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As a child of survivors, I see my parents in every Ethiopian immigrant to Israel
(JTA) — Recently, I watched a mother reunite with her son for the first time in 41 years.
On May 9, I was part of a delegation of the Jewish Agency for Israel that accompanied Ethiopian olim (immigrants) from Addis Ababa to Ben Gurion Airport and new lives in Israel. The mother had made aliyah in 1982 as part of Operation Moses, when Ethiopian Jewish immigrants trekked for weeks through the Sudan, hiding out from authorities in the daytime and walking by moonlight, to reach Israeli Mossad agents, who were secretly facilitating their transport to Israel.
But the son, due to family circumstances, was left behind. And here she was on the tarmac, praying and crying, and the embrace they had when the now grown man walked down the stairs, that depth of emotion after decades of waiting and yearning, was something that I will never forget.
The Ethiopian Jewish community dates back some 2,500 years, from around the time of the destruction of the First Temple. We know that they have always yearned, from generation to generation, to be in Jerusalem. Most of the Ethiopian Jews emigrated to Israel during the 1970s and 1980s and in one weekend in May 1992, a covert Israeli operation, dubbed Operation Solomon, airlifted more than 14,325 Ethiopian Jews to Israel over 36 hours. Those coming today are being reunited with family members who came during one of these earlier operations.
On my four-day trip from Addis Ababa to Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, I listened to the stories of incredible perseverance, and of heartrending suffering, among Ethiopian Jews — our brothers and sisters. Close to 100,000 of them have made their way to Israel over the past 40-plus years, fulfilling this community’s centuries-long quest to come to Israel.
I heard about the Ethiopian Israeli who, as a 15-year-old, marched through Sudan with his family and lost three of his siblings to starvation. I heard the stories of families waiting, for months or years, for that moment of aliyah, as clandestine negotiations among government negotiators dragged on. It was so powerful to hear of the sacrifices they made and how strong the dream was, and is today, of coming to Jerusalem, to Israel.
RELATED: How Israel’s Falash Mura immigration from Ethiopia became a painful 30-year saga
And I thought of my own family’s journey — a different time, under different circumstances. But also a Jewish journey of perseverance, suffering and, for the fortunate among us, survival.
My parents were born in Poland in the 1930s. During World War II, my father and his family survived in a Siberian labor camp and then in a remote part of Poland. My mother’s family managed to get work papers, but her father did not have them. He survived the war by hiding under the floorboards of a barn on a farm where they were living. The woman who owned the farm did not know they were Jewish, so it was a harrowing day-to-day existence.
But my mother and father survived, managed to make it to liberation, and eventually came to the United States. They were first sponsored by the Birmingham, Alabama, Jewish community, and then made their way to New York and New Jersey, where our family has built a new life. We now have fourth-generation children growing up here in New Jersey, and we feel so fortunate for the lives we have.
Here is the essential difference from their story and mine: For my family, there was no state of Israel. Many members of my family perished in the Holocaust. There was nowhere for them to go.
This drives what I do. Today, everything has changed because we have a state of Israel, and we have a Jewish Agency that ensures that Jews can make aliyah and helps them make new lives in Israel.
Last year, after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, I traveled to Poland and stood at the border as thousands of Ukrainian refugees streamed across. I was standing only a few miles from where my grandfather hid under the floorboards of that barn about 80 years earlier. Back then, there was no one there to protect my family, no one to do anything for them. And here I was in 2022 standing amid a massive array of aid agencies, and the very first thing these refugees saw — whether they were Jewish or not — were signs with the Star of David, marking the Jewish Agency, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee and other Jewish groups.
While there has been significant hardship and struggle for the first generation of Ethiopian Jews in Israel, it was incredibly inspiring for me to meet members of the second generation — those who made the trek as children or teenagers in the 1980s and ’90s — who are now Israeli adults in positions of leadership and significant responsibilities. We heard from Havtamo Yosef, who immigrated as a young child from Ethiopia with his parents, and then watched his father become a street sweeper and his mother a housecleaner while he was growing up. Now he heads up the entire Ethiopian Aliyah and Absorption services for the Jewish Agency, ensuring that there are stronger absorption procedures, better education and firmer foundations for better lives for these new immigrants than there ever was for his family.
While there was no Israel for my family when we were refugees, there were — in Birmingham, Alabama; in Hillside, New Jersey; and everywhere along the way of my family’s journey — people who thought outside of themselves, who cared and took care of my relatives. This is my legacy and what motivates me today.
So when I stood on the tarmac at Ben Gurion earlier this month, I cried tears of sadness at the long family separations and tears of joy that today this Jewish journey continues, from Ukraine and Russia and Ethiopia to Israel. Today, there is a place to go and a people to welcome Jews on that tarmac, with an Israeli flag, a smile and a warm embrace, and a promise of better lives in freedom.
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The post As a child of survivors, I see my parents in every Ethiopian immigrant to Israel appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Ran Gvili, Final Hostage Returned From Gaza, Laid to Rest in Emotional Funeral
A convoy carrying the remains of the last hostage to be retrieved from Gaza, Ran Gvili, an off-duty police officer who was killed fighting Palestinian terrorists who had infiltrated Israel during the deadly Oct. 7, 2023, attack by Hamas, makes its way to his funeral, in Ramla, Israel, Jan. 28, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Nir Elias
Israeli police officer Ran Gvili, the last hostage to be returned home after 843 days in captivity in Gaza, was laid to rest on Wednesday in Meitar, his hometown in southern Israel, as family members, government officials, security forces, and other mourners gathered to pay their final respects.
At the Shur Camp near Beit Shemesh in central Israel, an honor procession was held as Gvili’s coffin departed the military base.
The main memorial service later took place in an open field near the Meitar sports complex, drawing more than 2,000 attendees and thousands more who followed the ceremony on outdoor screens, as his family and several Israeli leaders delivered remarks in his memory.
“I want to tell you, Ran, that the hope that you could return to us standing, or even on just one leg, was what gave us the strength to get through this time,” Gvili’s mother, Taliq, said during the ceremony.
“I want to assure you that, because of you, all of Israel has been reminded that, despite our differences, we are one united and strong people. You went out to protect everyone, and all of us are worthy of your sacrifice,” she continued.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spent months conducting Operation “Valiant Heart” to locate Gvili’s remains in Gaza, where his dead body was taken and held hostage by Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists during their Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of and massacre across southern Israel.
About a month ago, the Shin Bet — Israel’s internal security agency — carried out a special operation in southern Gaza City, detaining a Palestinian Islamic Jihad operative whose interrogation confirmed that Gvili was buried in Al-Batsh Cemetery in the Saja’iya neighborhood of northern Gaza.
During Wednesday’s ceremony, Gvili’s father, Itzik, also addressed the crowd in a heartfelt tribute to his son, as Israel marked the end of a years-long hostage crisis that engulfed the nation.
“All of Israel knows your story, and the whole world has heard it. Everyone holds you close in their hearts — you are the son of all,” he said. “I am so proud to be your father. I miss you every single moment, and I love you deeply.”
On the morning of Oct. 7, 2023, Gvili, a 24-year-old officer in the elite Israel Police’s Special Patrol Unit, was at home recovering from a motorcycle accident with a broken shoulder, awaiting surgery.
His father recounted that as soon as his son heard the news, he put on his uniform and said, “My men are fighting — do you think I should stay home?” before leaving his house.
According to eyewitnesses from that morning over two years ago, Gvili assisted the injured in the area, rescuing around 100 people fleeing the nearby Nova Music Festival and killing 14 Hamas terrorists.
His final message was to his friends, in which he told them he had been shot twice in the leg. After that, he vanished without a trace.
Gvili’s sister, Shira, also delivered a heartfelt tribute during the ceremony.
“When my mother came into my room and told me it would likely be a long time before you returned, I never imagined it would be the last 843 days,” she said.
Israelis look at the iconic clock timer after it was turned off, marking 844 days of hostage captivity and the return of the Israel’s last remaining hostage in Gaza, Ran Gvili, an off-duty police officer who was killed fighting militants that had infiltrated Israel during the deadly October 7, 2023 attack by Hamas, in “Hostages Square” in Tel Aviv, Israel, January 27, 2026. REUTERS/Nir Elias
During the two weeks following Gvili’s disappearance, IDF forces confirmed that he had been abducted and taken to Gaza. By late January 2024, Israeli intelligence had determined that he was killed during the Oct. 7 atrocities and that his body was being held in Gaza.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attended Wednesday’s ceremony, honoring Gvili and recognizing his bravery and sacrifice.
“Ran, Israel’s hero, will be laid to rest in the Tomb of Israel. The closing of the scroll over Gvili’s grave seals the painful reality of the Israeli hostages held in Gaza. We bring them all home, alive or dead, from enemy territory,” the Israeli leader said.
“This is not the end of the story. We also remain committed to our other goals: disarming Hamas, demilitarizing the [Gaza] Strip, and we will achieve them,” he continued, referring to efforts to launch the second phase of US President Donald Trump’s peace plan for Gaza.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog also delivered remarks, honoring Gvili’s courage and the resilience of the Israeli people in the face of tragedy.
“The ‘last hostage’ finally rests in the land of his home. The home he loved, the home he fought for alongside his comrades, the home he set out to defend with supreme courage and ferocity on that bitter and hurried day,” he said.
“I, like the thousands gathered here and the tens of thousands across the country, can only regret not having had the privilege of knowing him in life,” Herzog added.
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ADL Ranks Grok as the Worst AI Chatbot at Detecting Antisemitism, Rates Claude as the Best
A 3D-printed miniature model of Elon Musk and the X logo are seen in this illustration taken Jan. 23, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) on Wednesday released its AI Index, which ranks popular large language model (LLM) chatbot programs according to their effectiveness at detecting antisemitism, anti-Zionism, and other forms of extremism.
The watchdog group found a wide variability in performance among the six models it analyzed. Researchers applied a variety of tests to xAI’s Grok, Meta’s Llama, Alphabet’s Gemini, Chinese hedge fund High Flyer’s DeepSeek, OpenAI’s ChatGPT, and the clear winner of them all on recognizing hate, Anthropic’s Claude.
The ADL created an “overall performance model” which combined the results of multiple forms of testing. The group awarded Claude the highest score with 80 points, while Grok sat at the bottom with 21. ChatGPT came in second with 57, followed by DeepSeek (50), Gemini (49) and Llama at 31.
Researchers tested the apps between August and October of last year, striving to explore as an “average user” would utilize the programs, as opposed to a bad actor actively seeking to create harmful content. They performed more than 25,000 chats across 37 sub-categories and assessed the results with both human and AI evaluations.
The report also distinguished between anti-Jewish, traditional antisemitism directed at individual Jews, and anti-Zionist antisemitism directed at the Jewish state. A third category of analysis focused on more general “extremism” and considered questions about conspiracy theories and other narratives which run across the political spectrum.
Among its key findings, the ADL discovered that each app had problems.
“All six LLMs showed gaps in their ability to detect bias against Jews, Zionists/Zionism, and to identify extremism, often failing to detect and refute harmful or false theories and narratives,” the report said. “All models could benefit from improvement when responding to the type of harmful content tested.”
Researchers also found that “some models actively generate harmful content in response to relatively straightforward prompts, such as YouTube script personas saying ‘Jewish-controlled central banks are the puppet masters behind every major economic collapse.’”
The AI Index “reveals a troubling reality: every major AI model we tested demonstrates at least some gaps in addressing bias against Jews and Zionists and all struggle with extremist content,” ADL chief executive officer Jonathan Greenblatt said in a statement. “When these systems fail to challenge or reproduce harmful narratives, they don’t just reflect bias — they can amplify and may even help accelerate their spread. We hope that this index can serve as a roadmap for AI companies to improve their detection capabilities.”
Oren Segal, the ADL’s senior vice president of counter-extremism and intelligence, explained that the new research “fills a critical gap in AI safety research by applying domain expertise and standardized testing to antisemitic, anti-Zionist, and extremist content.” He warned that “no AI system we tested was fully equipped to handle the full scope of antisemitic and extremist narratives users may encounter. This Index provides concrete, measurable benchmarks that companies, buyers, and policymakers can use to drive meaningful improvement.”
Grok — the chatbot ranked lowest on the ADL’s list and directed by its billionaire owner Elon Musk to offer “anti-woke” and “politically incorrect” responses — has faced considerable criticism for last year’s expressions of antisemitism which included answers self-declaring the program as “MechaHitler.”
More recently, Musk and Grok have come under fire from government officials around the world objecting to a recent upgrade which enabled users to create “deepfake” sexualized images which stripped people featured in uploaded images.
The European Union opened an investigation this week with a goal of determining “whether the company properly assessed and mitigated risks associated with the deployment of Grok’s functionalities into X in the EU. This includes risks related to the dissemination of illegal content in the EU, such as manipulated sexually explicit images, including content that may amount to child sexual abuse material.”
Henna Virkkunen, the EU’s executive vice president for tech sovereignty, security, and democracy, decried the fact that Grok can be used for sexual exploitation.
“Sexual deepfakes of women and children are a violent, unacceptable form of degradation,” Virkkunen said. “With this investigation, we will determine whether X has met its legal obligations under the DSA [Digital Services Act], or whether it treated rights of European citizens – including those of women and children – as collateral damage of its service.”
On Monday, a bipartisan group of 35 attorneys general sent a letter to xAI demanding the disabling of the image undressing feature.
Pennsylvania Attorney General Dave Sunday led the effort.
“The time to ensure people are protected from powerful tools like generative AI isn’t after harm has been caused. You shouldn’t wait for a car crash to put up guardrails,” Sunday said. “This behavior by users was all too predictable and should have been addressed before its release. Tech companies have a responsibility to ensure their tools cannot be used in these destructive ways before they launch their product.”
France also opened an investigation into Grok in November 2025, following outputs promoting Holocaust denial in the French language, a criminal violation of the country’s strict laws against promoting lies about the Nazis’ mass murder of 6 million Jews.
Steven Stalinsky, executive director of the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), has long raised the alarm about the threat of LLMs fueling antisemitism and terrorism. He warned that “over two years later, the problem is demonstrably worse, not better, raising a fundamental question about trust.”
Stalinsky stated that “assurances from AI companies alone are insufficient.”
In response to the ADL’s latest report, Danny Barefoot, senior director of the group’s Ratings and Assessments Institute, said in a statement that “as AI systems increasingly influence what people see, believe, and share, rigorous, evidence-based accountability is no longer optional — it’s essential.”
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Palestinian Authority Leader Attacks PA’s ‘Rampant Corruption’
Lebanese President Joseph Aoun meets with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas at the presidential palace in Baabda, Lebanon, May 21, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir
When even Tawfiq Tirawi — a senior leader of the Palestinian Authority (PA)’s ruling party, Fatah, and the former director and co-founder of its General Intelligence Service — says the system is rotten to the core, it is a stark indication of just how deeply corruption is embedded in the PA.
In a public letter posted on January 20, 2026, Tirawi accused the Palestinian Authority of systemic, institutionalized corruption so entrenched that it now enjoys “security and immunity.”
Addressing PA ruler Mahmoud Abbas, Tirawi described years of futile appeals to the PA leadership regarding “numerous cases of corruption and injustice rampant in our institutions.” According to Tirawi, even when Abbas personally referred these cases to PA prime ministers or the attorney general, nothing happened.
Tirawi cited various issues, namely that corruption had spread across the PA government and the judicial system; that a corruption network now operates with protection and immunity; that influential figures are involved in the takeover of public and private lands and assets; that experts and senior public employees who documented these crimes faced threats and intimidation; and that institutions meant to protect the public interest have become a “protective umbrella for the corrupt.”
Even more striking is Tirawi’s threat that if the situation continues, he will expose names and details of corrupt officials to the Palestinian public and international media, calling for a “public, national, and moral trial” to replace a judiciary that no longer functions.
Posted text:“An open letter to [PA] President Mahmoud Abbas
For many years, I have repeatedly approached you with an open heart and demanded your intervention in numerous cases of corruption and injustice that are rampant in our institutions… Some of these cases were referred by you to the [PA] prime ministers and others to the attorney general, but the result unfortunately remained the same: A lack of any concrete action to protect the people or put an end to this severe negligence.
The hands of the influential and the thieves have spread and reached all parts of the PA, at the level of the government and the judicial system, to the point that the corruption network now operates with security and immunity. Its deeds have reached severe levels of threat and intimidation, to the point of threatening senior [PA] public employees, experts, and scholars who have prepared documented reports proving the involvement of influential figures in the takeover of public and private lands and assets, amid criminal behavior that harms the national dignity and core moral values…
While I believe that part of the truth has been conveyed to you, the fact that it has not been fully and clearly told remains a responsibility that cannot be ignored.
In light of the severe collapse of the judicial system’s role, the paralysis of the system of accountability, and the transformation of some institutions that were supposed to protect the public interest into a protective umbrella for the corrupt, I declare clearly that the era of silence is over. If this situation continues, I will not hesitate to expose all the documented issues and cases, including names and details, to the Palestinian public and through local and international media outlets, to enable a public, national, and moral trial of the corrupt, given that the judicial system is not fulfilling its national and constitutional duties.” [emphasis added]
[Fatah Central Committee member Tawfiq Tirawi, Facebook page, Jan. 20, 2026]
While Tirawi’s letter is intriguing, as it reveals what the PA truly is on the inside, do not be fooled. Even if it triggers limited administrative changes, Tirawi himself remains fully committed to the PA’s terror-promoting worldview.
And as Palestinian Media Watch has frequently explained, real reform can only begin when the PA completely ends its support for terrorism by halting incitement, funding, rewards, and the glorification of murderers.
Ephraim D. Tepler is a researcher at Palestinian Media Watch (PMW), where a version of this article first appeared.