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At a Dead Sea hotel, refugees from Kibbutz Be’eri count their dead and grieve

DEAD SEA, Israel (JTA) — Nearly three weeks after Kibbutz Be’eri was massacred, its surviving members still gather for their community’s traditional evening meeting.
The kibbutz, ransacked and empty, is now a closed military zone. To those familiar with the litany of atrocities committed on Oct. 7, its name has become synonymous with some of the day’s worst horrors. Many of Be’eri’s residents refer to that day as a “Shoah,” or Holocaust.
Now, the nightly meetings instead take place at the David Dead Sea Resort, where most of Be’eri’s members are staying as Israel fights a war against Hamas, the terror group that invaded Be’eri and the rest of the Gaza border area, killing 1,400, wounding thousands and taking more than 200 people captive.
Instead of discussing the usual business of the community of about 1,100, Be’eri’s residents spend the meetings updating the list of kibbutz members who have been moved from “missing” or “kidnapped” to “dead.”
A conference room in the hotel is divided by black curtains into several separate shiva areas for families. More are being held outside on the hotel lawn.
Nineteen days after the massacre, the search and identification process for missing people is ongoing: The tally, which started at 20 dead out of 115 missing kibbutz members, has now grown to 85 dead and is likely to increase. Additional people who lived at Be’eri, but were not members of the kibbutz, were also killed, for a total death toll of more than 100.
Each of those statistics is an individual known on a first-name basis to members of the intimate, pastoral kibbutz, where cars do not enter beyond the gate and members’ main source of entertainment is each other.
“You read the list of the dead,” says Gal Cohen, who is 54 and has lived on the kibbutz his entire life. “These are people you grew up with and had countless experiences and interactions with.”
Cohen’s new routine consists of receiving updates regarding who in the kibbutz family is dead or captured. Alongside that, he spends his days attending funerals and shivas, all the while struggling to hold things together emotionally. That reality is typical of what Be’eri members are currently experiencing as the tight-knit community attempts to collectively process an unspeakable tragedy.
Describing one day, Cohen lists a series of funerals he and his family are attending, all of neighbors they knew personally.
“I was this morning at the funeral of a good friend, Hagi, who was in the civil defense patrol with me, a good friend who was murdered in the war to defend our home,” he said. “Now my daughters are at the funeral of Dana and Karmel. Avidan is left without a leg — they killed them in the bomb shelter.”
He continued, “They are doing the funeral closer to the center [of the country]. At 4, I need to go to a funeral ceremony that we are doing for Yoni, who was able to protect his children. He left the bomb shelter and hid them inside, where they were not found, and he was killed outside. … I am a strong person, but after five or six, you are broken.”
There are so many funerals and shivas, some far from the Dead Sea, that members cannot possibly attend them all.
“There was a day with 17 funerals, and you are not able to race to each one,” said Cohen. Shuttle services have been offered to help members pay their respects as much as possible. Some of the funerals are being thought of as temporary; families plan to rebury their loved ones on the kibbutz once the military allows them access.
Rows of yizkor, or memorial, candles for the victims of Kibbutz Be’eri at the David Dead Sea Resort. (Eliyahu Freedman)
While their community’s grief is acute and ongoing — a reported 10 kibbutz members are being held captive in Gaza -— the kibbutz’s model of collective living is valuable to the healing process, says Dr. Nachum Halperin, 83. Halperin is the former head of the Israeli Orthopedic Society and has spent several days as a volunteer treating patients at the hotel who are exhibiting pain.
“Support from the community helps a lot,” he said. “The Be’eri community received a terrible blow. The fact that it is a united community helps a lot.”
Just down the road from the David Dead Sea Resort are other hotels housing Israeli refugees from southern cities like Sderot and Ashkelon. Halperin said that in some ways, they’re having a harder time.
“There are many new immigrants who speak their mother tongue of Russian, et cetera,” he said. “It seems like the trauma influenced them more.”
Regarding the Be’eri residents, he added, “The fact that there is a community here helps a lot.”
Halperin said comparisons to the 1973 Yom Kippur war — which happened exactly 50 years before Hamas’ attack and which is also a touchpoint of Israeli national trauma — are insufficient.
“This is much worse,” he said. “We learned how to deal with trauma — but we are not talking just about trauma but a Holocaust, something we were not ready for, that we did not understand.”
The unreadiness and unprecedented nature of Hamas’ attack has contributed to an Israeli mental health crisis, said Halperin. “In a situation like this, with stress and post-trauma, the bodily pains transform to be more painful because pain is not only in the knees, but it is gathered in the mind,” he said.
Inside the hotel, a makeshift team of government workers and volunteers offer their services and provide assistance. At a desk staffed by the Israeli Tax Authority, kibbutz members can receive help applying for special government assistance, while downstairs, a variety of holistic and psychological treatments are available for free.
In spite of the horrors of recent weeks, current and former kibbutz members, young and old, are coming together to start the process of rebuilding the community — stronger than before, they say.
“Every day we lose it and fall apart,” Cohen said. “But we are not falling apart for the sake of falling apart, but in order to build ourselves back up from the start. The goals are in front of our eyes and we will reach them.”
And some of the kibbutz meetings do lead to action items. Immediately after arriving at the hotel, the community drafted a list of goals. They are trying to transplant their unique way of life to a new setting, including allowing the kibbutz dogs to stay in the luxury hotel.
“When they evacuated me from the shelter under fire, my dog was the first to get in the Jeep,” Cohen said. “It was clear we were not going to leave her behind.”
At the top of the kibbutz’s agenda is freeing all of Israel’s hostages and rebuilding Be’eri at its original location.
“If Be’eri does not build itself back to succeed like it was before — in its location — I think that the State of Israel will shrink and be finished,” Cohen said.
Meanwhile, the kibbutz’s refugees grieve together. Outside on the lawn, surrounded by palm trees with a view of the Dead Sea, Moran Bar is sitting the second day of shiva for her parents, Yuval and Maayan, who were murdered on Oct. 7, but whose bodies were identified only 10 days later.
“We lived in a beautiful, complete, quiet Garden of Eden that they destroyed in a single moment,” she said. “There is something about being with the same people who experienced the same pain. It doesn’t provide comfort for the losses but it makes it a little nicer for the heart.”
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The post At a Dead Sea hotel, refugees from Kibbutz Be’eri count their dead and grieve appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Holocaust Survivor Marian Turski Dies Aged 98

Marian Turski speaks on the occasion of the commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, in front of the Monument to the Ghetto Heroes in Warsaw, Poland, April 19, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Kacper Pempel
Holocaust survivor Marian Turski, who became a journalist in Poland and headed an international committee of Auschwitz survivors, has died at the age of 98, said the Polish weekly magazine Polityka, where he worked as a columnist.
In an article on Tuesday announcing Turski‘s death, Polityka described him as “an exceptional guardian of memory, an outstanding man whose voice was heard all over the world.”
Born as Moshe Turbowicz on June 26, 1926, in Druskieniki, in what is now Lithuania, Turski was sent to the Lodz ghetto at the age of 14.
In 1944 he was transported to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp set up by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland, where both his father and brother died.
In 1945 he survived two death marches, firstly from Auschwitz to Buchenwald, a concentration camp in Germany, and then from Buchenwald to Theresienstadt, where he was liberated by the Soviet Red Army.
More than 1.1 million people, mostly Jews, perished in gas chambers or from starvation, cold, and disease at Auschwitz, where most had been brought in freight wagons, packed like livestock.
After World War Two Turski lived in Lower Silesia, southern Poland, before moving to Warsaw, where he worked as a historian and journalist. He started working at Polityka in 1958 and was the author of several books.
He was made an honorary citizen of Warsaw in 2018, in part as recognition for his work in setting up the Polin Museum of the History of Polish Jews in the city.
In January, Turski gave a speech at the commemorations of the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz in which he warned against rising antisemitism.
“We see in the modern world today a great increase in antisemitism, and it was antisemitism that led to the Holocaust,” he said.
“Let us not be afraid to convince ourselves that we can solve problems between neighbors.”
Over 3 million of Poland’s 3.3 million Jews were murdered by the Nazis.
In all, between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically killed 6 million Jews across German-occupied Europe, along with gypsies, sexual minorities, disabled people, and others who offended Nazi ideas of racial superiority.
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My Message to Donald Trump: The Jews Need You

US President Donald Trump speaks during a joint press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the East Room at the White House in Washington, US, Feb. 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Leah Millis
What happens when the past starts to look dangerously like the present? The hate my family fled in the Soviet Union is back, not just in distant countries but in my city, on social media, and even in the political discourse of this country.
My ancestors didn’t survive oppression by being passive. In the Soviet Union, they fought to preserve their identity, even when being Jewish was a crime. Synagogues were destroyed, Hebrew was banned, and Jewish people were persecuted in every aspect of life. Yet, they kept their faith and traditions alive, passing them down secretly, risking everything to do so.
They weren’t just surviving — they were resisting. And that resistance is part of the reason I’m here today.
But now, in 2025, the same struggle is back: the slurs on the subway walls, the antisemitic graffiti at parks, the casual hate directed at Israel. It’s not just words, it’s a message: Jews don’t belong.
After the October 7th Hamas massacre, we saw a spike in antisemitic incidents, and the climate is growing more hostile. This isn’t some far-off problem; it’s here in America, and it’s escalating.
Donald Trump’s return to the White House makes the need for action even more straightforward. Under the Biden administration, antisemitism surged, and yet the response was mostly silence or half-hearted condemnations. Jewish communities were left exposed as attacks increased. This can’t continue.
We need leadership that takes direct, meaningful action to combat antisemitism — not just when it makes headlines, but every day. Now back in office, Trump has the responsibility to prioritize this fight. His words and actions will shape the future of our country, and it’s time to show authentic leadership by actively protecting Jewish communities.
Antisemitism has become normalized in many spaces, and it’s not something we can hope will fade. We need policies that protect Jewish people, enforce stronger laws, and educate against hate speech. This is about more than just rhetoric. It’s about taking action that ensures we are not targeted simply for being who we are.
I hear the slurs, see the symbols, and witness the spread of harmful stereotypes, often with no consequences. Whenever I speak up, it feels like I’m fighting an uphill battle. But I’m not alone.
This is part of a larger fight. We need leaders, not just in my school or community, but in the White House, who will stand against hate and take tangible steps to protect us.
The responsibility to fight antisemitism can’t fall solely on students or Jewish communities — those in power must take it up. President Trump, this is your moment. Do not let this crisis go unaddressed. If you genuinely want to leave a legacy of strength, act now. Make fighting antisemitism a priority.
We must ensure that history doesn’t repeat itself. The stakes are too high. We cannot afford to wait for another crisis to occur. If you want to be remembered for more than just words, show the courage to lead the fight against antisemitism.
The writer is a high school student from Great Neck, New York, passionate about advocacy and government. Through his writing and activism, he engages others in meaningful conversations about US politics, international relations, and Israel’s significance as both a homeland for the Jewish people and a key ally of the United States
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CBS’ Margaret Brennan Said ‘Free Speech’ Enabled the Holocaust; She Has No Idea What She’s Talking About

People with Israeli flags attend the International March of the Living at the former Auschwitz Nazi German death camp, in Brzezinka near Oswiecim, Poland, May 6, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Kuba Stezycki
It was bad enough when Whoopi Goldberg of The View infamously said the Holocaust was not about race. On Sunday, Margaret Brennan of CBS’ Face The Nation interviewed Secretary of State Marco Rubio. During the interview, Brennan said, “free speech was weaponized to conduct a genocide” in Nazi Germany.
Was it freedom of the press when Nazis shut down the Munich Post, which for a decade had been warning against Hitler and covered the suspicious death of his niece? What about all of Hitler’s critics and enemies — why would they have to flee if there was free speech?
What an actual dictator does is close down free speech to maintain groupthink. Brennan embarrassed herself using the buzzword of “weaponizing” without understanding its meaning, or the fact that it was a lack of freedom of the press that was weaponized to help Hitler conduct a genocide.
In March 1933, Hitler passed the Enabling Act and, in his speech, said that “the entire educational system, the theatre, the cinema, literature, the Press and the wireless, all these very things will be used as a means to this end and valued accordingly. They must all serve for the maintenance of the eternal values present in the essential character of the people.”
So now that we established as of 1933 there was no freedom of the press, how could Brennan claim a “weaponization” of free press caused a genocide? Perhaps, she has no idea of what she is talking about, and she should make an on-air apology if she has not already.
I would not expect that she or Goldberg would have read a book called Mein Kampf. But Hitler wrote: “Again and again our Jewish press has known how to concentrate special hatred on England, and many a good German simpleton has fallen into the Jewish snare with the greatest willingness, drooled about ‘strengthening’ German sea power, protested against the rape of our colonies, recommended their reconquest, and thus helped furnish the material which the Jewish scoundrel could pass on to his fellow Jews in England for practical propogandist use.”
Perhaps Brennan could educate herself by watching a film or play about Sophie Scholl and the White Rose members. Scholl and her compatriots were executed for handing out pamphlets that called for resistance. They declared Hitler was a liar. She was 21 when she was executed. Strange, I don’t see any students today being executed for free speech.
Such reports on national news networks assume that the general public has little knowledge of the Holocaust, which is sadly true. If anyone is weaponizing anything, it is Brennan using scare tactics to try to compare modern day political figures to Hitler, which is a tough comparison to make considering no American leaders have advocated for Jews to be eliminated, whereas Hitler used that terminology and hatred from the very beginning.
Be skeptical any time you hear the phrase “weaponized.” Many podcasts and anti-Israel speakers have tried to ignore antisemitism by saying it is being “weaponized” by Jews. You may also hear that Jews “weaponized” the Holocaust to create the state of Israel.
If Jews, after seeing the horrible genocide, understood the need for a Jewish state — and the countries of the United Nations voted for establishment of Israel due to the savagery of the Holocaust — that is called understanding the consequences of events. It is not called weaponization.
The author is a writer based in New York.
The post CBS’ Margaret Brennan Said ‘Free Speech’ Enabled the Holocaust; She Has No Idea What She’s Talking About first appeared on Algemeiner.com.