House of presenting Tehran with an unfavorable set of demands.
“Reporting that uncomfortable fact brings us great pain, but it is the tragic truth. This weekend alone, America’s leader parroted Israeli talking points on Fox News,” Carlson wrote.
In the Fox News interview, Trump identified Iran’s unwillingness to abandon its nuclear program as the key sticking-point in negotiations between the two nations. Trump warned that Iran armed with a nuclear weapon would “use it on Israel and the Middle East.” Trump also lauded the “incredible partnership” between the US and Israel.
Carlson went on to criticize Trump for having purportedly “continued his daily ritual of reporting war updates to Benjamin Netanyahu as an employee does to their manager,” seemingly implying that the US was waging war with Iran under Israel’s direction.
Former Israeli Ambassador to the United States Michael Oren recently said the argument that Trump had been pushed into war by Israel ignored decades of Iranian hostility and repeated attacks on Americans.
“Every day since 1979, the Iranian regime swore to destroy the United States and, in pursuit of that pledge, sought to develop strategic weapons while committing hundreds of acts of war against Americans,” Oren told The Algemeiner last month. “President Trump did not need to be dragged into defending the American people from this looming threat and certainly not by a purportedly cunning Israeli leader.”
“Suggestions to the contrary … are deeply insulting to the president and patently antisemitic,” he added.
Still, anti-Israel commentators such as Carlson have repeatedly claimed that Israel “dragged” the US into the war with Iran.
On Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that the Trump administration was providing daily updates to him about the war, noting that, the prior day, US Vice President JD Vance provided “in detail” the latest information on peace talks with Tehran. Critics of Israel immediately framed Netanyahu’s statement as evidence that the US government operates in a position of subservience to Israel, despite the fact that allies regularly maintain consistent lines of communication during wartime.
In his newsletter, Carlson said the White House “deployed JD Vance to present Iranian negotiators with peace demands everyone knows they would never accept.”
The White House has outlined a wide-ranging set of priorities in negotiations with Iran in exchange for winding down military operations, including that Tehran cease uranium enrichment efforts, reopen the Strait of Hormuz without installing any toll booths, implement restrictions on its ballistic missiles program, and end support for terrorist proxy organizations such as Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis.
Carlson’s comments came after Trump described the podcaster, one of his longtime supporters turned outspoken critic, as unintelligent.
“Tucker’s a low-IQ person that has absolutely no idea what’s going on,” Trump said last Tuesday in an interview with New York Post national security reporter Caitlin Doornbos when asked about Carlson’s condemnations of his Easter message promising massive destruction on Iran.
“He calls me all the time; I don’t respond to his calls. I don’t deal with him,” Trump said of Carlson. “I like dealing with smart people, not fools.”
Two days later, Trump lambasted Carlson as well as other far-right podcasters critical of his support for Israel and tough stance on Iran as “stupid” people who support the regime in Tehran.
Carlson’s comments also came after a Newsmax interview in which he also called Trump a “slave” to Israel.
“I’ve always liked Trump and still feel sorry for him, as I do for all slaves,” the former Fox News host said during the Friday interview, adding that Trump “can’t make his own decisions” and that he is “hemmed in by other forces.”
During an interview with the BBC on Sunday, Carlson seemingly doubled down on his suggestion that Trump is operating at the behest of the Jewish state, saying, “I don’t think it is as simple as ‘he is under the control of Netanyahu,’ but you could certainly summarize it that way and you wouldn’t be totally inaccurate.”
Following 21 hours of negotiations in Islamabad, Pakistan, last week, Vance announced that ceasefire discussions broke down after Iran refused to agree to Washington’s set of demands.
Carlson, one of the most popular conservative pundits in the US, has reinvented himself as a preeminent critic of Israel in the years following his unceremonious firing from Fox News.
Since launching his podcast, Carlson has relentlessly condemned Israel, issuing a series of blistering and false accusations that the country oppresses Christians, exerts immense influence over US politicians, and has committed “genocide” in Gaza. The provocateur has accused Israel of killing tens of thousands of children in Gaza “on purpose” without providing any evidence.
Carlson has also hosted a seemingly unremitting parade of anti-Israel figures on his podcast while rejecting offers by pro-Israel figures to appear as guests. He especially drew backlash for conducting a friendly interview with fellow podcaster Nick Fuentes, an avowed antisemite and Holocaust denier.
Carlson’s anti-Israel career pivot has drawn the ire of many of his former fans, including US Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX). In public remarks, Cruz accused Carlson of spearheading efforts to normalize antisemitism within the Republican Party and has called on fellow Republicans to distance themselves from the podcaster.
Further, Carlson has seen his once-chummy relationship with Trump publicly deteriorate.
The president issued sharp condemnation of Carlson, along with other Israel-critical personalities Candace Owens, Alex Jones, and Megyn Kelly, in comments made on Truth Social.
Trump called Carlson a “broken man,” adding that he has “never been the same” since his 2023 firing from Fox News.
“These so-called ‘pundits’ are LOSERS, and they always will be!” Trump added.
The public fallout between Trump and Carlson comes as the pundit has sharpened his criticisms of the president. Last week, Carlson rebuked Trump for purportedly offending Muslims, suggesting that his conduct was unbecoming for a world leader.
Although Carlson’s podcast remains highly popular, his ideological shift seems to have come at the cost of his reputation in the Republican Party. A recent YouGov poll revealed that Carlson’s approval rating within the GOP has cratered, falling from +54 favorability in March 2024 to only +7. This timeline aligns with Carlson’s intensifying attacks on Israel and Republican lawmakers.
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My father was in the Hungarian resistance. Orbán’s defeat reminds us why it mattered
My father resisted the Nazis in Hungary. I thought of him — and how he would have rejoiced — when the Hungarian people voted out Prime Minister Viktor Orbán on Sunday, after 16 years of authoritarian rule.
Only a week before Hungarian voters made their choice, the outcome of the elections seemed far from certain. I remember watching in dismay last Tuesday, when Vice President JD Vance flew to Budapest to try to help prop Orbán up. There, he spread the same kind of blood-and-soil nationalism that has haunted the history of Hungary, and helped enable the horrors through which my father lived.
In his campaign rally with Orbán, Vance decried “far-left ideology” as “a shared threat from within that both of our nations face,” adding that its followers “view the very foundations of our shared civilization as illegitimate.” He also said that Orbán had kept Hungary from being “invaded” by immigrants.
The second-highest elected official in the United States, the country that gave so many Jews refuge after the Holocaust, embraced an ethno-nationalist leader who has suggested that Hungary’s “enemy” is a group who “does not believe in working but speculates with money; does not have its own homeland but feels it owns the whole world.”
What would my dad have made of that blatantly antisemitic moment?
In 1943 and 1944, my father operated underground in Budapest and Bucharest. As part of an illegal religious Zionist youth movement, he helped organize rescue efforts for Jews under Nazi rule. He traveled to Hungarian villages, warning Jews of advancing German forces, and helped smuggle Jews from Hungary to Romania and onward to Mandatory Palestine.
My father lived in a time when ideas and rhetoric like those advanced by Orbán and Vance had existential consequences. He resisted a regime that hunted Jews and other minorities, stripped them of rights, and sent them to their deaths. For him, resistance meant survival.
My father risked everything — his safety, his freedom, his life. With Hungary’s model in front of us, all who live under the threat of authoritarianism today must ask: What will we risk?
While our reality is different from my father’s, we are nevertheless on a dangerous path — one we ignore at our peril. Across the globe, antisemitism is on the rise. Democracy, which has safeguarded vulnerable communities from fascism, is under assault.
Hungarians pushed back against rising authoritarianism on Sunday, ousting Orbán in a true feat of resistance. In doing so, they dealt a blow to the network of European far-right leaders who trade in antisemitic tropes and beliefs. And they rebuffed Vance and President Donald Trump — who dispatched Vance to campaign in Hungary, having closely allied himself with Orbán — and an increasingly influential circle of American intellectuals who promote antisemitism-tinged arguments about civilizational decline and hidden elite influence.
How should we respond to this normalization of antisemitic language and imagery?
My father’s story taught me not to take the easy route. It’s tempting to retreat, at least temporarily, into private life, focusing only on our families and communities. We may want to minimize what we see, to convince ourselves it isn’t as bad as it seems. We may grow insular or fatalistic.
But disengagement will only postpone the danger to a later date, leaving us exposed and unprepared. It is the opposite of resistance. My father understood this, and bet on the power of resistance and perseverance.
Real resistance — to authoritarianism, to antisemitism, to the forces that feed both — means using the tools of democracy that are still available to us: voting, organizing, and speaking out to hold leaders accountable. It means using our power as citizens to stand behind our values — just as the citizens of Hungary did yesterday.
Real resistance means rejecting dangerous ideas carried by far-right movements into positions of power, amplified by the highest offices in the land. Those same movements are simultaneously assaulting the very democratic institutions that have made America one of the safest places Jews have ever lived.
Real resistance means standing up when democratic norms are eroded; when Jews and other minority communities are cast as threats; and when governmental institutions employ rhetoric with unmistakable antisemitic resonance — all phenomena that unfolded in Hungary under Orbán, and are unfolding in the U.S. under Trump. It means standing in the way of unchecked power and opposing legislation and policies that limit constitutional liberties and academic freedom. It means strengthening the ties that bind us together — building alliances against all forms of hatred, between communities targeted for their religion, ethnicity, identity or beliefs. It means staying in coalition to fight for a strong democratic future, even when doing so can be uncomfortable.
Orbán, Trump, Vance and their fellow proto-authoritarians have bet that we will ultimately comply. With Orbán’s defeat, they have new reasons to fear that we won’t. That’s as it should be, and my father would be proud.
My father had every chance to escape the Nazis. But after each mission, he came back to rescue more. He never stopped fighting for a better future for his fellow Jews. Neither should we.
The post My father was in the Hungarian resistance. Orbán’s defeat reminds us why it mattered appeared first on The Forward.
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Israel Reprimands Spain Over Blowing Up of Netanyahu Effigy
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez speaks during a press conference after attending a special summit of European Union leaders to discuss transatlantic relations, in Brussels, Belgium, Jan. 23, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Yves Herman
Israel said on Saturday it had reprimanded Spain‘s most senior diplomat in Tel Aviv over the blowing up of a giant effigy of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a Spanish town this week.
The seven-meter (23-foot) figure was packed with 14 kilograms (31 lbs.) of gunpowder in El Burgo, a small town near the southern city of Malaga, in a decades-old ceremony on April 5, its Mayor Maria Dolores Narvaez told local television.
“The appalling antisemitic hatred on display here is a direct result of Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s government’s systemic incitement,” Israel‘s Foreign Ministry said in a statement on X which highlighted a video clip.
Reuters was not immediately able to verify the video.
“The Spanish government is committed to fighting against antisemitism and any form of hate or discrimination. As such we totally reject any insidious allegation which suggests the contrary,” a Spanish Foreign Ministry source said in response.
El Burgo’s Mayor Narvaez said the town has previously used effigies of US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin during the annual event.
Spain has been an outspoken critic of the US and Israeli military campaigns in Iran and Lebanon, despite US threats to punish uncooperative NATO allies.
Spain and Israel have been embroiled in a long-running diplomatic row which began over the Gaza war. Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar said a Spanish ban on aircraft and ships carrying weapons to Israel from its ports or airspace due to Israel‘s military offensive was antisemitic.
Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares accused Israel of violating international law and the two-week ceasefire after a massive wave of airstrikes across Lebanon this week. Netanyahu said on Wednesday that Lebanon was not part of the ceasefire and Israel‘s military was continuing to strike Hezbollah with force.
Sanchez, who has emerged as a leading opponent of the Iran war, has closed Spanish airspace to any aircraft involved in a confrontation he has described as reckless and illegal.
Iran has repeatedly praised Spain in recent weeks for its hostile posture toward the US and Israel.