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LA-Based Nonprofit Announces $450,000 in Grants for Films About Holocaust, Antisemitism
An archival image featured in “Wednesdays in Mississippi.” Photo: JSP
Jewish Story Partners (JSP), a Los Angeles-based nonprofit film funding organization, announced on Thursday that among its new grantees, $450,000 will be distributed between 18 documentary films that focus on the Holocaust or antisemitism.
JSP also announced the creation of its Holocaust Film Fund and the Antisemitism and the Ecosystem of Hate Film Fund.
“In light of the rise of antisemitism, particularly in the aftermath of Oct. 7, and in response to the persistence of Holocaust denial and the myriad Holocaust stories yet to be told, JSP renews our faith in film as an indispensable tool to build empathy and fight against ignorance and hate,” the organization said in a press release.
JSP Co-executive directors Caroline Libresco and Roberta Grossman added: “At a time when nuance is sorely needed in public discourse, we’re proud to support films that elucidate complex realities and reflect a range of Jewish stories, perspectives, and experiences.”
One documentary that will receive a grant as part of the new round of film funding from JSP is titled The Last Man of the First Hour, from director Katharina Otto-Bernstein and producers Oleg Dubson and Sabine Schenk. It tells the story of 100-year-old CIA spy Peter Sichel, who escaped Nazi Germany as a Jewish refugee and became the first CIA station chief in post-war Berlin as well as an undercover operative during the Cold War.
Another film — titled We’ve Been Here Before: What the Punk Scene Can Teach Us About White Supremacy — “gets up close and personal with self-proclaimed misfits and nonconformists of punk subculture as they fight against white nationalists and neo-Nazis.” Jacob Kornbluth directed the documentary and co-produced the film with Francine Hermelin Levite.
A third JSP grantee is Wednesdays in Mississippi, which is a documentary about Dorothy Height, president of the National Council of Negro Women, and Jewish volunteer Polly Cowan, who together gathered a group of women activists from different races and faiths who wanted to build bridges across race, religion, and class during the Civil Rights Movement in the United States in the 1960s.
The jury that selected the 18 films receiving the grant said in a released statement that “the formally and thematically far-ranging documentaries we selected refuse to give in to reductionism or stereotypes, refuse to ignore tough questions.”
“Instead, they reveal a multiplicity of untold, unexpected global Jewish stories, both microscopic and sprawling across generations,” they added. “In a time of fractured truth and connection, these excellent projects expand our collective memory and our sense of shared humanity.”
JSP launched in April 2021 with support from Kate Capshaw and Steven Spielberg’s Righteous Persons Foundation and Maimonides Fund. Over the years, the film funding organization has awarded approximately $2.5 million in grants to 85 independent projects that tell the Jewish story.
JSP is also launching a new Education-Impact Program, in which it will annually provide more than 600 free screenings of three JSP-funded documentaries at nonprofits, schools, and religious institutions. The inaugural cohort of the Education-Impact grants is Ondi Timoner’s Last Flight Home, Tessa Louise Salomé’s The Wild One, and Iris Zaki’s Egypt, A Love Song.
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Hamas Warns Against Cooperation with US Relief Efforts In Bid to Restore Grip on Gaza

Hamas terrorists carry grenade launchers at the funeral of Marwan Issa, a senior Hamas deputy military commander who was killed in an Israeli airstrike during the conflict between Israel and Hamas, in the central Gaza Strip, Feb. 7, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ramadan Abed
The Hamas-run Interior Ministry in Gaza has warned residents not to cooperate with the US- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, as the terror group seeks to reassert its grip on the enclave amid mounting international pressure to accept a US-brokered ceasefire.
“It is strictly forbidden to deal with, work for, or provide any form of assistance or cover to the American organization (GHF) or its local or foreign agents,” the Interior Ministry said in a statement Thursday.
“Legal action will be taken against anyone proven to be involved in cooperation with this organization, including the imposition of the maximum penalties stipulated in the applicable national laws,” the statement warns.
The GHF released a statement in response to Hamas’ warnings, saying the organization has delivered millions of meals “safely and without interference.”
“This statement from the Hamas-controlled Interior Ministry confirms what we’ve known all along: Hamas is losing control,” the GHF said.
The GHF began distributing food packages in Gaza in late May, implementing a new aid delivery model aimed at preventing the diversion of supplies by Hamas, as Israel continues its defensive military campaign against the Palestinian terrorist group.
The initiative has drawn criticism from the UN and international organizations, some of which have claimed that Jerusalem is causing starvation in the war-torn enclave.
Israel has vehemently denied such accusations, noting that, until its recently imposed blockade, it had provided significant humanitarian aid in the enclave throughout the war.
Israeli officials have also said much of the aid that flows into Gaza is stolen by Hamas, which uses it for terrorist operations and sells the rest at high prices to Gazan civilians.
According to their reports, the organization has delivered over 56 million meals to Palestinians in just one month.
Hamas’s latest threat comes amid growing international pressure to accept a US-backed ceasefire plan proposed by President Donald Trump, which sets a 60-day timeline to finalize the details leading to a full resolution of the conflict.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump announced that Israel has agreed to the “necessary conditions” to finalize a 60-day ceasefire in Gaza, though Israel has not confirmed this claim.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to meet with Trump next week in Washington, DC — his third visit in less than six months — as they work to finalize the terms of the ceasefire agreement.
Even though Trump hasn’t provided details on the proposed truce, he said Washington would “work with all parties to end the war” during the 60-day period.
“I hope, for the good of the Middle East, that Hamas takes this Deal, because it will not get better — IT WILL ONLY GET WORSE,” he wrote in a social media post.
Since the start of the war, ceasefire talks between Jerusalem and Hamas have repeatedly failed to yield enduring results.
Israeli officials have previously said they will only agree to end the war if Hamas surrenders, disarms, and goes into exile — a demand the terror group has firmly rejected.
“I am telling you — there will be no Hamas,” Netanyahu said during a speech Wednesday.
For its part, Hamas has said it is willing to release the remaining 50 hostages — fewer than half of whom are believed to be alive — in exchange for a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and an end to the war.
While the terrorist group said it is “ready and serious” to reach a deal that would end the war, it has yet to accept this latest proposal.
In a statement, the group said it aims to reach an agreement that “guarantees an end to the aggression, the withdrawal [of Israeli forces], and urgent relief for our people in the Gaza Strip.”
According to media reports, the proposed 60-day ceasefire would include a partial Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, a surge in humanitarian aid, and the release of the remaining hostages held by Hamas, with US and mediator assurances on advancing talks to end the war — though it remains unclear how many hostages would be freed.
For Israel, the key to any deal is the release of most, if not all, hostages still held in Gaza, as well as the disarmament of Hamas, while the terror group is seeking assurances to end the war as it tries to reassert control over the war-torn enclave.
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UK Lawmakers Move to Designate Palestine Action as Terrorist Group Following RAF Vandalism Protest

Police block a street as pro-Palestinian demonstrators gather to protest British Home Secretary Yvette Cooper’s plans to proscribe the “Palestine Action” group in the coming weeks, in London, Britain, June 23, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Jaimi Joy
British lawmakers voted Wednesday to designate Palestine Action as a terrorist organization, following the group’s recent vandalizing of two military aircraft at a Royal Air Force base in protest of the government’s support for Israel.
Last month, members of the UK-based anti-Israel group Palestine Action broke into RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire, a county west of London, and vandalized two Voyager aircraft used for military transport and refueling — the latest in a series of destructive acts carried out by the organization.
Palestine Action has regularly targeted British sites connected to Israeli defense firm Elbit Systems as well as other companies in Britain linked to Israel since the start of the conflict in Gaza in 2023.
Under British law, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has the authority to ban an organization if it is believed to commit, promote, or otherwise be involved in acts of terrorism.
Passed overwhelmingly by a vote of 385 to 26 in the lower chamber — the House of Commons — the measure is now set to be reviewed by the upper chamber, the House of Lords, on Thursday.
If approved, the ban would take effect within days, making it a crime to belong to or support Palestine Action and placing the group on the same legal footing as Al Qaeda, Hamas, and the Islamic State under UK law.
Palestine Action, which claims that Britain is an “active participant” in the Gaza conflict due to its military support for Israel, condemned the ban as “an unhinged reaction” and announced plans to challenge it in court — similar to the legal challenges currently being mounted by Hamas.
Under the Terrorism Act 2000, belonging to a proscribed group is a criminal offense punishable by up to 14 years in prison or a fine, while wearing clothing or displaying items supporting such a group can lead to up to six months in prison and/or a fine of up to £5,000.
Palestine Action claimed responsibility for the recent attack, in which two of its activists sprayed red paint into the turbine engines of two Airbus Voyager aircraft and used crowbars to inflict additional damage.
According to the group, the red paint — also sprayed across the runway — was meant to symbolize “Palestinian bloodshed.” A Palestine Liberation Organization flag was also left at the scene.
On Thursday, local authorities arrested four members of the group, aged between 22 and 35, who were charged with conspiracy to enter a prohibited place knowingly for a purpose prejudicial to the safety or interests of the UK, as well as conspiracy to commit criminal damage.
Palestine Action said this latest attack was carried out as a protest against the planes’ role in supporting what the group called Israel’s “genocide” in Gaza.
At the time of the attack, Cooper condemned the group’s actions, stating that their behavior had grown increasingly aggressive and resulted in millions of pounds in damages.
“The disgraceful attack on Brize Norton … is the latest in a long history of unacceptable criminal damage committed by Palestine Action,” Cooper said in a written statement.
“The UK’s defense enterprise is vital to the nation’s national security and this government will not tolerate those that put that security at risk,” she continued.
The post UK Lawmakers Move to Designate Palestine Action as Terrorist Group Following RAF Vandalism Protest first appeared on Algemeiner.com.