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100 years after deadly Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, its Jewish and Italian workers get a memorial
(New York Jewish Week) – As Allison and Rebecca Kestenbaum stood in front of a building in Greenwich Village on Wednesday, they were thinking about another set of sisters: their relatives Celia and Bess Eisenberg, who, as teenagers, worked at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory.
Bess called in sick on the day that a horrific fire tore through the garment factory. Celia died, along with 145 others.
The tragedy transformed U.S. labor law and the building that housed the factory, now a New York University science building, was designated a National Historic Landmark in 2003. But until this week, there had never been a permanent memorial paying tribute to the fire’s victims.
One was unveiled Wednesday at the site of the factory on the corner of Washington Place and Green Street near Washington Square Park. The memorial was conceived by the Remember the Triangle Fire Coalition, a nonprofit group of descendants and labor advocates dedicated to preserving the memory of the mostly Jewish and Italian immigrant women who died that day and the fire’s impact on the organized labor movement.
“It’s remarkable to see people showing up who maybe didn’t have a connection but who feel moved by it,” said Allison Kestenbaum, who brought her two children to the unveiling from their home in San Diego. “This triggers emotions for a lot of people and opens our eyes to something that so many didn’t know anything about.”
According to the story that’s been passed down through in the Kestenbaum family, Celia, just 17, went to work alone on March 25, 1911, a warm Saturday.
Near the end of the workday, a cigarette butt ignited fabric scraps inside the factory, on the ninth floor of the Asch Building. As the flames began to spread, the women who worked there found that they had been locked in from the outside by management, who wanted to prevent the workers, who made roughly $7 a week, from stealing inventory as well as keep out union organizers. The fire was one of the deadliest industrial disasters in New York City history.
The memorial, in the making for more than a decade, includes a massive stainless steel ribbon that floats horizontally along the edge of the building — the names and ages of the victims are cut out of the ribbon. A stone panel underneath the ribbon reflects the names back to the viewers and also bears quotes from witness and survivor testimonies. On Wednesday, the reflective stone panel was also adorned with 146 white roses in honor of the victims.
Gov. Kathy Hochul spoke at the unveiling ceremony of a memorial for the 146 victims of the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, Oct. 12, 2023. (Office of Governor Kathy Hochul)
“It’s getting some really beautiful reactions,” Uri Wegman, who, along with Richard Joon Yoo, was one of the two architects of the memorial, told the New York Jewish Week. “You never know how people are going to respond and I feel like we are accomplishing exactly what we designed the memorial to do, to transport and reorient people” to the events of the tragedy, the Israeli-born architect said.
Over the next few months, a vertical steel column will be installed to showcase the height from which workers jumped in a futile attempt to escape the flames.
The Remember the Triangle Fire Coalition organizes an annual event on the anniversary of the fire, in partnership with Workers United, the New York City Central Labor Council, the FDNY and New York University.
“I’ve waited a really long time to say three words to you — three powerful words, and three extraordinarily sweet words: We did it,” said Mary Anne Trasciatti, the president of the coalition, at Wednesday’s unveiling ceremony. “By honoring the Triangle workers with this memorial, we are making a statement about the dignity and humanity of every worker, past and present. We are showing our support for baristas, auto workers, nurses, teachers, farm workers, warehouse workers, coal miners.”
Unions from around the city and beyond — including the International Ladies Garment Workers, the Steamfitters Union, the Laborer’s International Union, Actor’s Equity, United Automobile Workers and the SAG-AFTRA Union — sent representatives to the unveiling ceremony.
At the ceremony, labor organizers reminded the crowd about how the fire jumpstarted labor reforms and workers’ rights efforts, including activism and legislation that led to safety protocols, workers’ compensation, a 40-hour work week, minimum wage and pensions. They also used the opportunity to speak about workers’ rights today, pledging continuing support for the Hollywood actors’ and United Auto Workers strikes.
Hundreds of people, including descendants of victims, union members, local officials and labor activists came to the unveiling of the memorial, Oct. 11, 2023. (Julia Gergely)
The Triangle fire — with its large number of Jewish, Eastern European immigrant victims — also “galvanized the Jewish community, which had an already active labor base,” Ann Toback, the chief executive officer of the Worker’s Circle, told the New York Jewish Week.
Founded in 1900 as a fraternal organization to help Eastern European immigrants adjust to American society and workplaces, the Workers Circle was a central base for Jewish labor activists. In 1909, it helped organize an 11 week long general strike consisting of 20,000 young Jewish women in the shirtwaist industry. One of the only holdouts of the strike was the Triangle company.
After the tragedy in 1911, Jewish union organizers Clara Lemlich and Rose Schneiderman marched from the site of the tragedy to Cooper Square to demand new changes and more organizing.
“It did spark a new outcry of activism and The Workers Circle at that time was very much a center of labor activism,” Toback said. Jewish labor activists and Workers Circle members were also at the forefront of expanding the membership and organizing power of the International Ladies’ Garment Workers Union, which became one of the country’s largest labor unions after the fire. The Workers Circle was a sponsor of the victims’ memorial at the site of the factory.
In remarks, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul shared that her grandfather, uncles and father worked in coke ovens at the Bethlehem Steel plant, itself the site of multiple fatal industrial accidents.
“I am so proud to be part of this effort to honor the names of those who were lost in that horrific inferno,” Hochul said. She called New York “the birthplace of the workers’ rights movement” because of “what happened right on this block.” New York State allocated $1.5 million in state funds to build the memorial.
A steel ribbon with cutouts of the names of the victims wraps around the former site of the Triangle Shirtwaist factory on the northwest corner of Washington Place and Greene Street. (Julia Gergely)
Hochul, who has been trying to maintain support for immigrants as the city struggles with the recent influx of nearly 125,000 migrants, connected the fire to the present day.
“Our workers deserve to be protected and we will fight to make sure they have those rights,” Hochul said. “This state is so great because of the immigrants, the migrants who came here. Let them work. We need them.”
Julie Su, the Acting U.S. Secretary of Labor, also addressed the crowd. “We can imagine the black plume of smoke up in the air, the flames that spread from floor to floor, the panic of the workers who ran and found closed exits and broken fire escapes,” she said. “Their cries for help and then the thud of bodies as they began to jump one after another.”
Allison Kestenbaum said she has always felt a strong connection to her relative and other victims of the fire. “I went to NYU. If I had been there two generations earlier, an immigrant, I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to go to college — I would have been a seamstress in a sweatshop,” she said.
“It also relates to what’s going on in our present and our future,” she added. “The story and everything that came after is known throughout our country and in so many parts of the world for the tragedy and for all the changes that it inspired and continues to inspire. It’s very meaningful.”
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Iranian National Charged in Plot to Subvert US Sanctions Against Islamic Republic
Iranians participating in a memorial ceremony for IRGC commanders and nuclear scientists in downtown Tehran, Iran, on July 2, 2025. Photo: Morteza Nikoubazl via Reuters Connect.
Federal law enforcement officials have arrested an Iranian national after uncovering his alleged conspiracy to export US technology to Tehran in violation of a slew of economic sanctions imposed on the Islamic Republic, the US Department of Justice announced on Friday.
For May 2018 to July 2025, Bahram Mohammad Ostovari, 66, allegedly amassed “railway signaling and telecommunications systems” for transport to the Iranian government by using “two front companies” located in the United Arab Emirates. After filing fake orders for them with US vendors at Ostovari’s direction, the companies shipped the materials — which included “sophisticated computer processors” — to Tehran, having duped the US businesses into believing that they “were the end users.”
The Justice Department continued, “After he became a lawful permanent resident of the United States in May 2020, Ostovari continued to export, sell, and supply electronics and electrical components to [his company] in Iran,” noting that the technology became components of infrastructure projects commissioned by the Islamic Republic.
Ostovari has been charged with four criminal counts for allegedly violating the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) and the Iranian Transactions and Sanctions Regulations (ITSR), under which conducting business with Iran is proscribed due to the country’s human rights abuses, material support for terrorism, and efforts to build a larger-scale nuclear program in violation of international non-proliferation obligations. Each count carries a 20-year maximum sentence in federal prison.
Ostovari is one of several Iranian nationals to become the subject of criminal proceedings involving crimes against the US this year.
In April, a resident of Great Falls, Virginia — Abouzar Rahmati, 42 — pleaded guilty to collecting intelligence on US infrastructure and providing it to the Islamic Republic of Iran.
“From at least December 2017 through June 2024, Rahmati worked with Iranian government officials and intelligence operatives to act on their behalf in the United States, including by meeting with Iranian intelligence officers and government officials using a cover story to hide his conduct,” the Justice Department said at the time, noting that Rahmati even infiltrated a contractor for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) that possesses “sensitive non-public information about the US aviation sector.”
Throughout the duration of his cover, Rahmati amassed “open-source and non-public materials about the US solar energy industry,” which he delivered to “Iranian intelligence officers.”
The government found that the operation began in August 2017, after Rahmati “offered his services” to a high-ranking Iranian government official who had once been employed by the country’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security, according to the Justice Department. Months later, he traveled to Iran, where Iranian agents assigned to him the espionage activity to which he pleaded guilty to perpetrating.
“Rahmati sent additional material relating to solar energy, solar panels, the FAA, US airports, and US air traffic control towers to his brother, who lived in Iran, so that he would provide those files to Iranian intelligence on Rahmati’s behalf,” the Justice Department continued. Rahmati also, it said, delivered 172 gigabytes worth of information related to the National Aerospace System (NAS) — which monitors US airspace, ensuring its safety for aircraft — and NAS Airport Surveillance to Iran during a trip he took there.
Rahmati faces up to 10 years in prison. He will be sentenced in August.
In November, three Iranian intelligence assets were charged with contriving a conspiracy to assassinate critics of the Islamic Republic of Iran, as well as then US President-elect Donald Trump.
According to the Justice Department, Farhad Shakeri, 51; Carlisle Rivera, 49; and Jonathan Loadholt, 36, acted at the direction of and with help from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), an internationally designated terrorist organization, to plot to murder a US citizen of Iranian origin in New York. Shakeri, who remains at large and is believed to reside in Iran, was allegedly the principal agent who managed the two other men, both residents of New York City who appeared in court.
Their broader purpose, prosecutors said, was to target nationals of the United States and its allies for attacks, including “assaults, kidnapping, and murder, both to repress and silence critical dissidents” and to exact revenge for the 2020 killing of then-IRGC Quds Force chief Qasem Soleimani in a US drone strike in Iraq. Trump was president of the US at the time of the operation.
All three men are now charged with murder-for-hire, conspiracy, and money laundering. Shakeri faces additional charges, including violating sanctions against Iran, providing support to a terrorist organization, and conspiring to violate the International Emergency Powers Act, offenses for which he could serve up to six decades in federal prison.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Iranian National Charged in Plot to Subvert US Sanctions Against Islamic Republic first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Kosher Israeli Restaurant Vandalized in Athens Amid Surge in Antisemitic Attacks Across Europe
A man waves a Palestinian flag as pro-Hamas demonstrators protest next to the Greek parliament, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Athens, Greece, May 7, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Alkis Konstantinidis
An Israeli restaurant in Athens, Greece, was vandalized on Saturday night in one of the latest incidents amid a surge of antisemitic attacks across Europe, prompting a police investigation into the suspected hate crime.
In a video shared on social media, a group of six individuals can be seen entering King David Burger — a local kosher restaurant that opened just a month ago — scattering pamphlets and spraying black paint across walls, tables, and other surfaces throughout the establishment.
Restaurante israelí en Atenas atacado po pro-palestinos
Otro caso de acoso a una empresa israelí, esta vez en Atenas. El restaurante King David Burger de la capital griega, propiedad de un israelí, fue atacado anoche.
Un grupo de activistas propalestinos llegó al restaurante y,… pic.twitter.com/YGiqLBRNAF
— ITON GADOL es Israel y las comunidades judias (@Itongadol) July 13, 2025
The group of pro-Palestinian activists shouted antisemitic slurs and vandalized the establishment with graffiti, including slogans such as “No Zionist is safe here.”
The attackers also posted a sign on one of the restaurant’s windows that read, “All IDF soldiers are war criminals — we don’t want you here,” referring to the Israel Defense Forces.
According to local reports, many Israelis in Athens gathered outside the restaurant after the attack, with some singing “Am Israel Chai” (“The People of Israel Live”) as a show of solidarity.
The restaurant owner urged local authorities in Athens to take swift action and hold the perpetrators accountable.
“It would be a shame for the Israelis to leave Athens,” Zvika Levinson, the restaurant’s owner, told Israel Hayom. “But if authorities don’t act, the situation will not be good.”
Police reportedly told the owner that without clear identification of the individuals in the video, they are unable to make any arrests.
Since the Hamas-led invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, antisemitic incidents have surged to alarming levels across Europe. This recent attack is just one of the latest in a wave of anti-Jewish hate crimes that Greece and other countries have witnessed in recent months.
Last month, an Israeli tourist was attacked by a group of pro-Palestinian activists after they overheard him using Google Maps in Hebrew while navigating through Athens.
When the attackers realized the victim was speaking Hebrew, they began physically assaulting him while shouting antisemitic slurs.
Although local police arrived promptly, a large crowd had already gathered outside the restaurant where the victim had sought shelter.
At first, authorities mistakenly arrested the victim, accusing him of the attack. However, after video footage clarified the situation, they apologized and took him to the nearest hospital.
The post Kosher Israeli Restaurant Vandalized in Athens Amid Surge in Antisemitic Attacks Across Europe first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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NYC Mayor’s Office Accuses Comptroller of Aiding BDS With ‘Withdrawal’ of Millions From Israel Bonds
New York City Mayor Eric Adams attends an “October 7: One Year Later” commemoration to mark the anniversary of the Hamas-led attack in Israel at the Summer Stage in Central Park on October 7, 2024, in New York City. Photo: Ron Adar/ SOPA Images via Reuters Connect
The office of New York City Mayor Eric Adams has accused Comptroller Brad Lander of pushing a political agenda and advancing the anti-Israel boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement by withdrawing tens of millions of dollars in city pension funds from bonds issued by the Jewish state.
In a letter to Lander dated July 10 and first shared with the media on Sunday, First Deputy Mayor Randy Mastro demanded a full accounting of the comptroller’s decision-making regarding the investments in Israel Bonds.
New York City’s holdings in Israel-issued bonds have plunged from “tens of millions of dollars” to just $1.2 million in the Police Pension Fund during Lander’s tenure, reversing a longstanding pattern of reinvestment stretching back to 1974, according to the letter.
Lander subsequently confirmed to The Forward that city pension funds currently hold no investments in Israel Bonds, noting the purchase by the Police Pension Fund was made by a fund manager but has since been sold.
Mastro wrote that Lander’s decisions “appears to be in furtherance of [the] BDS campaign, regardless of the adverse financial consequences for city pensioner.”
The BDS movement seeks to isolate Israel on the international stage as the first step toward its elimination. Leaders of the movement have repeatedly stated their goal is to destroy the world’s only Jewish state.
City records show that Israel Bonds, historically yielding approximately 5 percent annually, outperformed many alternatives, and critics such as Mastro have argued the abrupt exit is financially irresponsible.
Meanwhile, Adams has promoted his own pro-Israel push, noting last month’s formation of the inaugural New York City–Israel Economic Council aimed at boosting trade and innovation with the Jewish state. In a press event, Adams repudiated Lander, saying that the comptroller “was elected to safeguard New York City’s financial future, yet he continues to pander to the antisemitic BDS movement at the expense of taxpayer dollars and our city’s best interests. New Yorkers deserve to know why.”
Lander’s office swiftly defended the move, describing it as consistent with a longstanding policy to avoid foreign sovereign debt, rather than a targeted divestment linked to Israel.
“Lander has never divested,” a spokesperson for Lander said in March, noting at the time that the city continued to hold over $400 million in investments in Israeli companies.
As of May, Lander said city pension funds still held more than $315 million in Israel-based assets, mostly in common stock and some in Israeli real estate investment trusts.
Lander, who is Jewish, claimed that his predecessors made “politically motivated choices” to treat Israel in a more “favorable way” than other countries.
“As a Jew, I am proud that we have these investments in Israel,” Lander told The Forward. “But I’m not allowed to make investments for that reason. They have to make financial sense to be consistent with our policies and my fiduciary duty.”
A representative for the comptroller told the New York Post that Mastro’s accusations are a “cynical effort by the Adams administration to weaponize antisemitism against the highest ranking Jewish elected official in New York City government.”
The battle has reverberated across New York City’s political landscape, tapping into deep divisions over foreign policy, fiscal stewardship, and community allegiance. Adams, running as an independent for reelection this fall, is courting Jewish constituents and warning Lander’s withdrawal of bonds signals “pandering” to anti-Israel sentiment.
Lander stoked outrage among the Big Apple’s Jewish community when he recently aligned with Zohran Mamdani, a progressive firebrand who backs the BDS movement and is running for mayor. Lander’s support for the anti-Israel politician has raised scrutiny regarding his motives in ending investments into Israeli bonds. Zionist advocacy groups and pension experts are demanding transparency, questioning whether the city actually missed out on returns typically delivered by Israel Bonds.
Although Lander has repeatedly affirmed his belief in Israel’s “right to exist,” he has suggested that controversial slogans such as “globalize the intifada” might not be inherently supportive of violence. He has also refused to defend Israel from accusations of committing “genocide” in Gaza, saying that he believes the word is offensive to the Jewish community because it evokes memories of the Holocaust.
Mastro’s letter sets a July 17 deadline for full documentation of Lander’s policy concerning Israel Bonds.
The post NYC Mayor’s Office Accuses Comptroller of Aiding BDS With ‘Withdrawal’ of Millions From Israel Bonds first appeared on Algemeiner.com.