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‘Club 2600’ is Brooklyn’s hottest party — for Holocaust survivors
(New York Jewish Week) — The music is blasting at a banquet hall in Midwood, Brooklyn — everything from “Hava Nagila” to Frank Sinatra’s “My Way.” Pink, purple and turquoise balloons float above the large tables that each fit a dozen guests.
It’s just past noon on Tuesday, and waiters weave through the room to dole out lunch: golden loaves of challah and flaky knishes, steaming soup, a colorful array of pickled vegetables and roast chicken. Several guests are up and dancing; a few couples sway together in the center of the room, while a group of buoyant women make their way to the front, holding hands as they swing together to the music. Dozens of other partygoers are deep in conversation with each other while some sit by themselves, listening to the music.
The gathering is not in celebration of a bar mitzvah, a wedding or a just-born baby. Rather, the party is in honor of everyone in the room: This is a gathering for Holocaust survivors who live in Brooklyn. Nearly everyone here, almost 200 people in total, is a survivor. The youngest of the bunch in their late 70s, the oldest over 100.
“Everybody says hello to me — that’s what I love about it,” a survivor named Clara told the New York Jewish Week, adding that, every time she hears the voice of a social worker calling to invite her to the monthly party, “I can feel goosebumps.” She doesn’t stick around to answer any more questions — the music is on and she’s off to dance again.
Guests wear their favorite clothes and jewelry and often get their hair and makeup done for the party. (Julia Gergely)
Called “Club 2600” — homage to the party’s previous location at a senior center on 2600 Ocean Avenue — this festive gathering, which began nearly 20 years ago. is thrown every month by the Jewish Community Council of Greater Coney Island, a social services organization and community center in Southern Brooklyn. Since 2018, the party has taken place at Merkaz HaSimcha, a kosher banquet hall.
“I’m very happy when they have these meetings and I always try to come,” said Ruth Mermelstein, a 95-year-old survivor who was liberated from Auschwitz when she was 16 and who has now lived in Flatbush for more than 70 years. “I enjoy meeting a lot of people here.”
Ruth Mermelstein pulls up her sleeve to reveal the tattoo numbered on her body during her time in Auschwitz. On her wrist, she wears a watch that holds a picture of her and her husband, Ernest, who passed away 15 years ago. (Julia Gergely)
In addition to the guests of honor, about a dozen of JCCGCI’s social workers, three of whom speak Russian like many of the survivors, drift around the room. They chat and kibbitz with the survivors, as well as check in with them about any assistance they may need in their lives, from making doctor’s appointments to help with household repairs to aiding holiday preparations.
“If you listen in a little bit, they’ll be arguing about who sits next to who and who gets served first — there’s a certain level of reverting back to high school drama,” said Aliza Kelman, the director of client services for Holocaust survivors at the JCCGCI, who was the very first social worker for the program in 2012. “But they are so sweet, every one of them.”
“They have built so much — their jobs, their families, their legacy,” she added. “Every one of them has such a story to share. Everyone is a fascinating individual.”
Social outlets like this are just one of the many services that JCCGCI, one of the largest social services agencies for Holocaust survivors in the city, provides for Brooklyn’s survivor population. They do so with a grant from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany (aka the Claims Conference) — which last year was $57 million, according to Hudi Falik, the director of Holocaust survivor support systems programs and services. The JCCGCI is a vital resource in Brooklyn, where more than 70% of New York’s 14,700 Holocaust survivors currently live, according to a demographic report released this week from the Claims Conference.
By far the organization’s biggest budget line is for home care assistance, Falik said; this includes evaluating a client’s independence and needs and staffing full or part-time caretakers. They also provide transportation, hot meal delivery and Medicaid advocacy.
Even then, the organization would like to be able to do more — despite the dwindling population of Holocaust survivors, JCCGI receives some five to 10 client referrals weekly, said Kelman, with a waitlist of around 275 people that last year took 11 months to clear. To be able to provide everyone with the complete care they require would cost another $10 million, she added.
“Some other organizations triage the waitlist based on their age. I can tell you — if you look around this room, you won’t know how old anyone is,” Kelman said. “We have one man who still goes to work at the OBGYN department at Maimonides Hospital. You would never know he is over 100. Then we have a 79-year-old who has no other family and a disabled child that they’re responsible for. There’s no right answer.”
Kelman added that when she started her job 12 years ago, the JCCGCI worked with approximately 400 survivors. Today, the organization serves some 3,000 survivors.
Despite a decrease in the total number of living survivors, the Claims Conference demographic report attributes the increase in need to the aging of the population — the average age of Holocaust survivors in New York City is now 86. In many cases, as survivors age and see an increase in disability, they either need assistance for the first time or require more assistance than previous years.
“The data we have amassed not only tells us how many and where survivors are, it clearly indicates that most survivors are at a period of life where their need for care and services is growing,” Gideon Taylor, the president of the Claims Conference, said. In 2023 the organization distributed more than $118 million to agencies in New York that provide services to Holocaust survivors. “Now is the time to double down on our attention on this waning population. Now is when they need us the most.”
The JCC’s monthly party provides an opportunity for survivors to connect with each other in an easy, low-stakes, low-commitment environment. (Julia Gergely)
The JCC’s monthly party provides an opportunity for survivors — whether they are perfectly lucid and independent or require full-time care — to connect with each other in an easy, low-stakes, low-commitment environment. For most of the attendees, the JCCGCI arranges transport, either picking them up in a mini bus (many live in Flatbush, Midwood, Coney Island or Borough Park) or arranging for a car service.
Judith Weiss said she started coming to the Club 2600 parties four years ago, when her husband died. “He was sick for a while, so I didn’t go anywhere. I didn’t know anyone. I only started to go places since he passed away,” she said.
Now, the parties are the main way she stays involved with the JCCGCI. Every month, they pick her up at her home in Flatbush, drive her to the party, and drive her home again afterwards. “I go to see people,” Weiss, 87, said. “I go more [now] than all the years before put together.”
Despite the participants’ advanced ages, new connections can always be made. At one party a few months ago, Weiss was waiting to get on the bus home when she heard another woman, Katy Lowy, speaking Hungarian, the language of her childhood. Weiss heard the women mention a particular brick factory-turned-ghetto in Debrecen, Hungary, where many local Jews were rounded up to be taken to concentration camps.
“I said, ‘You were there? I was there,’” Weiss recalls saying — and it turns out that she and Lowy had last seen each other when Weiss was 7 years old and Lowy was 10. Both remember the harrowing, six-day journey they took via cattle cars in June 1944 — Weiss was eventually taken to the Theresienstadt concentration camp and Lowy to Mauthausen.
“So many years later, I’d never met anyone who was at that particular place at that particular time,” Weiss told the New York Jewish Week. “It’s strange. I felt myself back there, 7 years old.”
A bus waits outside to transport the guests to and from their homes. (Julia Gergely)
Still, despite harrowing experiences the survivors endured during the Holocaust, the vibe at the catering hall is a markedly carefree one. Near the end of the two-hour party, one of the social workers, Zehava Birman Wallace, steps to the microphone and wishes hearty “happy birthday” to everyone in the room who has celebrated one since the last gathering, doling out roses as gifts.
One man, tired out from the dancing, gets up to leave. “I live nearby,” he said, explaining he can walk home and has no need for a bus.
A huge smile breaks out across his face. “That was so great,” he tells Kelman, placing a hat on his head and walking to the front door. “I feel so happy. Thank you so much.”
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The post ‘Club 2600’ is Brooklyn’s hottest party — for Holocaust survivors appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Syria’s Sharaa Says Talks With Israel Could Yield Results ‘In Coming Days’
Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa speaks at the opening ceremony of the 62nd Damascus International Fair, the first edition held since the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime, in Damascus, Syria, Aug. 27, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Khalil Ashawi
Syria’s President Ahmed al-Sharaa said on Wednesday that ongoing negotiations with Israel to reach a security pact could lead to results “in the coming days.”
He told reporters in Damascus the security pact was a “necessity” and that it would need to respect Syria’s airspace and territorial unity and be monitored by the United Nations.
Syria and Israel are in talks to reach an agreement that Damascus hopes will secure a halt to Israeli airstrikes and the withdrawal of Israeli troops who have pushed into southern Syria.
Reuters reported this week that Washington was pressuring Syria to reach a deal before world leaders gather next week for the UN General Assembly in New York.
But Sharaa, in a briefing with journalists including Reuters ahead of his expected trip to New York to attend the meeting, denied the US was putting any pressure on Syria and said instead that it was playing a mediating role.
He said Israel had carried out more than 1,000 strikes on Syria and conducted more than 400 ground incursions since Dec. 8, when the rebel offensive he led toppled former Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad.
Sharaa said Israel’s actions were contradicting the stated American policy of a stable and unified Syria, which he said was “very dangerous.”
He said Damascus was seeking a deal similar to a 1974 disengagement agreement between Israel and Syria that created a demilitarized zone between the two countries.
He said Syria sought the withdrawal of Israeli troops but that Israel wanted to remain at strategic locations it seized after Dec. 8, including Mount Hermon. Israeli ministers have publicly said Israel intends to keep control of the sites.
He said if the security pact succeeds, other agreements could be reached. He did not provide details, but said a peace agreement or normalization deal like the US-mediated Abraham Accords, under which several Muslim-majority countries agreed to normalize diplomatic ties with Israel, was not currently on the table.
He also said it was too early to discuss the fate of the Golan Heights because it was “a big deal.”
Reuters reported this week that Israel had ruled out handing back the zone, which Donald Trump unilaterally recognized as Israeli during his first term as US president.
“It’s a difficult case – you have negotiations between a Damascene and a Jew,” Sharaa told reporters, smiling.
SECURITY PACT DERAILED IN JULY
Sharaa also said Syria and Israel had been just “four to five days” away from reaching the basis of a security pact in July, but that developments in the southern province of Sweida had derailed those discussions.
Syrian troops were deployed to Sweida in July to quell fighting between Druze armed factions and Bedouin fighters. But the violence worsened, with Syrian forces accused of execution-style killings and Israel striking southern Syria, the defense ministry in Damascus and near the presidential palace.
Sharaa on Wednesday described the strikes near the presidential palace as “not a message, but a declaration of war,” and said Syria had still refrained from responding militarily to preserve the negotiations.
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Anti-Israel Activists Gear Up to ‘Flood’ UN General Assembly
US Capitol Police and NYPD officers clash with anti-Israel demonstrators, on the day Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses a joint meeting of Congress, on Capitol Hill, in Washington, DC, July 24, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Umit Bektas
Anti-Israel groups are planning a wave of raucous protests in New York City during the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) over the next several days, prompting concerns that the demonstrations could descend into antisemitic rhetoric and intimidation.
A coalition of anti-Israel activists is organizing the protests in and around UN headquarters to coincide with speeches from Middle Eastern leaders and appearances by US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The demonstrations are expected to draw large crowds and feature prominent pro-Palestinian voices, some of whom have been criticized for trafficking in antisemitic tropes, in addition to calling for the destruction of Israe.
Organizers of the demonstrations have promoted the coordinated events on social media as an opportunity to pressure world leaders to hold Israel accountable for its military campaign against Hamas in Gaza, with some messaging framed in sharply hostile terms.
On Sunday, for example, activists shouted at Israel’s Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon.
“Zionism is terrorism. All you guys are terrorists committing ethnic cleansing and genocide in Gaza and Palestine. Shame on you, Zionist animals,” they shouted.
BREAKING: PRO-PALESTINE PROTESTORS CONFRONT “ISRAELI” AMBASSADOR DANNY DANON AT THE UNITED NATIONS
1/5 pic.twitter.com/4G1VYEMGzV
— Within Our Lifetime (@WOLPalestine) September 14, 2025
The Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM), warned on its website that the scale and tone of the planned demonstrations risk crossing the line from political protest into hate speech, arguing that anti-Israel activists are attempting to hijack the UN gathering to spread antisemitism and delegitimize the Jewish state’s right to exist.
Outside the UN last week, masked protesters belonging to the activist group INDECLINE kicked a realistic replica of Netanyahu’s decapitated head as though it were a soccer ball.
US activist group plays soccer with Bibi’s mock decapitated HEAD right outside NYC UN HQ
Peep shot at 00:40
Footage posted by INDECLINE collective just as UN General Assembly about to kick off
‘Following the game, ball was donated to Palestinian Genocide Museum’ pic.twitter.com/TQ84sgZhKr
— RT (@RT_com) September 9, 2025
Within Our Lifetime (WOL), a radical anti-Israel activist group, has vowed to “flood” the UNGA on behalf of the pro-Palestine movement.
WOL, one of the most prolific anti-Israel activist groups, came under immense fire after it organized a protest against an exhibition to honor the victims of the Oct. 7 massacre at the Nova Music Festival in southern Israel. During the event, the group chanted “resistance is justified when people are occupied!” and “Israel, go to hell!”
“We will be there to confront them with the truth: Their silence and inaction enable genocide. The world cannot continue as if Gaza does not exist,” WOL said of its planned demonstrations in New York. “This is the time to make our voices impossible to ignore. Come to New York by any means necessary, to stand, to march, to demand the UN act and end the siege.”
Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM), two other anti-Israel organizations that have helped organize widespread demonstrations against the Jewish state during the war in Gaza, also announced they are planning a march from Times Square to the UN headquarters on Friday.
“The time is now for each and every UN member state to uphold their duty under international law: sanction Israel and end the genocide,” the groups said in a statement.
JVP, an organization that purports to fight for “Palestinian liberation,” has positioned itself as a staunch adversary of the Jewish state. The group argued in a 2021 booklet that Jews should not write Hebrew liturgy because hearing the language would be “deeply traumatizing” to Palestinians. JVP has repeatedly defended the Oct. 7 massacre of roughly 1,200 people in southern Israel by Hamas as a justified “resistance.” Chapters of the organization have urged other self-described “progressives” to throw their support behind Hamas and other terrorist groups against Israel
Similarly, PYM, another radical anti-Israel group, has repeatedly defended terrorism and violence against the Jewish state. PYM has organized many anti-Israel protests in the two years following the Oct. 7 attacks in the Jewish state. Recently, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AK) called for a federal investigation into the organization after Aisha Nizar, one of the group’s leaders, urged supporters to sabotage the US supply chain for the F-35 fighter jet, one of the most advanced US military assets and a critical component of Israel’s defense.
The UN General Assembly has historically been a flashpoint for heated debate over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Previous gatherings have seen dueling demonstrations outside the Manhattan venue, with pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian groups both seeking to influence the international spotlight.
While warning about the demonstrations, CAM noted it recently launched a new mobile app, Report It, that allows users worldwide to quickly and securely report antisemitic incidents in real time.
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Nina Davidson Presses Universities to Back Words With Action as Jewish Students Return to Campus Amid Antisemitism Crisis
Nina Davidson on The Algemeiner’s ‘J100’ podcast. Photo: Screenshot
Philanthropist Nina Davidson, who served on the board of Barnard College, has called on universities to pair tough rhetoric on combatting antisemitism with enforcement as Jewish students returned to campuses for the new academic year.
“Years ago, The Algemeiner had published a list ranking the most antisemitic colleges in the country. And number one was Columbia,” Davidson recalled on a recent episode of The Algemeiner‘s “J100” podcast. “As a board member and as someone who was representing the institution, it really upset me … At the board meeting, I brought it up and I said, ‘What are we going to do about this?’”
Host David Cohen, chief executive officer of The Algemeiner, explained he had revisited Davidson’s remarks while she was being honored for her work at The Algemeiner‘s 8th annual J100 gala, held in October 2021, noting their continued relevance.
“It could have been the same speech in 2025,” he said, underscoring how longstanding concerns about campus antisemitism, while having intensified in the aftermath of Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, are not new.
Davidson argued that universities already possess the tools to protect students – codes of conduct, time-place-manner rules, and consequences for threats or targeted harassment – but too often fail to apply them evenly. “Statements are not enough,” she said, arguing that institutions need to enforce their rules and set a precedent that there will be consequences for individuals who refuse to follow them.
She also said that stakeholders – alumni, parents, and donors – are reassessing their relationships with schools that, in their view, have not safeguarded Jewish students. While supportive of open debate, Davidson distinguished between protest and intimidation, calling for leadership that protects expression while ensuring campus safety.
The episode surveyed specific pressure points that administrators will face this fall: repeat anti-Israel encampments, disruptions of Jewish programming, and the challenge of distinguishing political speech from conduct that violates university rules. “Unless schools draw those lines now,” Davidson warned, “they’ll be scrambling once the next crisis hits.”
Cohen closed by framing the discussion as a test of institutional credibility, asking whether universities will “turn policy into protection” in real time. Davidson agreed, pointing to students who “need to know the rules aren’t just on paper.”
The full conversation is available on The Algemeiner’s “J100” podcast.