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A Jewish cemetery in Belarus was destroyed by Nazis. Now its headstones are being made into a memorial.
(JTA) — Earlier this year, a British Jewish nonprofit received a call from a young couple in the city of Brest, Belarus, who had just purchased a fixer-upper house and needed some help with a difficult situation: Their basement was built from old Jewish gravestones.
Jewish groups — including the nonprofit The Together Plan and its American arm, the Jewish Tapestry Project, founded to aid Belarusian Jewry — have been receiving such calls for nearly two decades from residents of Brest who have collectively discovered thousands of Jewish headstones in their city’s construction. All of the headstones come from a historic cemetery that was destroyed during and after the Holocaust.
Today, an athletic complex sits on the site of the cemetery, which once contained tens of thousands of graves. But by the end of next year, The Together Plan expects to complete a memorial to the cemetery. It is also in the process of organizing and cataloging more than 3,200 remnants of the cemetery’s headstones, which were used after World War II in construction projects throughout the city.
“Currently there’s nothing there to say it’s a cemetery,” Debra Brunner, CEO and co-founder of The Together Plan, the group leading the project, told CNN.
Before World War II, Brest — also known as Brest-Litovsk, or Brisk to the Jewish community that lived there — was home to more than 20,000 Jews and was a center of Jewish culture and study. But when the city was liberated after the Holocaust, only about 10 Jews remained there. Today, it has a total population of more than 300,000.
The Nazis also destroyed the city’s Jewish cemetery in part by selling half of its headstones. In the decades following the war, when Belarus was part of the Soviet Union and construction materials were hard to find, the gravestones became the foundations of homes, supermarkets, garden walks and cellars. In some cases, the Hebrew lettering on the stones was chiseled away.
The memorial will be erected on what was once a corner of the cemetery, some distance away from the sports complex. It will be made from broken pieces of the headstones that have been recovered over the past two decades and will feature a black granite plaque with text in Russian, Hebrew and English. The area surrounding the memorial will be covered with trees, grass and wildflowers.
Jewish cemetery preservation has been at times a contentious issue in Belarus. As recently as 2017, a Belarusian court approved a plan to construct a luxury apartment building on top of a Jewish cemetery in the city of Gomel, near the country’s borders with Ukraine and Russia. The Brest municipality has pledged to maintain the upkeep of its city’s memorial but did not provide any funds directly to the project. It is being led by the Together Plan and the Jewish Tapestry Project and supported by the Religious Jewish Union of Belarus, the Illuminate Foundation and the charitable Belarus-based organization Dialog.
“Jews have always honored the memory of their ancestors,” Boris Bruk, chairman of the Orthodox Jewish community of Brest, said in a campaign video for the project. “And as there is no cemetery, we wanted to have a memorial sign, or a memorial place which would tell our descendants that their ancestors lie at this place, the people who lived, worked and prayed in this city.”
In 2004, residents, construction companies and homeowners with properties paved with headstones began making phone calls to Regina Simonenko, the head of the Brest Holocaust Foundation and museum, wanting to return them. In 2011, the municipality of Brest approved the construction of a memorial using the headstones. The Together Plan joined the project in 2014 and has been fielding the calls since then.
Apart from 1,287 remnants with writing, another 2,000 to 2,500 headstone fragments without any writing have been collected and stored in a warehouse, where they have been photographed, cataloged and added to a searchable database.
The memorial is being designed by Dallas-based artist Brad Goldberg, who plans to build two arcs opposite each other that each feature some of the headstones. According to his website, Goldberg “sees his work as a fusion between sculpture, landscape, and the built environment.”
“It isn’t a cemetery,” he told CNN. “They are all facing in different directions as if they are having a conversation with each other.”
He added, “One rabbi that we have consulted has described it as being about life rather than about death.”
Goldberg has a connection to Brest, too, which led to his work on the memorial. His family had taken in a Holocaust survivor, the late Jack Grynberg, when Grynberg came to the United States following the war. Somewhere between 70 and 100 of Grynberg’s relatives were killed by the Nazis during the Holocaust. Grynberg was one of only a few Jewish residents of Brest to survive.
In 1997, Grynberg and his son Stephen traveled to Brest together. Stephen Grynberg is a filmmaker who has done work for the Shoah Foundation and was the one who recommended Goldberg as the memorial’s designer. The younger Grynberg is also donating a third of the memorial’s estimated $325,000 cost.
“In 1997 there were no signs of the cemetery,” Stephen Grynberg told CNN. “We were taken there and our guide said, ‘This is where the cemetery was.’ Like so many things with the Holocaust, you can’t really understand them, you just have these complicated visceral feelings.”
He added, “I was just trying to compute the idea of them bulldozing a cemetery and building on it. That was the empty feeling I had.”
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A Purim Guide for the Perplexed, 2025
A Hamentashen pastry commonly served during the Jewish holiday of Purim. Photo: Rebecca Siegel via Flickr.
Ahead of this year’s Purim celebrations on Thursday night, here are seven facts you should know about the holiday:
1. Purim is a Jewish national liberation holiday — just like Passover and Hanukkah — which highlights the transition of the Jewish people from subjugation to liberty. It is celebrated seven days following the birth and death date of Moses — a role model of liberty, leadership, and humility.
2. Here is some information on Purim’s historical background:
A Jewish exile to Babylon and Persia was triggered by the 586 BCE destruction of the First Jewish Temple and the expulsion of Jews from Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria by the Babylonian Emperor, Nebuchadnezzar. Persia then replaced Babylon as the leading regional power.
In 538 BCE, Xerxes the Great, proclaimed his support for the reconstruction of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem, the resurrection of national Jewish life in the Land of Israel, and the recognition of Jerusalem as the exclusive capital of the Jewish people. In 499-449 BCE, King Ahasuerus established a coalition of countries — from India to Ethiopia — which launched the Greco-Persian Wars, aiming to expand the Persian Empire westward. Persia was resoundingly defeated (e.g., the 490 BCE and 480 BCE battles of Marathon and Salamis), and Ahasuerus’ authority in Persia was gravely eroded.
3. “Purimfest 1946” yelled Julius Streicher, the Nazi propaganda chief, as he approached the hanging gallows in Nuremberg. On October 16, 1946, ten convicted Nazi war criminals were hanged, similar to Haman’s ten sons, who were hanged in ancient Persia. An 11th Nazi criminal, Hermann Goering, committed suicide in his cell, similar to Haman’s 11th child, who committed suicide following her father’s demise (according to the Talmud’s Megillah tractate 16a).
Julius Streicher’s ranch served as a camp for young Jewish Holocaust survivors on their way to Israel following World War II.
4. Remembrance is at the core of the Purim holiday. The Scroll of Esther — which narrates the Purim saga — is also named The Book of Remembrance. The pre-Purim Sabbath is called The Sabbath of Remembrance (Zachor in Hebrew), commemorating the deadly threat of the Amalekites (the ancestors of Haman), who aimed to annihilate the Jewish people following their deliverance from Egyptian bondage.
Deuteronomy 25:17-19 commands the remembrance of the Amalekite’s attempt to annihilate the Jewish people following the Exodus from Egypt, on the way to the Land of Israel. These verses are read in synagogues/temples on the Sabbath preceding Purim.
5. Queen Esther is Purim’s heroine. The Scroll of Esther is one of the five Biblical scrolls, which are highlighted on Jewish holidays: Song of Songs (Passover), Scroll of Ruth (Pentecost), Lamentations (the 9th day of Av – destruction of the Jewish Temple), Ecclesiastes (Feast of Tabernacles), and The Scroll of Esther (Purim).
Esther symbolized the centrality of women in Judaism, as did Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, and Leah (the Matriarchs), Miriam (Moses’ older sister), Batyah (who saved Moses’ life), Deborah (the Prophetess, Judge and military leader), Hannah (Samuel’s mother) and Yael (who killed Sisera, the Canaanite General).
Esther was one of the seven Biblical Jewish Prophetesses: Sarah, Miriam, Deborah, Hannah, Abigail, Huldah, and Esther. Sarah lived 127 years and Esther was the Queen of 127 countries. The Hebrew name of Esther was Hadassah, whose root is Hadass, which is the Hebrew word for the myrtle tree. The myrtle tree features prominently during the Feast of Tabernacles. It is known for its pleasant scent and humble features, including leaves in the shape of the human eye. Greek mythology identifies the myrtle tree with Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love.
6. Mordechai, the hero of Purim and one of the deputies of Ezra the Scribe, was a role model of principle-driven optimism in defiance of colossal odds.
The first three Hebrew letters of Mordechai (מרדכי) spell the Hebrew word “rebellion” (מרד). Mordechai did not bow to Haman, when the latter was the second most powerful person in the Persian Empire. Mordechai was a member of the tribe of Benjamin, the only son of Jacob who did not bow to Esau.
Mordechai was a descendant of King Saul, who defied a clear commandment to eradicate the Amalekites, sparing the life of Agag, the Amalekite king, thus precipitating further calamities upon the Jewish People. Mordechai learned from Saul’s crucial error and eliminated Haman, a descendant of Agag the Amalekite, thus sparing the Jewish people from a major disaster.
7. Purim’s (פורים) Hebrew root is “fate” as well as “casting lots” (פור), commemorating Haman’s lottery, which determined a designated day for the annihilation of the Jewish People. It also means “to frustrate,” “to annul” (הפר), “to crumble,” and “to shutter” (פורר), reflecting the demise of Haman.
The author is a commentator and former Israeli ambassador.
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Palestinian Authority Used International Women’s Day to Celebrate Terrorists and Their Mothers
Students at the Dalal Mughrabi Elementary Mixed School, which was built with funds from the Belgian government. (Photo: Facebook)
As in previous years, the Palestinian Authority (PA) used International Women’s Day to glorify the memory of female terrorists and the value of mothers who knowingly send their sons to die as “Martyrs.”
Senior Fatah leader Abbas Zaki sang the praises of the mothers who publicly celebrate their sons’ deaths. He also lauded the mothers who give their sons the stones to throw at Israelis with the full knowledge that their children will die.
However, sending their sons to their death is not in vain, according to Zaki: “She [the mother] begins to feel that she has gained respect and high status in society when her son dies as a Martyr.”
Fatah Central Committee member Abbas Zaki: “Allah is witness to the fact that there is no woman in the world like the Palestinian woman. The woman who makes sounds of joy for the Martyr and sings songs of the revolution for the groom [i.e., a Martyr’s funeral is considered his wedding to the 72 Virgins in Paradise in Islam].
This woman is the one who gives up her son as he goes to fight with a rock, and she gives him the rock while knowing what her son’s fate will be. However, this woman is placed on a pedestal because she gave oxygen to this homeland, and she begins to feel that she has gained respect and high status in society when her son dies as a Martyr.”
[Fatah Central Committee member Abbas Zaki, Facebook page, March 10, 2025]
The PA also chose International Women’s Day to specifically glorify mass murderer Dalal Mughrabi, who led the Coastal Road Massacre, which was the most lethal attack in Israel’s history prior to October 7, 2023. Mughrabi, along with other Fatah terrorists, hijacked a bus, murdered 37 people, of which 12 were children, and wounded 70.
PA Ramallah Governor Laila Ghannam wrote on Facebook that “on this day … we pray for our female Martyrs and leaders whose blood paved the path of freedom, from Dalal Mughrabi to … the rest of the icons of the struggle.”
In the PA’s official daily, the Ramallah governor continued to extol the role of all Palestinian women as terrorists — the “Martyr, prisoner, and wounded” — and terrorist supporters — “the Martyr’s mother, the prisoner’s mother, his wife, his sister, and his daughter” [Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, March 9, 2025].
When someone is referred to as a “Martyr,” or Shahid in Arabic, it means that the person died while carrying out an idyllic act for Allah, such as the way Dalal Mughrabi murdered children in cold blood.
In yet another article, the official PA daily honored other female terrorists as “icons”: Zakiya Shammout — who planted a bomb in the Afula market in 1969, murdering one and injuring dozens; Shadia Abu Ghazaleh — who prepared bombs for many attacks as a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP); and Intisar Al-Wazir — the wife of Abu Jihad. Abu Jihad planned numerous lethal terror attacks from the 1960s to the 1980s, in which a total of 125 Israelis were murdered:
In addition to regularly broadcasting that dying for the sake of Allah is the greatest of acts, the PA exploits International Women’s Day year in and year out to focus on women linked to terror. It does this in order to reiterate that the highest form of feminine hero is the terrorist Martyr, or the mother of the terrorist Martyr.
Ephraim D. Tepler is a contributor to Palestinian Media Watch (PMW). Itamar Marcus is PMW’s Founder and Director. A version of this article originally appeared at PMW.
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A Fascinating Look Into the Rise of Campus Hatred and Antisemitism
Pro-Hamas protesters at Columbia University on April 19, 2024. Photo: Melissa Bender via Reuters Connect
The latest offering from Jewish Quarterly provides a timely and thorough exploration of the state of antisemitism in contemporary universities. It particularly focuses on the rise of campus activism and its implications for academic freedom.
Mindless: What Happened to Universities? features an in-depth essay by Professor Cary Nelson, a respected scholar and former president of the American Association of University Professors. Nelson’s analysis is well-researched and candid, illuminating the ideological shifts within higher education and their consequences for open discourse.
Nelson’s essay is a critical reflection on how academic institutions have evolved in recent years, particularly in response to anti-Zionist activism, antisemitism, and the broader politicization of campus spaces. He examines how university environments, which should be spaces for debate and critical thinking, have increasingly become arenas for dogmatic activism, often at the expense of intellectual diversity. He argues that the Gaza Solidarity encampments that spread across Western campuses in 2024 were symptomatic of deeper issues in academia — specifically, the growing resistance to debate and the framing of complex geopolitical conflicts in binary terms.
Nelson does not claim that student activism itself is problematic. Rather, he critiques the extent to which some protests have crossed the line into intimidation and exclusion for Jewish students. The essay provides extensive and unsettling evidence of antisemitic rhetoric emerging in protests, alongside surveys indicating that over half of Jewish students in the US felt unsafe on campus in 2024. His argument is not that all activism is inherently harmful, but that in many cases, the principle of free inquiry has been overshadowed by ideological conformity and naked political activism in place of scholarship.
One of the strengths of Nelson’s essay is that it does not rely on alarmism; rather, he builds the case methodically. He traces the historical trajectory of academic institutions, illustrating how certain disciplines have gradually shifted toward ideological uniformity, especially in their framing of Israel and Zionism. He also emphasizes how some faculty members have actively promoted activism that extends beyond protest to include calls for exclusion and censorship.
Nelson’s essay is an important contribution for readers looking for a balanced critique. While he clearly finds much of the current campus climate troubling, he avoids sweeping generalizations. Instead, he focuses on specific examples of how anti-Zionist activism has, in some cases, led to exclusionary practices and threats to the psychological safety essential for learning. The result is an essay that invites reflection rather than simply reinforcing entrenched positions.
A particularly valuable aspect of this work is its examination of the role that faculty and administrators play in shaping campus climates. Nelson provides examples of professors who have actively celebrated extremist rhetoric, as well as administrators who have been hesitant to confront antisemitism under the guise of protecting free speech. He contrasts this with past university responses to other forms of discrimination, questioning why antisemitism is often treated differently, especially within the context of a polarizing broader debate over DEI and identity politics.
At the same time, the issue does not present a one-sided view of faculty involvement. There is an acknowledgment that many academics oppose the radicalization of campus discourse but feel unable to speak out due to professional risks. Whilst highlighting increasingly politicized humanities and social sciences departments, his nuanced approach strengthens the essay’s credibility, as it avoids portraying all faculty as complicit or all students as antagonistic.
The past year has witnessed intense debates over free speech, antisemitism, and academic freedom. Nelson’s essay provides an important perspective on how these discussions are unfolding in higher education. Although it does not purport to offer all the answers to antisemitism, it presents a well-argued assessment of the challenges facing universities and offers possible solutions.
Furthermore, the issue underscores how the internationalization of campus activism has influenced these trends. With protests erupting across North America, Europe, and Australia, Nelson places these developments within a global framework, showing that these issues are not limited to any one country or institution. Nelson’s writing is clear and persuasive, and helps frame the discussion within a broader historical and intellectual tradition.
Mindless is an important read for anyone concerned about the future of academic institutions and the principles of free inquiry. While some readers may disagree with Nelson’s conclusions, his work’s strength lies in its commitment to reasoned debate. It does not demand agreement but encourages deeper reflection, which is increasingly rare in today’s polarized discourse.
This issue is well worth reading for those who follow developments in higher education or are concerned about the growing tensions around academic freedom and antisemitism. Jewish Quarterly continues to demonstrate why it is a respected voice in Jewish intellectual and cultural discussions, and Mindless is a testament to its enduring relevance.
Andrew Fox served for 16 years in the British Army (2005-21). He was a senior lecturer at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, and is currently a research fellow at the Henry Jackson Society. Andrew provides regular commentary on defense and foreign policy across the media including articles in the New York Post, The Telegraph, The Spectator, and Spiked. He has amassed a large following across his digital platforms, including X (formerly Twitter) and Substack, where he writes on disinformation, defense and security.
Mindless is available at www.jewishquarterly.com
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