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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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Hamas Says No Interim Hostage Deal Possible Without Work Toward Permanent Ceasefire
Explosions send smoke into the air in Gaza, as seen from the Israeli side of the border, July 17, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen
The spokesperson for Hamas’s armed wing said on Friday that while the Palestinian terrorist group favors reaching an interim truce in the Gaza war, if such an agreement is not reached in current negotiations it could revert to insisting on a full package deal to end the conflict.
Hamas has previously offered to release all the hostages held in Gaza and conclude a permanent ceasefire agreement, and Israel has refused, Abu Ubaida added in a televised speech.
Arab mediators Qatar and Egypt, backed by the United States, have hosted more than 10 days of talks on a US-backed proposal for a 60-day truce in the war.
Israeli officials were not immediately available for comment on the eve of the Jewish Sabbath.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said in a statement on a call he had with Pope Leo on Friday that Israel‘s efforts to secure a hostage release deal and 60-day ceasefire “have so far not been reciprocated by Hamas.”
As part of the potential deal, 10 hostages held in Gaza would be returned along with the bodies of 18 others, spread out over 60 days. In exchange, Israel would release a number of detained Palestinians.
“If the enemy remains obstinate and evades this round as it has done every time before, we cannot guarantee a return to partial deals or the proposal of the 10 captives,” said Abu Ubaida.
Disputes remain over maps of Israeli army withdrawals, aid delivery mechanisms into Gaza, and guarantees that any eventual truce would lead to ending the war, said two Hamas officials who spoke to Reuters on Friday.
The officials said the talks have not reached a breakthrough on the issues under discussion.
Hamas says any agreement must lead to ending the war, while Netanyahu says the war will only end once Hamas is disarmed and its leaders expelled from Gaza.
Almost 1,650 Israelis and foreign nationals have been killed as a result of the conflict, including 1,200 killed in the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on southern Israel, according to Israeli tallies. Over 250 hostages were kidnapped during Hamas’s Oct. 7 onslaught.
Israel responded with an ongoing military campaign aimed at freeing the hostages and dismantling Hamas’s military and governing capabilities in neighboring Gaza.
The post Hamas Says No Interim Hostage Deal Possible Without Work Toward Permanent Ceasefire first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Iran Marks 31st Anniversary of AMIA Bombing by Slamming Argentina’s ‘Baseless’ Accusations, Blaming Israel
People hold images of the victims of the 1994 bombing attack on the Argentine Israeli Mutual Association (AMIA) community center, marking the 30th anniversary of the attack, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, July 18, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Irina Dambrauskas
Iran on Friday marked the 31st anniversary of the 1994 bombing of the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association (AMIA) Jewish community center in Buenos Aires by slamming Argentina for what it called “baseless” accusations over Tehran’s alleged role in the terrorist attack and accusing Israel of politicizing the atrocity to influence the investigation and judicial process.
The Iranian Foreign Ministry issued a statement on the anniversary of Argentina’s deadliest terrorist attack, which killed 85 people and wounded more than 300.
“While completely rejecting the accusations against Iranian citizens, the Islamic Republic of Iran condemns attempts by certain Argentine factions to pressure the judiciary into issuing baseless charges and politically motivated rulings,” the statement read.
“Reaffirming that the charges against its citizens are unfounded, the Islamic Republic of Iran insists on restoring their reputation and calls for an end to this staged legal proceeding,” it continued.
Last month, a federal judge in Argentina ordered the trial in absentia of 10 Iranian and Lebanese nationals suspected of orchestrating the attack in Buenos Aires.
The ten suspects set to stand trial include former Iranian and Lebanese ministers and diplomats, all of whom are subject to international arrest warrants issued by Argentina for their alleged roles in the terrorist attack.
In its statement on Friday, Iran also accused Israel of influencing the investigation to advance a political campaign against the Islamist regime in Tehran, claiming the case has been used to serve Israeli interests and hinder efforts to uncover the truth.
“From the outset, elements and entities linked to the Zionist regime [Israel] exploited this suspicious explosion, pushing the investigation down a false and misleading path, among whose consequences was to disrupt the long‑standing relations between the people of Iran and Argentina,” the Iranian Foreign Ministry said.
“Clear, undeniable evidence now shows the Zionist regime and its affiliates exerting influence on the Argentine judiciary to frame Iranian nationals,” the statement continued.
In April, lead prosecutor Sebastián Basso — who took over the case after the 2015 murder of his predecessor, Alberto Nisman — requested that federal Judge Daniel Rafecas issue national and international arrest warrants for Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei over his alleged involvement in the attack.
Since 2006, Argentine authorities have sought the arrest of eight Iranians — including former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who died in 2017 — yet more than three decades after the deadly bombing, all suspects remain still at large.
In a post on X, the Delegation of Argentine Israelite Associations (DAIA), the country’s Jewish umbrella organization, released a statement commemorating the 31st anniversary of the bombing.
“It was a brutal attack on Argentina, its democracy, and its rule of law,” the group said. “At DAIA, we continue to demand truth and justice — because impunity is painful, and memory is a commitment to both the present and the future.”
31 años del atentado a la AMIA – DAIA. 31 años sin justicia.
El 18 de julio de 1994, un atentado terrorista dejó 85 personas muertas y más de 300 heridas. Fue un ataque brutal contra la Argentina, su democracia y su Estado de derecho.
Desde la DAIA, seguimos exigiendo verdad y… pic.twitter.com/kV2ReGNTIk
— DAIA (@DAIAArgentina) July 18, 2025
Despite Argentina’s longstanding belief that Lebanon’s Shiite Hezbollah terrorist group carried out the devastating attack at Iran’s request, the 1994 bombing has never been claimed or officially solved.
Meanwhile, Tehran has consistently denied any involvement and refused to arrest or extradite any suspects.
To this day, the decades-long investigation into the terrorist attack has been plagued by allegations of witness tampering, evidence manipulation, cover-ups, and annulled trials.
In 2006, former prosecutor Nisman formally charged Iran for orchestrating the attack and Hezbollah for carrying it out.
Nine years later, he accused former Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner — currently under house arrest on corruption charges — of attempting to cover up the crime and block efforts to extradite the suspects behind the AMIA atrocity in return for Iranian oil.
Nisman was killed later that year, and to this day, both his case and murder remain unresolved and under ongoing investigation.
The alleged cover-up was reportedly formalized through the memorandum of understanding signed in 2013 between Kirchner’s government and Iranian authorities, with the stated goal of cooperating to investigate the AMIA bombing.
The post Iran Marks 31st Anniversary of AMIA Bombing by Slamming Argentina’s ‘Baseless’ Accusations, Blaming Israel first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Jordan Reveals Muslim Brotherhood Operating Vast Illegal Funding Network Tied to Gaza Donations, Political Campaigns
Murad Adailah, the head of Jordan’s Muslim Brotherhood, attends an interview with Reuters in Amman, Jordan, Sept. 7, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Jehad Shelbak
The Muslim Brotherhood, one of the Arab world’s oldest and most influential Islamist movements, has been implicated in a wide-ranging network of illegal financial activities in Jordan and abroad, according to a new investigative report.
Investigations conducted by Jordanian authorities — along with evidence gathered from seized materials — revealed that the Muslim Brotherhood raised tens of millions of Jordanian dinars through various illegal activities, the Jordan news agency (Petra) reported this week.
With operations intensifying over the past eight years, the report showed that the group’s complex financial network was funded through various sources, including illegal donations, profits from investments in Jordan and abroad, and monthly fees paid by members inside and outside the country.
The report also indicated that the Muslim Brotherhood has taken advantage of the war in Gaza to raise donations illegally.
Out of all donations meant for Gaza, the group provided no information on where the funds came from, how much was collected, or how they were distributed, and failed to work with any international or relief organizations to manage the transfers properly.
Rather, the investigations revealed that the Islamist network used illicit financial mechanisms to transfer funds abroad.
According to Jordanian authorities, the group gathered more than JD 30 million (around $42 million) over recent years.
With funds transferred to several Arab, regional, and foreign countries, part of the money was allegedly used to finance domestic political campaigns in 2024, as well as illegal activities and cells.
In April, Jordan outlawed the Muslim Brotherhood, the country’s most vocal opposition group, and confiscated its assets after members of the Islamist movement were found to be linked to a sabotage plot.
The movement’s political arm in Jordan, the Islamic Action Front, became the largest political grouping in parliament after elections last September, although most seats are still held by supporters of the government.
Opponents of the group, which is banned in most Arab countries, label it a terrorist organization. However, the movement claims it renounced violence decades ago and now promotes its Islamist agenda through peaceful means.
The post Jordan Reveals Muslim Brotherhood Operating Vast Illegal Funding Network Tied to Gaza Donations, Political Campaigns first appeared on Algemeiner.com.