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Albania has long been a pro-Israel country. Will the Hamas war change that?
TIRANA, Albania (JTA) — Hidden behind a wooden gate in Tirana’s Toptani district, construction workers are busy converting a 19th-century Ottoman mansion into the Besa Museum — a long-planned shrine to Albania’s embrace of Jews fleeing Nazi persecution during World War II.
About 100 miles south, in the Adriatic port city of Vlora — nestled among trendy cafés along a cobblestoned street where Jews once lived — a multimedia museum designed by Tel Aviv-based architects will soon portray the richness of Albania’s Jewish history, from the Spanish Inquisition to the Holocaust.
The building of one, let alone two, such museums in an impoverished Balkan country that’s home to more than a million Muslims but only about 60 Jews is a remarkable turn of events. The Marxist regime that ruled Albania from 1946 to 1991 outlawed all religions in 1967 — including Judaism — and reviled Israel as the “little devil” of the United States.
But Albania is also known as the only European country that had more Jewish residents after World War II than before it. In recent years, officials have looked to promote that narrative and cultivate ties with Israel. The story stems, in their view, from their nation’s culture of “besa” — Albania’s medieval code of honor, which requires people to welcome any guests, including foreigners, as their own.
“The rescue of the Jews during World War II is one of the most beautiful pages in the history of the Albanians. Christians and Muslims sacrificed everything to protect them,” said Elva Margariti, Albania’s minister of culture, when announcing the Besa Museum earlier this year. “For Albanians this is besa. It is a value that we will pass on to our children, telling them this extraordinary story.”
Albania’s warm feelings toward Israel will be tested in the weeks and months to come. Pro-Israel sentiment is already dropping in the wake of Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza, which was sparked by the terror group’s bloody incursion into southern Israel on Oct. 7.
An online survey of Albanians conducted Oct. 13 by Tirana pollster Eduard Zaloshnja showed relatively strong sympathy for Israel in the war’s first week. Of the 2,320 people who responded to what Zaloshnja concedes was a “quick and dirty, not scientific” questionnaire, 50% said they were pro-Israel, 36% identified as pro-Palestine and 14% said they were “undecided.”
This Ottoman mansion in Tirana’s Toptani district is being converted into the Besa Museum — a shrine to Albania’s tradition of welcoming Jews and other foreigners. (Larry Luxner)
However, support for Israel has since fallen, Zaloshnja said, especially since an explosion at a Gaza City hospital that Hamas immediately blamed on Israel. Video and other evidence have led to the widespread assessment that the blast, which may have killed hundreds, was caused by a misfired rocket launched by the Islamic Jihad terror group.
On Oct. 16, the United Nations Security Council rejected a resolution that condemned Israeli airstrikes on Gaza and demanded an immediate ceasefire. Five countries including China and Russia voted in favor while four — the United States, France, Germany and Japan — voted against it because the resolution failed to specifically condemn Hamas. Albania, which currently has a seat on the body, was one of six countries to abstain.
Two days later, Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama tweeted that although “Hamas is a cancer in the body of humanity,” there’s no excuse for “turning a blind eye” to the Israeli response.
“In this conflict, Albania and the entire democratic world stand firmly on the side of Israel, barbarically targeted by the depravity of Hamas terrorists!” wrote Rama, whose party is often described as center-left. “However, the democratic world must also be a guarantor of the truth and the justice for the hundreds of victims of the bombed hospital in Gaza.”
On Friday, hundreds of Albanian Muslims converged on Skanderbeg Square, Tirana’s main plaza, shouting pro-Palestinian slogans and waving “Free Gaza” placards.
“I’m reading comments on Albanian social media accounts that local Islamists are inundating with conspiracy theories,” said Zaloshnja. “My personal feeling is that there’s an older generation of Albanians who were indoctrinated by hatred toward Israel and support for the Palestinian cause. That generation is still alive.”
A Jewish community scattered
In 1991, Albania’s Marxist regime collapsed, in a year that marked the end of communism in Eastern Europe. The new democratic government immediately established diplomatic relations with Israel, but it took another 21 years for an Israeli embassy to open in Tirana.
Today, Albania has three honorary consuls in Israel: one responsible for Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and the central region; another in Haifa, covering northern Israel; and a third in Eilat for southern Israel and the Negev. Some 54 Israeli companies currently operate in Albania, including drip irrigation firm Netafim, and the Balkan country has become a popular destination for Israel tourists, with seasonal nonstop flights linking Tel Aviv and Tirana.
Prince Leka II is the grandson of Albania’s King Zog, who was widely credited with welcoming Jews fleeing Nazi persecution. (Larry Luxner)
But Albania has another, more complicated side to its history and its ties to the Middle East. Terrorists belonging to the Palestine Liberation Organization used to train in Albania for six months of guerrilla warfare at a military base in Zall-Herr, just north of Tirana. More recently, between 50 and 60 Albanians — mostly from very poor villages in the southeast — were recruited to fight for ISIS.
News articles often portray Albania as a majority-Muslim country, but the reality is more nuanced. About half of Albania’s 2.6 million inhabitants don’t identify with any religion, a legacy of the atheism imposed by Enver Hoxha, who ruled the country from 1946 until his death in 1985. Of those who do, roughly 50% are Bektashi — an Islamic Sufi mystic order — while 21% practice traditional Islam and the remaining 29% consider themselves Christian Orthodox or Catholic.
The Jewish presence in Albania was always tiny. Before World War II, Albania was home to perhaps 300 Romaniote Jews — a Greek-speaking ethnic community. Most of them lived in Vlora, with a smaller community in Tirana and scattered Jewish families in other cities and towns.
At its peak, perhaps 3,750 Jewish refugees from Greece, Austria, Bulgaria, Italy and the former Yugoslavia lived in Albania. Some Jews fought as partisans against the Nazis, and their memories are honored in a special exhibit at Albania’s National History Museum fronting Skanderbeg Square.
After the war, Albania’s Jewish population quickly dropped back to around 300 as foreign Jews left. In 1991 — as soon as the communist regime collapsed — nearly the entire community fled en masse to Israel.
Today, not a single Jew is left in Vlora — a city that recently renamed the street of Rruga Phoma Byko to Rruga Ebrenjve, or Street of the Jews. Nearly all the Jews who have stayed in Albania reside in Tirana, said Amos Dojaka, president of the Albanian Jewish Community. The group’s official design is a merged menorah and Albanian double-headed eagle.
“Albania was closed for more than 50 years, so for that reason nobody knew the story” of the rescue of Jews from the Nazis, said Dojaka, 56, a Tirana businessman who works in the import-export sector.
“Saving Jews was very dangerous, so it’s good for the younger generation and also tourists to know about this,” said Dojaka, who lived for two years in Ashdod, Israel, during the late 1990s.
He thinks that “most people here” still support Israel. “Our two countries have similar histories, and nobody here supports terrorism,” Dojaka said.
This historic building in the heart of Vlora will soon house the Jewish Museum of Albania. (Larry Luxner)
Prince Leka II — the grandson of King Zog, who ruled Albania from 1928 until fascist Italian occupiers forced him into exile in 1939, never to return — said he was proud that his grandfather allowed Jewish refugees into the country in the 1930s and provided for them.
“He risked his position as king but refused to be a puppet,” Leka explained over coffee at the Maritime Plaza Hotel’s Queen Geraldine Room, which is named after his grandmother. “That’s why he had to leave Albania after the invasion.”
Another prominent Albanian Jew is Geri Kureta, 55, owner of a chain of kids’ clothing and toy stores. He has five outlets in Tirana, one in Vlora and one in the resort city of Durres. For 16 years, Kureta lived in Karmiel, in Israel’s Galilee, but decided to return to his native Albania in 2007. His 82-year-old father and 76-year-old mother are still in Karmiel.
“I am very worried,” said Kureta, who speaks fluent Hebrew. “Everyone knows I have family in Israel, and all of them call and ask me about them. People here see a lot on TV about Gaza. I don’t think Israel has explained itself very well. Of course I blame Hamas, but at the end of the day, it’s a war. Sometimes we don’t have any other choice.”
Blendi Gonjxhi, head of the government office that oversees Albania’s road transport services, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that Israel was completely justified in striking back at Hamas after its bloody rampage.
“Things must be seen as they are,” said Gonjxhi. “If you see how much money Hamas spent to prepare for this attack, you’ll understand why Gaza is so poor. You cannot build tunnels and rocket launchers in a crowded neighborhood and then complain that this neighborhood is being bombed, or ask the people you attacked to supply your water and electricity.”
A tale of two museums
When Nazi troops occupied the country, Albania’s inhabitants gave shelter to local Jews as well as refugees, hiding them in their homes, dressing them in native costume and even giving them Muslim names to fool the Germans — in keeping with the tradition of besa. To honor that tradition, Albania is building the Besa Museum, which will be dedicated to the stories of Albanian citizens who saved Jews during the Holocaust.
Albania’s national Holocaust memorial, situated in a Tirana park, has commemorative plaques in Albanian, English and Hebrew. (Larry Luxner)
The museum, which will be located in what is now a badly dilapidated mansion in Tirana — was announced in March by Rama during a visit to Jerusalem. But few details are available, and an onsite security guard refused to let a reporter in to take photos of the site.
“For 30 years, I’ve been dreaming of this. I never thought my idea of a Jewish museum would really happen,” said Anna Kohen, a retired New York dentist and author of the autobiographical “Flower of Vlora: Growing Up Jewish in Communist Albania.” Now 78 and living in Florida, she pitched the museum concept to city officials years ago.
Likewise, the 21,000-square-foot Jewish Museum of Albania, slated to open in 2025, will soon rise on the current site of Vlora’s Ethnographic Museum, which is located in the middle of a small plaza. For now, graffiti is scrawled on nearby walls next to the Sophie Caffé and other boutique shops.
The $2.5 million Vlora project is financed by the Albanian-American Development Fund (AADF) and is being designed by Israeli architect Etan Kimmel, whose Tel Aviv company beat four European firms for the winning bid.
“We’ve always been aware that it was necessary to have something to remind people of the long-term relationship between Albania and the Jews,” said the AADF’s project manager, Alketa Kurrizo. “This will be a 21st-century Jewish museum that talks not only about history and what we have done, but about Albania’s Jewish history going back to medieval times. This museum is one all of us will be proud of, and we’re sure that people from Israel will also come to visit.”
Upon completion, the museum will consist of one underground floor and four floors above ground as a modern glass extension to the existing historic building. Besides a permanent exhibit area, plans call for classrooms, office space, a library and an auditorium.
“This will be our first museum outside Israel,” said Kimmel, whose projects include the National Memorial at Mount Herzl, the Natural History Museum in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem’s Tower of David Museum, as well as numerous Israeli embassies around the world.
Both of the two planned museums are being financed by taxpayers in Albania, which despite a dramatic jump in tourism this year remains one of Europe’s poorest countries. Prince Leka insists it’s crucial for Albanians to know their past in order to prevent future atrocities — particularly in Europe, where violent assaults against Jews and firebombing of synagogues and other Jewish and Israeli targets have skyrocketed since the current war began.
“We have a huge amount of sympathy for Israel today,” he said. “What happened on Oct. 7 was not a military attack, it was a terrorist attack. Armies do not rape women, they do not abuse children. Anyone who justifies these criminal acts is on the wrong side of history.”
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‘Fine Scholar’: UC Berkeley Chancellor Praises Professor Who Expressed Solidarity With Oct. 7 Attacks
University of California, Berkeley chancellor Dr. Rich Lyons, testifies at a Congressional hearing on antisemitism, in Washington, D.C., U.S., on July 15, 2025. Photo: Allison Bailey via Reuters Connect.
The chancellor of University of California, Berkeley described a professor who cheered the Oct. 7 Hamas massacre across southern Israel a “fine scholar” during a congressional hearing held at Capitol Hill on Tuesday.
Richard K. Lyons, who assumed the chancellorship in July 2024 issued the unmitigated praise while being questioned by members of the House of Representatives Committee on Education and the Workforce, which summoned him and the chief administrators of two other major universities to interrogate their handling of the campus antisemitism crisis.
Lyons stumbled into the statement while being questioned by Rep. Lisa McClain (R-MI), who asked Lyons to describe the extent of his relationship and correspondence with Professor Ussama Makdisi, who tweeted in Feb. 2024 that he “could have been one of those who broke through the siege on October 7.”
“What do you think the professor meant,” McClain asked Lyons, to which the chancellor responded, “I believe it was a celebration of the terrorist attack on October 7.” McClain proceeded to ask if Lyons discussed the tweet with Makdisi or personally reprimanded him, prompting an exchange of remarks which concluded with Lyons’s saying, “He is a fine scholar.”
Lyon’s comment came after nearly three hours in which the group of university leaders — which included Dr. Robert Groves, president of Georgetown University, and Dr. Felix V. Matos Rodriguez, chancellor of the City University of New York (CUNY) — offered gaffe-free, deliberately worded answers to the members’ questions to avoid eliciting the kind of public relations ordeal which prematurely ended the tenures of two Ivy League presidents in 2024 following an education committee held in Dec. 2023.
Rep. McClain later criticized Lyons on social media, calling his comment “totally disgraceful.” She added, “Faculty must be held accountable and Jewish students deserve better.”
CUNY chancellor Rodriguez also triggered a rebuke from the committee members in which he was also described as a “disgrace.”
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, CUNY campuses have been lambasted by critics as some of the most antisemitic institutions of higher education in the United States. Last year, the US Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) resolved half a dozen investigations of antisemitism on CUNY campuses, one of which involved Jewish students who were pressured into saying that Jews are White people who should be excluded from discussions about social justice.
During Tuesday’s hearing Rodriguez acknowledged that antisemitic incidents continue to disrupt Jewish academic life, disclosing that 84 complaints of antisemitism have been formally reported to CUNY administrators since 2024. 15 were filed in 2025 alone, but CUNY, he said, has published only 18 students for antisemitic conduct. Rodriguez went on to denounce efforts to pressure CUNY into adopting the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel, saying, “I have repudiated BDS and I have said there’s no place for BDS at the City University of New York.”
Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC) remarked, however, that Rodriguez has allegedly done little to address antisemitism in the CUNY faculty union, the Professional Staff Congress (PSC), which has passed several resolutions endorsing BDS and whose members, according to 2021 ruling rendered by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), discriminated against Professor Jeffrey Lax by holding meetings on Shabbat to prevent him and other Jews from attending them.
“The PSC does not speak for the City University of New York,” Rodriquez protested. “We’ve been clear on our commitment against antisemitism and against BDS.”
Later, Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), whose grilling of higher education officials who appear before the committee has created several viral moments, rejected Rodriguez’s responses as disingenuous.
“It’s all words, no action. You have failed the people of New York,” she told the chancellor. “You have failed Jewish students in New York State, and it is a disgrace.”
Following the hearing, The Lawfare Project, legal nonprofit which provides legal services free of charge to Jewish victims of civil rights violations, applauded the education committee for publicizing antisemitism at CUNY.
“I am thankful for the many members of Congress who worked with us to ensure that the deeply disturbing facts about antisemitism at CUNY were brought forward in this hearing,” Lawfare Project litigation director Zipora Reich said in a press release. “While it is deeply frustrating to hear more platitudes and vague promises from CUNY’s leadership, we are encouraged to see federal lawmakers demanding accountability.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Huckabee Calls for Israeli Investigation Into ‘Criminal and Terrorist’ Killing of Palestinian-American in West Bank
US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee looks on during the day he visits the Western Wall, Judaism’s holiest prayer site, in Jerusalem’s Old City, April 18, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
U.S. Ambassador Mike Huckabee on Monday urged Israeli officials to swiftly investigate the killing of Saif Musallet, a 20-year-old American citizen who was allegedly beaten to death by Israeli settlers while he was visiting family in the West Bank town of Sinjil.
“There must be accountability for this criminal and terrorist act,” Huckabee wrote on social media, in what is one of his strongest condemnations of Israeli settler violence since he was appointed by President Donald Trump in November 2024. “Saif was just 20 yrs old.”
Musallet, a Florida native, was reportedly attacked on July 11 by a group of Israelis while accompanying relatives on family-owned farmland near Ramallah. His family says he was severely beaten and denied medical attention for nearly three hours before succumbing to his injuries. Another Palestinian man, 23-year-old Mohammad al-Shalabi, was shot and killed during the same incident, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.
Israeli authorities said the violence followed an alleged rock-throwing incident that left two Israelis lightly wounded, a common occurrence in the West Bank which las left scores of Israelis civilians wounded and some killed. The Israel Defense Forces stated they used non-lethal crowd dispersal methods during the clash. The IDF says the incident is under investigation. Two Israeli minors were arrested following the attack, though according to Israeli media reports, neither of them is a murder suspect, and they were subsequently released to house arrest.
Musallet had traveled to the West Bank in early June to visit relatives and potentially meet a bride. Raised in Port Charlotte, Florida, he had recently co-founded an ice cream business in Tampa with his family. His death comes amid an escalation in settler-related violence across the West Bank, which has intensified since the October 2023 Hamas-led attack on southern Israel and the Israeli military’s ongoing campaign in Gaza.
Huckabee has historically defended Israeli settlement activity and has vowed to serve as an unwavering defender of the Jewish state.
Human rights groups and local activists say Musallet’s killing is part of a growing pattern of impunity for attacks on Palestinians, including American citizens. No Israeli suspects have been indicted in several high-profile deaths of Palestinian Americans in recent years, including journalist Shireen Abu Akleh and teenager Omar Mohammad Rabea.
U.S. lawmakers, including Representative Kathy Castor (D-FL), who represents Tampa, joined calls for an investigation. The State Department said it is aware of the incident and is providing consular support to the family but deferred further comment to Israeli authorities.
Musallet’s funeral was held Sunday in his family’s hometown of al-Mazra’a ash-Sharqiya. His relatives say they are demanding justice not only for Saif, but for all Americans caught in what they describe as an increasingly lawless situation in the occupied West Bank.
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Scandal-Plagued UN Commission Disbands Amid Increasing US Pressure Against Anti-Israel International Organizations
Miloon Kothari, member of the United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel, briefs reporters on the first report of the Commission. UN Photo/Jean Marc Ferré
The Commission of Inquiry (COI), a controversial United Nations commission investigating Israel for nearly five years, has collapsed after all three of its members abruptly resigned days after the United States sanctioned a senior UN official over antisemitism.
Commission chair Navi Pillay resigned on July 8, citing health concerns and scheduling conflicts. Her fellow commissioners, Chris Sidoti and Miloon Kothari, followed suit days later. While none of the commissioners directly linked their resignations to the U.S. sanctions, the timing suggests mounting American pressure played a decisive role.
The resignations came just one day before the Trump administration announced sanctions on Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Palestinian territories. Albanese was sanctioned over what the State Department called a “pattern of antisemitic and inflammatory rhetoric.” She had previously claimed that the U.S. was controlled by a “Jewish lobby” and questioned Israel’s right to self-defense. The sanctions bar her from entering the U.S. and freeze any assets under American jurisdiction.
The resignations mark a major victory for critics who have long viewed the inquiry as biased and politically motivated.
Watchdog groups, including Geneva-based UN Watch, celebrated the swift collapse of the Commission of Inquiry (COI), which they say had long operated with an open mandate to target Israel. “This is a watershed moment of accountability,” said UN Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer. “The COI was built on bias and sustained by hatred. Its fall is a victory for human rights, not a defeat.”
The COI had faced heavy criticism since its formation in 2021. In July 2022, Commissioner Miloon Kothari, made comments about the undue influence of a so-called “Jewish lobby” on the media, said the COI would “have to look at issues of settler colonialism.”
“Apartheid itself is a very useful paradigm, so we have a slightly different approach, but we will definitely get to it,” he added.
The Commission was established in 2021 year following the 11-day war between Israel and Gaza’s ruling Hamas group in May. COI is the first UN commission to ever be granted an indefinite period of investigation, which has drawn criticism from the US State Department, members of US Congress, and Jewish leaders across the world.
Following the resignations, Council President Jürg Lauber invited member states to nominate replacements by August 31. However, it is unclear whether the commission will be reconstituted or quietly shelved. UN Watch and other groups have urged the council to disband the COI entirely, calling it irreparably biased.
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