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A Holocaust cattle car in Times Square makes a moving, if jarring, statement
(New York Jewish Week) — Times Square may be best known for its flashy billboards, roving bands of knock-off Elmos and hordes of gawking tourists. But on Tuesday, Holocaust Remembrance Day, visitors to the “crossroads of the world” could also see a replica of the kind of cattle car that transported millions of Jews to their deaths in Nazi-run concentration camps.
The cattle car was parked at the intersection of 46th and Broadway, across from a Forever 21 and the TKTS Ticket window, where curious visitors could step inside and see a film, projected on its four walls, detailing the horrors of the Holocaust.
The “Cattle Car: Stepping In and Out of Darkness” exhibit was developed in 2020 by ShadowLight, a Toronto-based Holocaust education nonprofit, and Southern NCSY, the Florida branch of the Orthodox Union youth group. NCSY’s “Hate Ends Now” tour is traveling the country with a mission to promote Holocaust education and combat antisemitism.
“This exhibit is one of the country’s most innovative Holocaust education tools, and today we’ve brought it to the crossroads of the world,” said Todd Cohn, executive director of Southern NCSY. “If you want to make the world aware of a cause, this is the place to do it.”
On Tuesday morning, while lots of people walked by without looking up, as many in New York are wont to do, several stopped in their tracks to take a look around, snap some pictures and scan the QR code to learn more about the cattle car and the Holocaust. Others took selfies and one asked if the exhibit was a celebration of Passover, which Cohn took as an opportunity to teach about Judaism and the memory of the Holocaust.
“This is amazing to see,” said Yael Shimoni-Degani, an Israeli tourist who was walking through Times Square while visiting her daughter who lives in New York City. The pair was waiting to go inside. “It’s very important to remind people what happened,” Shimoni-Degani said.
The cattle car will be parked in Times Square until 9:00 p.m. on Tuesday, or Yom Hashoah, which is marked as Holocaust Remembrance Day by Israel and Jews worldwide. Rotating groups from area Jewish high schools were invited to visit throughout the day. An event scheduled for 7:00 p.m., open to the public, was to feature Holocaust survivors, U.S. Army veterans who were involved in liberating the camps, Israeli emissaries and local politicians. The crowd will be invited to sing prayers and light yahrzeit candles in memory of victims of the Holocaust.
A group of students from The Ramaz School exits the “Cattle Car: Stepping In and Out of Darkness” exhibit in Times Square, April 18, 2023. (Julia Gergely)
Attendees are closed inside the cattle car — an effort to make tangible the experience of victims and survivors. The 20-minute video provides a timeline of the Holocaust and and includes testimonies from survivors Hedy Bohm and Nate Leipciger. The video concludes by urging viewers to take responsibility for their actions, asking questions like, “How did the world let this happen?” and “How can you raise your voice?” Statistics on rising antisemitism, racism and violence against LGBTQ communities are displayed.
“While inspiring the Jewish future is our core mission, the general public is just as much our intended audience today,” Cohn said, noting the “universal message” of the exhibit. One of the goals of “Hate Ends Now,” which has toured the Florida state capitol and will move onto college campuses in Boston next week, is to “make sure hate doesn’t go unchecked,” Cohn said, especially in a time of rising antisemitism.
There was a large security and police presence nearby, and an officer inside the exhibit.
Dini Hass, an educator at the Ramaz School who had brought a group of students to tour the exhibit, told the New York Jewish Week that visiting the cattle car was an incredible experience and an opportunity to share her family’s story as the granddaughter of four Holocaust survivors. “To have this in the middle of Times Square is one of the craziest things I’ve ever seen,” she said, admiringly.
Writer Dara Horn, however, was skeptical that exhibits like this — especially those mounted in such a public space like Times Square — actually have the power to turn the tide of antisemitism, despite their well-meaning intentions.
“I came to the disturbing conclusion that Holocaust education is incapable of addressing contemporary antisemitism,” said Horn, who recently toured the country taking stock of different Holocaust education initiatives. “There’s a bunch of reasons for that. One is that it’s been used as this case study outside of history and it’s used for public moral education. I can’t think of any other event in history where we isolate it from any kind of context and it’s become an atrocity that we are required to universalize.”
Horn noted that her comments were not specific to the “Hate Ends Now” exhibit, rather to the broader effort of Holocaust education and combating antisemitism among the general, non-Jewish public. She also conceded that, for Jewish communities, Yom Hashoah and Holocaust education exhibits are important in that they offer a moment to mourn and honor the dead.
And yet, she said, “This becomes the one thing people know about Jews — that they were murdered in the Holocaust — and now it is there to teach us something about humanity,” she added. “There’s a huge problem where the general public is taught about the Holocaust, and knows absolutely nothing about Jews who are alive today, or about the lives and contents of Jewish civilization in Europe that was lost.”
As someone who is well-informed about the Holocaust, educator Dini Hass said that she is often shocked by how little both Jews and non-Jews know about the Holocaust. “If something like this makes even one person stop for a second to think about the Holocaust and want to learn about it, then it’s doing its job,” she said.
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White House Releases New National Security Strategy Indicating Renewed Focus on Western Hemisphere
US President Donald Trump speaks at the White House in Washington, DC, US, Sept. 25, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
The White House late on Thursday night released its new “National Security Strategy,” indicating a sharp pivot of the nation’s strategic focus toward the Western Hemisphere while recalibrating US engagement with Europe, the Middle East, and Asia.
The 33-page document only mentions Israel and the Middle East briefly, instead focusing closer to home.
“After years of neglect, the United States will reassert and enforce the Monroe Doctrine to restore American preeminence in the Western Hemisphere, and to protect our homeland and our access to key geographies throughout the region,” the strategy states. “We will deny non-Hemispheric competitors the ability to position forces or other threatening capabilities, or to own or control strategically vital assets, in our Hemisphere. This ‘Trump Corollary’ to the Monroe Doctrine is a common-sense and potent restoration of American power and priorities, consistent with American security interests.”
The strategy adds that the Trump administration wants “to ensure that the Western Hemisphere remains reasonably stable and well-governed enough to prevent and discourage mass migration to the
United States; we want a Hemisphere whose governments cooperate with us against narco-terrorists, cartels, and other transnational criminal organizations; we want a Hemisphere that remains free of hostile foreign incursion or ownership of key assets, and that supports critical supply chains; and we want to ensure our continued access to key strategic locations.”
Publication of the strategy came just after the results of a major new defense survey showed that the American public still overwhelmingly supports active US global leadership and robust military strength.
The White House argues in its strategy that more local challenges represent the most urgent threats to US sovereignty and domestic stability. At the same time, the document downplays the view that deep involvement in conflicts abroad advances US interests. While it reaffirms the importance of alliances and deterrence commitments, it rejects the role of Washington as “global policeman,” instead prioritizing a stronger homeland, resilient supply chains, and revitalized domestic industrial capacity. The strategy also calls for major investment in missile-defense capabilities, including a nationwide system sometimes referred to as a “Golden Dome for America,” echoing Israel’s longstanding layered defense architecture.
The White House’s strategy coincides with the release of data from the newly published Reagan National Defense Survey, which finds Americans more supportive of engagement and global leadership than many pundits have suggested. According to the findings, 64 percent of Americans want the US to be more engaged in world affairs, not less, and 87 percent believe maintaining the strongest military in the world is essential. Meanwhile, 71 percent of Americans say global peace is most likely when the US holds clear military superiority. The data also shows strong majorities support defending key allies if attacked, while 68 percent back building a national missile-defense system, reflecting rising concern about long-range threats.
For Israel and the Middle East, the White House strategy signals a recalibrated emphasis on preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon, securing vital maritime chokepoints, and supporting Israel’s long-term security, including cooperation on advanced defense technologies.
Public support for the Jewish state remains strong, though there are indications of waning. Sixty-six percent of Americans view Israel as an ally, a decrease from 72 percent the year prior, according to the Reagan survey.
The survey indicates that 60 percent of Americans approved of the June 2025 US airstrike targeting Iranian nuclear infrastructure, though partisan divides remain prevalent. Enhanced pressure on Tehran, including sanctions and cyber measures, garner even broader bipartisan support.
Experts indicate that for Israel, a long-standing partner deeply affected by US posture in both Europe and the Middle East, the strategy’s emphasis on missile defense, deterrence, and countering Iranian ambitions will be particularly reassuring. However, some analysts argue that the strategy’s overall de-emphasis on the Middle East and apparent desire to be less engaged outside the Western Hemisphere could prove problematic for the Jewish state.
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Hamas Braces for Israeli Operations Abroad, Continued Clan Opposition in Gaza
Palestinian Hamas terrorists stand guard at a site as Hamas says it continues to search for the bodies of deceased hostages, in Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip, Dec. 3, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Stringer
Hamas is increasingly preparing for what it sees as an imminent Israeli attempt to assassinate senior leaders abroad, urging members to tighten personal security as the group simultaneously works to consolidate its weakened position in Gaza and reassert control over the enclave.
According to the Arabic newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat, Hamas officials reported rising concern over additional Israeli strikes on the Palestinian terrorist group’s top echelon abroad in the wake of last week’s killing of Hezbollah commander Haitham Tabtabai and September’s operation in Qatar targeting Hamas’s senior leadership.
Despite US “reassurance messages” to several parties — including mediators in Turkey, Qatar, and Egypt — that further strikes on senior Hamas members abroad would not be repeated, the group’s leadership says it “does not trust Israel.”
“There are expectations of a new assassination attempt with the Israeli government’s efforts to obstruct the second phase of the ceasefire agreement and its claim that the movement has no intention of advancing toward a deal,” the Palestinian terrorist group said.
Hamas members reportedly received new instructions requiring all fixed meetings at a single location to be canceled, with leaders instead holding irregular gatherings at rotating sites.
Meanwhile, the head of an armed Palestinian faction opposing Hamas in Gaza died on Thursday while mediating an internal dispute between families and groups within the militia, dealing a setback to Israeli efforts to support Gazan clans against the ruling Islamist group.
Yasser Abu Shabab, a Bedouin tribal leader based in Israeli-held Rafah in southern Gaza, had led one of the most prominent of several small anti-Hamas groups that emerged in the enclave during the war that began more than two years ago.
Following the incident, Hamas said in a statement that the fate of anyone who “betrayed their people and homeland and agreed to be an instrument in the hands of the occupation [Israel]” was inevitable, accusing Abu Shabab of “criminal acts” that amounted to a “flagrant deviation from national and social consensus.”
Abu Shabab’s death would be a boost to Hamas, which has branded him a collaborator and ordered its fighters to kill or capture him.
“The occupation that could not protect its own agents will be unable to protect any of its collaborators, and anyone who undermines the security of their people and serves their enemy is destined to fall into the dustbin of history, losing all respect and standing in society,” the terrorist group said in its statement.
Gaza’s Popular Forces confirmed that its leader died of a gunshot wound as he intervened in a family quarrel, and dismissed as “misleading” reports that Hamas was behind Abu Shabab’s killing.
Ghassan al-Dahini, who could assume leadership of the group following the incident, pledged to continue Abu Shabab’s project and resist Hamas by establishing an alternative to the terrorist group’s rule.
“With God’s help, and following my brother Yasser’s plan, we will return as we were — more determined and stronger,” al-Dahini said in a statement, according to Hebrew media. “We will keep fighting with every last ounce of strength until every final terrorist is gone.”
“Today, Hamas will see its true face — the one the world should have recognized long ago. We will restore hope to all Palestinians, to all free people, to the oppressed, and to everyone who believes in peace,” he continued.
Rafah has been the scene of some of the worst violence during the ceasefire, with residents reporting gunbattles on Wednesday that left four Israeli soldiers wounded. On Thursday, the Israeli military said its forces killed about 40 Hamas fighters trapped in tunnels beneath the city.
Shortly after the US-backed ceasefire to halt fighting in Gaza took effect in October, Hamas moved to reassert control over the war-torn enclave and consolidate its weakened position by targeting Palestinians who it labeled as “lawbreakers and collaborators with Israel.”
Since then, Hamas’s brutal crackdown has escalated dramatically, sparking widespread clashes and violence as the group moves to seize weapons and eliminate any opposition.
Social media videos widely circulated online show Hamas members brutally beating Palestinians and carrying out public executions of alleged collaborators and rival militia members.
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Palestinian Official Calls Drop Site News Founder an ‘Apologist’ for Hamas, Ex-Obama Aides Say They ‘Love’ the Site
Abdal Karim Ewaida, the Palestinian ambassador to Côte d’Ivoire, in October 2023. Photo: Screenshot
A Palestinian diplomat accused a popular new anti-Israel website of running cover and acting as an apologist for Hamas.
Abdal Karim Ewaida, the Palestinian ambassador to Côte d’Ivoire, posted on social media about Drop Site News on Tuesday, after the website reported that the Palestinian Authority was planning to ban Hamas and other terrorist factions from running in future elections.
“Pro-resistance parties and armed resistance remains one of the single most popular points in [Palestinian] public polling,” said Jeremy Scahill, founder of Drop Site News. “The Palestinian Authority is saying, ‘You are not allowed to run for public office anymore.’ And when you look at what the defense of this is on the part of the Palestinian Authority, it is a pathetic defense.”
In response, Ewaida lambasted Scahill in a social media post.
“As for Jeremy Scahill — a journalist who transitions between outlets, perhaps pursuing higher remuneration — he consistently excuses Hamas and [Yahya] Sinwar’s purported interest in reconciliation solely to vilify the Palestinian National Authority and President Mahmoud Abbas. It is astounding,” the Palestinian official wrote.
Sinwar, who was killed by Israeli forces last year, was the leader of Hamas and mastermind of the Palestinian terrorist group’s Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of and massacre across southern Israel.
“He acts as a fervent apologist for Hamas and jihadist elements,” Ewaida continued, referring to Scahill, “even to the point of rationalizing [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu’s claims of financially bolstering Hamas as being in Israel’s interest, while attempting to spin it as favorable to Hamas itself. He seems to believe he can speak with impunity.”
Ewaida went on to castigate Drop Site News in general, saying that the “platform’s credibility is deeply compromised. We are acutely aware of its sources of funding and underlying motives. The day will come when your malicious objectives and relentless advocacy for Hamas — now apparent to all — will be fully exposed, leaving little doubt about your benefactors.”
Let me be clear from the outset: I represent the State of Palestine as its ambassador, not the Palestinian Authority as an envoy—a distinction that stands regardless of opinion.
Secondly, your platform’s credibility is deeply compromised. We are acutely aware of its sources of… https://t.co/E6Ym43wWL0
— Ambassadeur Abdal Karim Ewaida (@KarimEwaida) December 3, 2025
One day after Ewaida’s post, the hosts of the influential progressive podcast “Pod Save America” — all one-time aides to former US President Barack Obama — mentioned Drop Site News, saying “we love you guys” and “we are readers.”
The two hosts that were part of that conversation, Ben Rhodes and Tommy Vietor, served as speechwriter and spokesman, respectively, for Obama in the White House, focusing on national security issues.
In a follow-up to the episode, the Drop Site News posted on its X account “Pod Save the World = confirmed Drop Site readers,” and Rhodes responded, “yes readers.”
Good correction! And yes readers.
— Ben Rhodes (@brhodes) December 3, 2025
Many former Obama staffers have become vocally critical of Israel in recent years, especially amid the war in Gaza. However, Rhodes’s views on Israel were particularly critical at the time they were serving in government as well, so much so that during the Obama administration, he earned himself the nickname “Hamas” in the White House. The nickname was coined by Obama’s chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, as Rhodes revealed in his memoir, The World as It Is.