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Opening of New Israeli Art Gallery Provides Hope in a Troubled Time
On the last night of Hanukkah, in a world that responded to a 21st century pogrom by toppling menorahs and stabbing Jews, a new candle was lit when the first Israeli art gallery in New York City opened in Manhattan’s Lower East Side. The light was magnified by the fact that the art world has historically been quite hostile to Israel.
Gordon Gallery, a prominent contemporary art gallery founded in Tel Aviv in 1966, opened its New York City space with a group show featuring such leading Israeli artists as Gilad Efrat, Moshe Kupferman, Yaacov Dorchin, and Rita Alima. The new space marks the gallery’s sixth location, with two galleries and a sculpture garden in Tel Aviv, and two galleries in Jerusalem.
In 1977, Gordon also became the first auction house in Israel. Representing 40 Israeli artists and ten art estates, Gordon “aspires to deepen understanding and celebrate the cultural heritage embedded in Israeli art,” according to the gallery.
The opening exhibition is meant to serve as an introduction of contemporary Israeli art to a wide New York City audience — long overdue and desperately needed. The new space was supposed to open in November, but was pushed back for obvious reasons.
Moshe Kupferman: “Untitled” 1972
“After the opening last week, the feeling is truly fantastic,” founder and director Amon Yariv told me. “We received amazing responses and a huge crowd of art lovers, many of which we didn’t know before.” Yariv also curated the opening exhibition. “For our NYC gallery, it comes at the right time to open and natural evolution after Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.”
I asked him what he hoped to accomplish by opening the first Israeli art gallery in New York City. “We felt the new gallery could be wonderful for the Jewish community in the city, and an important addition to the local art scene … For a Jewish person it’s the most challenging time, but it’s also the best time to bring people to support Israeli art and culture, and we’ve been getting a lot of support in that context.” Part of the exhibition’s proceeds will be donated to the victims of the Oct. 7 attack.
Opening night was indeed magical. The space was packed and included an age group rarely seen in NYC galleries: Kids. Hebrew flowed through the conversations, and I don’t think it was lost on anyone that we were on the Lower East Side, where many of our families landed after fleeing Eastern Europe.
After more than two months of hell, we allowed ourselves to feel joy. Throughout the evening, a children’s song kept running through my head: “This little light o’ mine; I’m goin’ let it shine.”
My favorite piece was an oil on canvas by Moshe Kupferman (1926–2003), “Unttled.” Kupferman moved to Israel in 1948 and helped establish a kibbutz in the Galilee. While living and working in relative isolation, Kupferman developed an artistic style heavily informed by both religious discipline and the rigor of kibbutz life. According to the gallery: “Through a subtle interplay of line and color, the work reflects a tension between what is seen and what is concealed.”
Precisely the tension that Jews have always had to live with.
And yet, for a small, persecuted people, we do in fact create a lot of light. Yes, we are commanded to do so, but I also think that creativity is one of the ways we have survived. And the truth is, one cannot create art — or anything — if one’s soul is full of hate. It is something our enemies have yet to learn.
Walking out of the gallery, past the security guard on the sidewalk, I tensed up as I have every day since Oct. 7th, not knowing if I would be accosted by the seemingly endless haters. But this time I felt protected by an aura, an iron dome, of not just light but resilience, something our immigrant families had to develop walking those same streets.
“Lights will guide you home” goes the line from Coldplay’s “Fix You.” Until they guide us to our real home, the exquisite light of Israeli art will be brightening New York City, day and night. The haters, especially those in the art world, are just going to have to get used to it.
The author is the editor in chief of White Rose Magazine. A version of this article was originally published in The Jewish Journal.
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Sweden Democrats Apologize for Past Nazi Links, Antisemitism as Election Nears

Mattias Karlsson, Sweden Democrats politicians, addresses party members after election in Stockholm, Sweden, Sept. 9, 2018. Photo: REUTERS/Ints Kalnins
The anti-immigration Sweden Democrats apologized on Thursday for the party’s past Nazi links and antisemitism, part of efforts to present a more moderate, mainstream image to voters ahead of a national election next year.
The Sweden Democrats were presenting the results of a specially commissioned study that found Nazi and antisemitic views to have been common at party functions and in its printed materials in the 1980s and 1990s.
“That there have been clear expressions of antisemitism and support for National Socialist ideas in my party’s history I think is disgusting and reprehensible,” Mattias Karlsson, a member of parliament often described as the party’s chief ideologist, told a news conference.
“I would like to reiterate the party’s apology, above all to Swedish citizens of Jewish descent who may have felt a strong sense of insecurity and fear for good reasons.”
The commissioning of the study sought to acknowledge and break with a past that has long hindered its cooperation with Sweden‘s mainstream political parties. The Sweden Democrats hope to join a future coalition government after the 2026 election.
The party first entered parliament in 2010 and currently supports Sweden‘s governing right-wing coalition government but has no members in the cabinet.
Tony Gustafsson, the historian hired by the party to write the book, said the party had emerged in the 1980s out of neo-Nazi and white supremacist organizations and that it had continued to cooperate with them into the 1990s.
“The collaboration seems to have involved using these groups to help distribute election materials,” Gustafsson said, adding there were strong indications that one such group, the “White Aryan Resistance,” had served as security guards at party gatherings.
Gustafsson said there had been a clear connection to Nazism until 1995, the year that current party leader Jimmie Akesson joined the Sweden Democrats, but that the Sweden Democrats had begun distancing itself from such links thereafter.
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Supreme Leader, in First Appearance Since Ceasefire, Says Iran Would Strike Back if Attacked

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei speaks in a televised message, after the ceasefire between Iran and Israel, in Tehran, Iran, June 26, 2025. Photo: Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS
Iran would respond to any future US attack by striking American military bases in the Middle East, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Thursday, in his first televised remarks since a ceasefire was reached between Iran and Israel.
Khamenei, 86, claimed victory after 12 days of war, culminating in an Iranian attack on the largest US base in the region, located in Qatar, after Washington joined the Israeli strikes. No casualties were reported in the Iranian attack, which was coordinated with both US and Qatari authorities beforehand in an apparent effort to show a symbolic display of force without triggering retaliation.
“The Islamic Republic slapped America in the face. It attacked one of the important American bases in the region,” Khamenei said.
As in his last comments, released more than a week ago during the Israeli bombardment, he spoke from an undisclosed indoor location in front of a brown curtain, between an Iranian flag and a portrait of his predecessor Ruhollah Khomeini.
In his pre-recorded remarks, aired on state television, Khamenei promised that Iran would not surrender despite US President Donald Trump’s calls.
“The US President Trump unveiled the truth and made it clear that Americans won’t be satisfied with anything less than surrender… such an event will never happen,” Khamenei said.
“The fact that the Islamic Republic has access to important American centers in the region and can take action against them whenever it deems necessary is not a small incident, it is a major incident, and this incident can be repeated in the future if an attack is made,” he added.
Trump said “sure” on Wednesday when asked if the United States would strike again if Iran rebuilt its nuclear enrichment program.
Tehran has for decades denied accusations by Western leaders that it is seeking nuclear arms.
NO GAIN
Khamenei said the US “gained no achievement” after it attacked Iranian nuclear sites, but that it entered the war to “save” Israel after some of Tehran’s missiles broke through Israel’s multi-layered defense system.
“The US directly entered the war as it felt that if it did not get involved, the Zionist regime [Israel] would be fully destroyed. It entered the war to save it,” he said.
“The US attacked our nuclear facilities, but couldn’t do any important deed … The US president did abnormal showmanship and needed to do so,” he added.
Trump said over the weekend that the US deployment of 30,000-pound bombs had “obliterated” Iran‘s nuclear program. Officials and experts are still probing the extent of the damage.
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also declared “a historic victory” on Tuesday, after the fragile ceasefire took effect, saying Israel had achieved its goal of removing Tehran’s nuclear and ballistic missile threat.
Shortly after Khamenei’s speech, Netanyahu posted a message with a picture of himself and Trump holding hands with the message: “We will continue to work together to defeat our common enemies.”
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Warnings from Washington and Dresden: The Danger of Zohran Mamdani

Zohran Mamdani, a New York City mayoral candidate, speaks on Primary Day at a campaign news conference at Astoria Park in Queens, New York, United States, on June 24, 2025. Photo: Kyle Mazza vis Reuters Connect.
In September 1882, a coalition of political parties gathered in Dresden, Germany, for the Congress for the Safeguarding of Non-Jewish Interests. It marked a turning point in the convergence of traditional anti-Jewish sentiment with the emerging ideology of antisemitism.
Traditionally, anti-Jewishness was merely an attitude or prejudice. But antisemitism emerged as a political platform, arguing that Jews had undue influence following their European emancipation. Before long, figures in the antisemitic movement made their case explicit: “Antisemit [sic] means an opponent of the Jews.”
This historical convergence proves the fallacy of today’s “antisemitism is not anti-Zionism” assertion. Debates surrounding the terminology are immaterial; the repercussions of anti-Israel and anti-Jewish sentiment have already been witnessed in Boulder, Colorado, and Washington, D.C.
In Washington, D.C., two Israeli embassy staffers were murdered by an Islamist-inspired socialist radical. This wasn’t an isolated incident of extremism — it marked the end of a pipeline of hate that has normalized calls for the destruction of Israel and targeting Jews as a collective.
Under Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser’s leadership, the Nation’s capital has become a testing ground for what Democratic Socialist mayoral candidate Zoharn Mamdani advocates for in New York City.
Mamdani contends that anti-Zionism is not antisemitism. He started the Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapter at Bowdoin College, publicly supports the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, defends the claim “globalize the intifada,” and declared that he would arrest Benjamin Netanyahu if he visits New York. Mamdani’s inner circle includes Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) and Linda Sarsour.
Mamdani refuses to recognize Israel as a Jewish state and seeks to “hold Israel accountable.” His dangerous positions and stance echoes the approach of those 1882 conference participants who sought to deny collective Jewry equal legal rights within their nations because of their perceived detrimental influence.
Mayor Bowser does not match up to Mamdani’s advocacy in this regard. Nevertheless, she has proven deliberately negligent to the aggressive anti-Israel activity in her city. Bowser has systematically refused to send police to discipline anti-Israel lawbreakers. Her administration has actively emboldened anti-Israel disruptors by instructing law enforcement not to act against increasingly aggressive demonstrations.
The impact of her negligence was evident in the assault of Rabbi Shmuel Herzfeld by anti-Israel actors while he prayed outside the Israeli embassy. It was also felt by George Washington University community members who faced weeks-long hostility at the unlawful Gaza encampment that originated at the campus and spread to D.C. streets. Only the night before she was slated to testify before the Congressional Oversight Committee, did Bowser finally send the Metropolitan Police Department to dismantle the encampment.
Mayor Bowser created a climate where anti-Jewish hostility and harassment were ripe for violence. Given the pre-existing intensity of antisemitism in New York, Mamdani’s endorsement of anti-Israel activity could produce a far more dangerous city landscape. The path from “globalize the intifada” chants to murders of Israeli embassy staffers illustrates what Mamdani’s supporters mean when they call for “resistance by any means necessary.”
Under Mamdani, New York would not merely follow the footsteps of what happened in D.C., but would surpass it. Where Bowser has shown deliberate negligence, Mamdani promises active encouragement of the very activity that seeded the murders in Washington. The consequences of transforming simple anti-Jewish attitudes into legal action or inaction are dire.
Mamdani’s defamatory comments about Israel are troubling — but so too is his radical platform, which appeals to voters drawn to a so-called “new” kind of politics. In reality, this politics is anything but new; it recycles decades-old socialist ideas that younger generations find novel and alluring only because they have not lived through their destructive consequences.
This kind of extremist politicking is a tactic of unification and mobilization. Mamdani’s socialism plays on anti-Enlightenment liberalism and disestablishmentarianism that was evident in late 19th-century Europe. Such ideologies lent, and continue to lend, anti-Jewish sentiments a broader appeal.
When progressive rhetoric masks age-old prejudices, and when calls for “justice” echo the very language used to promote systematic exclusion, we must recognize the pattern: The Dresden conference participants in 1882 believed they were defending their nations and values. They cloaked their agenda in the language of virtue, human rights, and protectionism.
The murders in Washington mark our contemporary Dresden moment — a dire warning of where political tolerance for hateful anti-Israel rhetoric leads. New York City, the city of dreams, deserves leadership that enforces the law to restore order. That governance must be committed to reducing hate, chaos, and crime. Americans cannot afford to let the spirit of 1882 find a home in 2025. While the voices of Democratic primary voters were heard on Tuesday night, the ultimate choice is up to New Yorkers in November.
Sabrina Soffer recently graduated from George Washington University and works with the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP).
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