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How Montreal’s Jewish community helped create a new Uygher translation of Viktor Frankl’s famous Holocaust memoir
“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing,” Viktor Frankl famously penned in Man’s Search for Meaning, one of the most impactful literary works of the 20th century, “the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
It was but one of many stirring passages that Kayum Masimov took in hand—and mind—when first reading Frankl’s book in Russian five years ago. A friend had recommended that Masimov, the Canadian representative to the World Uyghur Congress and a project coordinator for the Uyghur Rights Advocacy Project, read Frankl’s chronicle as a concentration camp prisoner, which has been translated into more than 50 languages and sold more than 60 million copies since first being published in 1946.
His reaction was immediate. “It’s a direct parallel to what I have experienced interviewing so many Uyghurs, especially those who came from concentration camps,” he told The CJN at the launch of a Uyghur translation of Frankl’s classic at the Montreal Holocaust Museum (MHM). The book debuted on Dec. 10, Human Rights Day, marking the day in 1948 that the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
“What struck me personally was when I read that this has happened before us. It’s a must-read for our community, especially now. I hate doing parallels and comparisons with other tragedies, but I cannot but think and observe these commonalities between our communities.”
Frankl’s survival story has helped generations worldwide cope with suffering, said Temple Emanu-El-Beth Sholom’s Rabbi Lisa Grushcow, who added that many Jews today acknowledge that “nobody was there for us when this was happening to us, so how can we be silent when this is happening to anyone else?”
Since China invaded East Turkistan in 1949, more than a year before entering Tibet, the region was prone to violence and repression through forced displacement, slave labour, civil rights erasure, rape, incarceration and much more. China has intensified its efforts since President Xi Jinping took power in 2012, says Masimov.
“Over the last 10 or so years, it became intolerable—all-out war against the community. And not only Uyghurs, but all native people living in the region, including Kazaks, Uzbeks, Tartars, predominantly Turkic-speaking Muslims.”
According to rights groups, some 7 million people have been subjected to so-called re-education in China. With some 2,000 Uyghurs in Canada, a community established over the last 20-plus years, Masimov says “not a single Uyghur Canadian family has not been affected by this. And I thought this book will be a good thing because our community is so deeply traumatized, and this will be a good starting point to initiate conversations.
“The fact that I’m here with you, at the Holocaust Museum itself, and talking about it, is a part of the trauma healing for myself, sharing my pain.”
While China declares the number of Uyghurs at 12 million, the Uyghur rights groups put the real population at about 20 million, with about 100,000 in the global diaspora. Canada’s community is among the smallest. (The largest diaspora is in Turkey, estimated between 50,000-80,000 refugees.) “We are the canary in the coal mine in Canada,” says Masimov, who himself has been subject to harassment, intimidation and even death threats as far back as 2007 as a result of his advocacy.
He’s lost track of many members of his own family for several years. “There are people who have heard nothing from 40 family members for a decade,” he says. “My story is not unique at all. We all live with this, every day.” He says post-traumatic stress disorder and intergenerational trauma are evident among Canada’s Uyghur community.
Having acted as interpreter to many ex-concentration camp detainees during Canadian parliamentary hearings, Masimov spoke of hearing accounts of widespread rape and torture, “all this unimaginable cruelty. And the big question looming over my shoulders and that I heard many times from survivors: Why God allows this? What did we do wrong?”
When transmitting the human rights legacy of the Holocaust, MHM president Jacques Saada says, “It is precisely moments like tonight that help accomplish this crucial responsibility. This launch highlights the tragic yet resilient connection between Jewish and Uyghur communities and the importance of allyship in confronting genocide today.”
The project took over a year to complete, spurred on by Masimov and activists Marc Grushcow and Phil Kretzmar, who secured the publication rights and a translator who is anonymously credited on the book for fear of reprisals against their vulnerable family in China.
Frankl, a psychiatrist, originally penned his prescription for survival in German, and its new Uyghur versions are written in both Latin and Arabic script, with a possible Cyrillic edition coming, Masimov said in discussion with Rabbi Grushcow.
Free electronic versions are available for download online for anyone wishing to read, share or help raise awareness of the Uyghurs’ plight. “It’s not about selling anything,” says the rabbi’s father, Marc Grushcow. “It’s about rachmones” (compassion).
“China became a victim of its own success,” Masimov said. “It was so successful in suppressing us and other communities that it came to the point that even outsiders began wondering what is happening and posing questions.”
Rabbi Grushcow says the book’s profound takeaway is not just about surviving oppression, “but about maintaining human dignity, meaning, about psychological autonomy in the face of systematic attempts to destroy those fundamental capacities of any human being.”
Rights groups believe at least one million Uyghurs, Kazakhs and other mostly Muslim minorities have been incarcerated in Chinese internment camps.
“This is the largest incarceration or detention of any ethnic group in the world since the Holocaust,” says Masimov, who also spoke of organ harvesting, nuclear explosions resulting in high cancer rates, environmental degradation and a mass inflow of Chinese migrants, boosting the presence of ethnic Chinese in the region from five percent to surpassing 40 percent today. He also listed the widespread use of slave labour in the production of clothing, solar panels, food and other products found globally.
In February 2021, Canada’s parliament acknowledged the genocide and, in 2023, it launched an initiative to resettle 10,000 Uyghur refugees from third-party states, the first of whom arrived in Canada this week.
Asked what would happen if the world continues to do “almost nothing,” Masimov shared a sobering prognostic: “Within 20 to 30 years, we are facing the extinction of a 25-million-strong ethnic group.”
He says there is no long-term solution for China to keep its existence “as it is, as a political system. The first victims of the Chinese Communist Party are Chinese people themselves, right? It will come to the point that they will decide that it will be done. It’s not sustainable in the long term. I am optimistic on that… But the question is, will our community—along with others like Tibetans, Mongols—survive that? Because at the current rate, it is quite possible that within 20-30, years we will be gone as a group, which is a loss not only to us, but to Chinese civilization and the world.”
The Montreal Holocaust Museum has worked closely with Canada’s Uyghur community over the last few years to discuss pedagogical matters, says MHM head of communications Sarah Fogg. “We’ve done some beautiful bridge-building. We were there to show them what’s possible, how we handle exhibitions and artifacts.” Executive director Daniel Amarsays such collaborationis part of the mission “to strengthen links with other communities who suffered genocide (such as the Rwandan and Cambodian communities).”
Fogg says that part of the mission remains a challenge. “I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that people are not aware of this type of work that we do, as our core mission is still to educate anyone and everyone about the Holocaust and its legacy and teach about the dangers coming from unchecked antisemitism and unchecked hate.”
What stunned Marc Grushcow “was the parallel of the Jews of the 1930s in Germany into the war and the Uyghurs in China. Starting with the exclusion from society, family separation and forced assimilation. Uyghurs are subject to incarceration and forced labour, documented rape, forced sterilization of women, and it’s all part of China’s stated policy to erase Uyghurs through assimilation.”
Rabbi Grushcow recalled that the Jewish community must do “as much as we need to, to help each other, especially these days. We turn inward, of course, but there is also part of our tradition that says, ‘Remember the stranger, because you were a stranger.’ That we should not just look out for ourselves, but others.”
The situation of the Uyghurs is a grossly under-reported atrocity, she said, “and ‘genocide’ gets thrown around so much in terms of Israel and Palestine, wrongly. But in this case the markers of genocide and what is being done in China is so clear and how China has managed to keep this out of the headlines.”
On Oct. 10, 2023, she recalls, Canada’s Uyghur Rights Advocacy Project came out with a strong condemnation of the terrorist attacks on Israel, adding, “Anything we do with other communities, sometimes it’s strategic: we stand for you, you stand for us… That’s all well and good, but sometimes it’s just the right thing to do.”
Kasimov lauded the support of Canada’s Jewish community in his community’s plight and efforts. “Unfortunately, this has not been matched by our co-religionists,” noting that Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas declared his support for China’s policies last year, “and said China’s re-education camps and everything they are doing are just.”
Indeed, in a June 2023 statement, the PA stated China’s policy toward Muslims in Xinjiang has “nothing to do with human rights and are aimed at excising extremism and opposing terrorism and separatism.” Abbas also characterized criticism of China’s treatment of Uyghurs as interference in internal affairs. That elicited a reminder from MHM president Jacques Saada, who noted, “Abbas also wrote a book in which he justified the Holocaust, so we are again sharing a common point here.”
That’s why collaboration with the city’s Holocaust museum and its “outward-looking element, sharing that legacy about education” is so important, says Rabbi Grushcow. “We have so much history that matters with what’s going on with the Uyghurs.”
Showing compassion and support is no zero-sum game, she agrees: “Morally, it’s incumbent on us to do the right thing. The fact that it’s Victor Frankl, it’s extraordinary that this Jewish human memoir found its way into the hearts of the Uyghur community.”
The post How Montreal’s Jewish community helped create a new Uygher translation of Viktor Frankl’s famous Holocaust memoir appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.
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US Clamps Sanctions on Israel-bashing UN Rights Monitor Albanese
Francesca Albanese, UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, attends a side event during the Human Rights Council at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, March 26, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Denis Balibouse
The Trump administration has imposed sweeping sanctions against Francesca Albanese, the United Nations Special Rapporteur for the Occupied Palestinian Territories, citing the UN official’s lengthy record of singling out Israel for condemnation.
In a post on X, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the sanctions under a February executive order targeting those who “prompt International Criminal Court (ICC) action against U.S. and Israeli officials, companies, and executives.” He accused Albanese of waging “political and economic warfare” against both nations and asserted that “such efforts will no longer be tolerated.”
“Today I am imposing sanctions on UN Human Rights Council Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese for her illegitimate and shameful efforts to prompt [International Criminal Court] action against U.S. and Israeli officials, companies, and executives,” Rubio announced on X/Twitter.
“Albanese’s campaign of political and economic warfare against the United States and Israel will no longer be tolerated,” declared the Trump administration’s top foreign affairs official. “We will always stand by our partners in their right to self-defense.”
Rubio concluded: “The United States will continue to take whatever actions we deem necessary to respond to lawfare and protect our sovereignty and that of our allies.”
The decision to impose sanctions on Albanese marks an escalation in the ongoing feud between the White House and the United Nations over Israel. The Trump administration has repeatedly accused the UN and Albanese of unfairly targeting Israel and mischaracterizing the Jewish state’s conduct in Gaza.
Albanese, an Italian lawyer and academic, has held the position of UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories since 2022. The position authorizes her to monitor and report on alleged “human rights violations” by Israel against Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.
Last week, Albanese issued a scathing report accusing companies of helping Israel maintain a so-called “genocide economy.” She called on the companies to cut off economic ties with Israel and warned that they might be guilty of “complicity” in the so-called “genocide” in Gaza.
Critics of Albanese have long accused her of exhibiting an excessive anti-Israel bias, calling into question her fairness and neutrality.
Albanese has an extensive history of using her role at the UN to denigrate Israel and seemingly rationalize Hamas’ attacks on the Jewish state.
In the months following the Palestinian terrorist group’s atrocities across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, Albanese accused the Jewish state of perpetrating a “genocide” against the Palestinian people in revenge for the attacks and circulated a widely derided and heavily disputed report alleging that 186,000 people had been killed in the Gaza war as a result of Israeli actions.
The action comes as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visits Washington, where he has received a warm reception from the Trump administration. Netanyahu has been meeting with US officials to discuss next steps in the ongoing Gaza military operation.
Gideon Sa’ar, Minister of Foreign Affairs for Israel, commended the Rubio announcement with his own post on X/Twitter, exclaiming: “A clear message. Time for the UN to pay attention!”
The post US Clamps Sanctions on Israel-bashing UN Rights Monitor Albanese first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Hardball: Trump Administration Reports Harvard to Accreditor Over Antisemitism Allegations
US President Donald Trump speaks during a Cabinet meeting at the White House in Washington, DC, July 8, 2025. Photo: Kevin Lamarque via Reuters Connect.
The Trump administration escalated its showdown against Harvard University on Wednesday, reporting the institution to its accreditor for alleged civil rights violations resulting from its weak response to reports of antisemitic bullying, discrimination, and harassment following Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 massacre across southern Israel.
The US Department of Education (DOE) announced the action on Wednesday. Citing Harvard’s admitted failure to treat antisemitism as seriously as it treated others forms of hatred in the past, the DOE called on the New England Commission of Higher Education to review and, potentially, revoke its accreditation — a designation which qualifies Harvard for federal funding and attests to the quality of the educational services its provides.
“Accrediting bodies play a significant role in preserving academic integrity and a campus culture conducive to truth seeking and learning,” said Secretary of Education Linda McMahon. “Part of that is ensuring students are safe on campus and abiding by federal laws that guarantee educational opportunities to all students. By allowing anti-Semitic harassment and discrimination to persist unchecked on its campus, Harvard University has failed in its obligation to students, educators, and American taxpayers.”
The DOE, McMahon added, “expects the New England Commission of Higher Education to enforce its policies and practices, and to keep the Department fully informed of its efforts to ensure that Harvard is in compliance with federal law and accreditor standards.”
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, Harvard’s Presidential Task Force on Combating Antisemitism has acknowledged that the university administration’s handling of campus antisemitism fell well below its obligations under both Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and its own nondiscrimination policies.
In a 300-plus-page report, the task force compiled a comprehensive record of antisemitic incidents on Harvard’s campus in recent years — from the Harvard Palestine Solidarity Committee’s endorsement of the Oct. 7 terrorist atrocities to an anti-Zionist faculty group’s sharing an antisemitic cartoon depicting Jews as murderers of people of color. The report identified Harvard’s past refusal to afford Jews the same protections against discrimination enjoyed by other minority groups as a key source of its problem.
Coming several weeks after President Donald Trump ordered the freeze of $2.26 billion in federal research grants and contracts for Harvard, the task force report found it was “clear” that antisemitism and anti-Israel bias have been fomented, practiced, and tolerated not only at Harvard but also within academia more widely.”
The university is now suing the federal government over the funding halt.
President Trump has spoken scathingly of Harvard, calling it, for example, an “Anti-Semitic, Far Left Institute … with students being accepted from all over the world that want to rip our Country apart” in an April post to his Truth Social platform.
In recent weeks, however, both Trump and McMahon had commended Harvard’s constructive response in negotiations over reforms the administration has asked it to implement as a precondition for restoring federal funds. The requested reforms include hiring more conservative faculty, shuttering diversity, equity, and inclusion [DEI] programs, and slashing the size of administrative offices tangential to the university’s central educational mission.
The administration has since changed its tone in the wake of a report by The Harvard Crimson that interim Harvard President Alan Garber has said “behind closed doors” that he has no intention of doing anything that would make Harvard more palatable to conservatives.
Earlier this month, the Trump administration’s Joint Task Force to Combat Antisemitism issued Harvard a formal “notice of violation” of civil rights law. Charging that Harvard willfully exposed Jewish students to a flood of racist and antisemitic abuse both in and outside of the classroom, it threatened to strip whatever remains of Harvard’s federal funding.
“Failure to institute adequate changes immediately will result in the loss of all federal financial resources and continue to affect Harvard’s relationship with the federal government,” wrote the federal officials comprising the multiagency Task Force. “Harvard may of course continue to operate free of federal privileges, and perhaps such an opportunity will spur a commitment to excellence that will help Harvard thrive once again.”
In Wednesday’s announcement, US Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said Harvard’s conduct “forfeits the legitimacy that accreditation is designed to uphold.”
“HHS and Department of Education will actively hold Harvard accountable through sustained oversight until it restores public trust and ensures a campus free of discrimination,” he said.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Hardball: Trump Administration Reports Harvard to Accreditor Over Antisemitism Allegations first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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IDF Strikes Hezbollah Sites in South Lebanon as Terror Group Pushes to Rebuild Amid US Disarmament Talks
IDF operating in southern Lebanon. Photo: IDF Spokesperson
Israeli forces uncovered and destroyed Hezbollah weapons caches in southern Lebanon on Wednesday, as a new report indicated that despite ongoing U.S.-led efforts to secure a disarmament deal, the Iran-backed group is making repeated, largely concealed attempts to rebuild its military presence in the area.
Troops carried out several operations targeting Hezbollah infrastructure in southern Lebanon on Wednesday morning, destroying weapons depots, explosives and multibarrel launchers concealed in forested terrain, the IDF said, in violation of the November ceasefire, which requires Hezbollah to withdraw its forces 20 miles from the Israeli border.
A new report released this week by the Alma Research and Education Center found that Hezbollah is focused on rebuilding in three areas: operational deployment, weapons acquisition, and financial recovery.
“Hezbollah didn’t give up its resistance narrative and motivation,” Alma’s director, Lt. Col. (Res.) Sarit Zehavi, told The Algemeiner.
“It wants to rebuild its capabilities and infrastructures, whether it’s the villages that will be used as human shields or the military infrastructure in South Lebanon and in Lebanon in general.”
According to Zehavi, Hezbollah is attempting to return Radwan fighters to positions south of the Litani River as part of a wider plan to restore its elite forces to operational readiness. The IDF on Monday killed Radwan commander Ali Abd al-Hassan Haidar in a targeted strike. The action came hours after US Special Envoy for Syria Thomas Barrack met with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, Prime Minister Nawaf Salam and Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri in Beirut to discuss a long-term deal that would include an Israeli withdrawal and complete disarmament of Hezbollah.
Barrack described the Lebanese response to the proposal as positive. Later, he issued a blunt warning to Hezbollah in response to a vow by the terror group’s leader, Naim Qassem, not to lay down its arms. “If they mess with us anywhere in the world, they will have a serious problem with us,” Barrack said in an interview with Lebanese news network LBCI. “They don’t want that.”
Zehavi said it was premature to predict the outcome of the diplomatic efforts. She warned that the challenge of disarming Hezbollah remains enormous and emphasized that the Lebanese Armed Forces have not demonstrated the capability or willingness to confront the group.
“It’s too soon to be optimistic or pessimistic,” she said, noting that no firm commitments have emerged from the Beirut talks.
Hezbollah’s efforts to smuggle and manufacture weapons have been complicated by both Israeli strikes and the regional realignment over recent months. While Israeli strikes have disrupted many supply routes, according to Zehavi, Syrian authorities have intercepted far more Hezbollah-bound weapons than the Lebanese Army, which claims to have uncovered 500 arms caches but has provided no evidence.
The financial front marks the third aspect of Hezbollah’s rebuilding effort. Last week, the group halted cash payments to Shiite civilians whose homes were damaged in the war, citing liquidity problems. Zehavi attributed the shortfall to disruptions in Iran’s funding networks — an outcome of the 12-day war against the regime in Tehran — and said the constraints would likely hamper Hezbollah’s ability to compensate its base and sustain operations.
“I hope they will continue to have problems with the cash flow, that way it will be very difficult for them to recover,” she said.
The post IDF Strikes Hezbollah Sites in South Lebanon as Terror Group Pushes to Rebuild Amid US Disarmament Talks first appeared on Algemeiner.com.