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Hundreds of Holocaust survivors pose with posters of Hamas hostages in a statement of solidarity
(New York Jewish Week) – As a docent and speaker at the Museum of Jewish Heritage, Holocaust survivor Toby Levy has spent more than a decade sharing stories from her Polish childhood spent in hiding and deep fear.
Levy was once again at the museum in Lower Manhattan on Wednesday, but this time not to share her memories with visitors. Instead, she and more than 200 other survivors filed into the museum’s event space for “Images of Hope,” a powerful photo project in which each survivor posed for a portrait while holding a poster of one of the more than 240 hostages being held in Gaza by Hamas.
“I felt a good feeling,” Levy, 90, told the New York Jewish Week after her portrait was taken by photographer Gillian Laub. “I felt as if I am a very lucky person. So if I feel I’m so lucky, I’m hoping that maybe, somehow, it will reach them inside the picture.”
Levy added that the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel — and the subsequent explosion of antisemitism seen around the world since — remind her of her childhood “perfectly.”
“I’m back there all over again,” she said. “This is how it started with the Germans.”
Maya, a Holocaust survivor, poses with the kidnapped poster for Aviv Atzili while Gillian Laub snaps a photo for the project “Images of Hope.” (Julia Gergely)
On Tuesday, FBI Director Christopher Wray warned that antisemitism in the United States has reached “historic levels” in the wake of Israel’s war with Hamas.
The museum event was pulled together in just two and a half days after it was conceived Sunday by Jack Simony, the director general of the Auschwitz Jewish Center Foundation, a nonprofit based in Poland and New York that provides Holocaust education and humanitarian assistance to victims of mass atrocities.
The Holocaust survivors came together under various auspices, including the AJCF, as well as the Museum of Jewish Heritage, the Claims Conference, the Jewish Community Center of Greater Coney Island, Boro Park Bikur Cholim and several other Jewish organizations that work with New York’s population of Holocaust survivors, which was estimated at nearly 40,000 statewide as of April 2022.
The survivors heard speeches from various elected officials, including Jewish City Council members Eric Dinowitz, Simcha Eisenstein and Julie Menin and from Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine. Also present were Carson Ruepke, the German deputy consul general; Aviv Ezra, a senior diplomat in the Israeli consulate and Rep. Dan Goldman. Each spoke of the survivors as symbols of resilience and strength for the Jewish people and proclaimed strong support for the State of Israel as well as the immediate, urgent need to return the hostages safely.
Fay Malkin, an 85-year-old who survived the Holocaust in Poland by hiding on a neighbor’s farm, told the New York Jewish Week that she has felt “so much misery” since the Oct. 7 attack. “The most important message and the thing that will save us is strength and specifically the strength of Israel,” she said.
Posters with the words “Never Again Is Now,” lined the walls of the room, and Ruepke, the German representative, repeated the phrase in his speech.
“I speak to you as the representative of a country that bears a historic responsibility for the worst imaginable crime, the crime committed by Nazi Germany: The Shoah. The systematic murder of 6 million Jews with the aim of eradicating Jewish life from Europe,” he said. “It is not easy to put into words what it means to me that so many Holocaust survivors are present here today in a show of solidarity with the hostages taken on October 7. You all have my deepest respect and admiration.”
The survivors heard speeches from local electeds. Speaking is Rep. Dan Goldman, (D-N.Y.) who was in Israel with his family when the war broke out. (Julia Gergely)
The assembled survivors sang “Hatikvah,” the Israeli national anthem, as well as “Yerushalayim Shel Zahav” (“Jerusalem of Gold”). They also said “Mi Sheberach,” a prayer for healing, for the hostages and injured people.
Over the course of four hours, survivors were pulled aside individually to pose for a portrait holding a poster. As they waited their turn, they listened to the speeches, schmoozed with one another and ate a catered lunch of blintzes, wraps, pastries and fruit. The afternoon concluded with a group portrait.
The event was the latest addition to a massive global movement seeking to drawn attention to the hostages even as attention turns to Israel’s war against Hamas. “Kidnapped” posters have gone up around the world, as have billboards and public displays symbolizing the hostages’ absence, including empty Shabbat tables, strollers and beds. Relatives of the hostages have also embarked on a world tour, visiting the United Nations and elected officials in multiple countries to press for attention.
Simony said the room full of the survivors — the majority of whom are in their 80s and 90s — provided an “indelible image” that could add to the pressure and will stay in the hearts of the Jewish people at a time when they need it most.
What exactly will happen with the portraits is undecided as of yet, organizers said. They plan to print them and hope they will be hung exhibits around the world, as well as distributed across social media and to families of the hostages.
Seeing so many Holocaust survivors come together for the project is like “air,” Jack Kliger, the president and CEO of the Museum of Jewish Heritage, told the New York Jewish Week. “Our survivors are our north star. Whenever I have a question of how we should approach something, I listen to my groups of survivors. The universal thing we heard from survivors is that they are so frustrated and they want to know what they can do and how they can raise their voices.”
Simony concurred. “We call the generation that suffered through the Holocaust ‘survivors,’ not ‘victims,’ for they are the ones that truly embody endurance, courage, fortitude and strength,” he said in his remarks. “There is no more powerful voice on earth to carry a message of the image of hope.”
Levy, who lives in Manhattan Beach, Brooklyn, said she was “very scared” for her children and grandchildren and added that she was worried that the lessons of the Holocaust may now be falling on deaf ears. Yet she said would remain optimistic about the return of the hostages, only five of whom have gained freedom in more than three weeks.
“I took the picture because I believe in hope,” she said.
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The post Hundreds of Holocaust survivors pose with posters of Hamas hostages in a statement of solidarity appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Iran, US Task Experts to Design Framework for a Nuclear Deal, Tehran Says
Atomic symbol and USA and Iranian flags are seen in this illustration taken, September 8, 2022. Photo: REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
Iran and the United States agreed on Saturday to task experts to start drawing up a framework for a potential nuclear deal, Iran’s foreign minister said, after a second round of talks following President Donald Trump’s threat of military action.
At their second indirect meeting in a week, Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi negotiated for almost four hours in Rome with Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, through an Omani official who shuttled messages between them.
Trump, who abandoned a 2015 nuclear pact between Tehran and world powers during his first term in 2018, has threatened to attack Iran unless it reaches a new deal swiftly that would prevent it from developing a nuclear weapon.
Iran, which says its nuclear program is peaceful, says it is willing to discuss limited curbs to its atomic work in return for lifting international sanctions.
Speaking on state TV after the talks, Araqchi described them as useful and conducted in a constructive atmosphere.
“We were able to make some progress on a number of principles and goals, and ultimately reached a better understanding,” he said.
“It was agreed that negotiations will continue and move into the next phase, in which expert-level meetings will begin on Wednesday in Oman. The experts will have the opportunity to start designing a framework for an agreement.”
The top negotiators would meet again in Oman next Saturday to “review the experts’ work and assess how closely it aligns with the principles of a potential agreement,” he added.
Echoing cautious comments last week from Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, he added: “We cannot say for certain that we are optimistic. We are acting very cautiously. There is no reason either to be overly pessimistic.”
There was no immediate comment from the US side following the talks. Trump told reporters on Friday: “I’m for stopping Iran, very simply, from having a nuclear weapon. They can’t have a nuclear weapon. I want Iran to be great and prosperous and terrific.”
Washington’s ally Israel, which opposed the 2015 agreement with Iran that Trump abandoned in 2018, has not ruled out an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities in the coming months, according to an Israeli official and two other people familiar with the matter.
Since 2019, Iran has breached and far surpassed the 2015 deal’s limits on its uranium enrichment, producing stocks far above what the West says is necessary for a civilian energy program.
A senior Iranian official, who described Iran’s negotiating position on condition of anonymity on Friday, listed its red lines as never agreeing to dismantle its uranium enriching centrifuges, halt enrichment altogether or reduce its enriched uranium stockpile below levels agreed in the 2015 deal.
The post Iran, US Task Experts to Design Framework for a Nuclear Deal, Tehran Says first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Hamas Says Fate of US-Israeli Hostage Unknown After Guard Killed in Israel Strike
Varda Ben Baruch, the grandmother of Edan Alexander, 19, an Israeli army volunteer kidnapped by Hamas, attends a special Kabbalat Shabbat ceremony with families of other hostages, in Herzliya, Israel October 27, 2023 REUTERS/Kuba Stezycki
Hamas said on Saturday the fate of an Israeli dual national soldier believed to be the last US citizen held alive in Gaza was unknown, after the body of one of the guards who had been holding him was found killed by an Israeli strike.
A month after Israel abandoned the ceasefire with the resumption of intensive strikes across the breadth of Gaza, Israel was intensifying its attacks.
President Donald Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff said in March that freeing Edan Alexander, a 21-year-old New Jersey native who was serving in the Israeli army when he was captured during the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks that precipitated the war, was a “top priority.” His release was at the center of talks held between Hamas leaders and US negotiator Adam Boehler last month.
Hamas had said on Tuesday that it had lost contact with the militants holding Alexander after their location was hit in an Israeli attack. On Saturday it said the body of one of the guards had been recovered.
“The fate of the prisoner and the rest of the captors remains unknown,” said Hamas armed wing Al-Qassam Brigades’ spokesperson Abu Ubaida.
“We are trying to protect all the hostages and preserve their lives … but their lives are in danger because of the criminal bombings by the enemy’s army,” Abu Ubaida said.
The Israeli military did not respond to a Reuters request for comment.
Hamas released 38 hostages under the ceasefire that began on January 19. Fifty-nine are still believed to be held in Gaza, fewer than half of them still alive.
Israel put Gaza under a total blockade in March and restarted its assault on March 18 after talks failed to extend the ceasefire. Hamas says it will free remaining hostages only under an agreement that permanently ends the war; Israel says it will agree only to a temporary pause.
On Friday, the Israeli military said it hit about 40 targets across the enclave over the past day. The military on Saturday announced that a 35-year-old soldier had died in combat in Gaza.
NETANYAHU STATEMENT
Late on Thursday Khalil Al-Hayya, Hamas’ Gaza chief, said the movement was willing to swap all remaining 59 hostages for Palestinians jailed in Israel in return for an end to the war and reconstruction of Gaza.
He dismissed an Israeli offer, which includes a demand that Hamas lay down its arms, as imposing “impossible conditions.”
Israel has not responded formally to Al-Hayya’s comments, but ministers have said repeatedly that Hamas must be disarmed completely and can play no role in the future governance of Gaza. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is scheduled to give a statement later on Saturday.
Hamas on Saturday also released an undated and edited video of Israeli hostage Elkana Bohbot. Hamas has released several videos over the course of the war of hostages begging to be released. Israeli officials have dismissed past videos as propaganda.
After the video was released, Bohbot’s family said in a statement that they were “deeply shocked and devastated,” and expressed concern for his mental and physical condition.
“How much longer will he be expected to wait and ‘stay strong’?” the family asked, urging for all of the 59 hostages who are still held in Gaza to be brought home.
The post Hamas Says Fate of US-Israeli Hostage Unknown After Guard Killed in Israel Strike first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Oman’s Sultan to Meet Putin in Moscow After Iran-US Talks
FILE PHOTO: Sultan Haitham bin Tariq al-Said gives a speech after being sworn in before the royal family council in Muscat, Oman January 11, 2020. Photo: REUTERS/Sultan Al Hasani/File Photo
Oman’s Sultan Haitham bin Tariq al-Said is set to visit Moscow on Monday, days after the start of a round of Muscat-mediated nuclear talks between the US and Iran.
The sultan will hold talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday, the Kremlin said.
Iran and the US started a new round of nuclear talks in Rome on Saturday to resolve their decades-long standoff over Tehran’s atomic aims, under the shadow of President Donald Trump’s threat to unleash military action if diplomacy fails.
Ahead of Saturday’s talks, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi met his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in Moscow. Following the meeting, Lavrov said Russia was “ready to assist, mediate and play any role that will be beneficial to Iran and the USA.”
Moscow has played a role in Iran’s nuclear negotiations in the past as a veto-wielding U.N. Security Council member and signatory to an earlier deal that Trump abandoned during his first term in 2018.
The sultan’s meetings in Moscow visit will focus on cooperation on regional and global issues, the Omani state news agency and the Kremlin said, without providing further detail.
The two leaders are also expected to discuss trade and economic ties, the Kremlin added.
The post Oman’s Sultan to Meet Putin in Moscow After Iran-US Talks first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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