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Standing on Albania’s Jew Street, I learned firsthand the country’s lifesaving culture of hospitality
BERAT, Albania (JTA) — Stone paths wind through the Ottoman-style houses built into the hillside of Berat, Albania. They lead to an imposing 13th-century castle at the peak — the top priority for most visitors to this 60,000-person town 90 minutes south of the capital, Tirana. I had other plans.
Albanians take pride in their ancient code of “besa,” which translates to “keep the promise” and leads them to prioritize guests and religion in their homes. For Albanian Jews or those who fled there from elsewhere in the Balkan Peninsula as German forces advanced during World War II, it promised safe harbor with Albanian families and even throughout entire towns. Albania is the only country in Europe whose Jewish population grew during the war.
Berat’s Solomoni Museum explains this history and that of earlier Jews in the area. At least, so I hear: Under the stone arches off the plaza, I found only locked doors.
Some people collect souvenir spoons or Starbucks city mugs when they travel, others collect memories. I collect fragments of Jewish identity. Planning this trip to Albania with friends, I insisted on a stop in Berat to see the small museum and wasn’t about to give up.
“I’ll call her,” offered the woman behind the desk at the Ethnographic Museum across the street. “Her” referred to the caretaker, the widow of the Orthodox Christian professor who started the museum — Albania’s only one dedicated to Jewish history — as a passion project funded by his pension. After Simon Vrusho’s death in 2019, the museum closed until a French-Albanian businessman heard the story and donated funds for it to reopen in a larger, permanent location.
But the call ended with bad news: The caretaker was sick, and the museum would remain closed. I grimaced. Seeing my reaction, the Ethnographic Museum docent did what all Albanians do — anything she could to make me feel better, to make sure I enjoyed my stay in her town. In this moment, that meant explaining everything she knew about Jews in Albania.
A view of the exterior of the Solomoni Museum, the country’s only museum about its Jewish history. (Naomi Tomky)
Jews first arrived in the country as Roman captives, almost 2,000 years ago. But the first major wave, especially to Berat, came from Spanish Jews fleeing the Inquisition. The Ottoman Empire, which ruled the area at the time, offered nominal religious freedom.
This month, the country’s prime minister announced plans to open a museum in Tirana dedicated to the stories of Albanian citizens who sheltered Jews during the Holocaust, when the country was occupied by both fascist Italy and later Nazi Germany. Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust remembrance authority, has recognized at least 75 Albanians as Righteous Among the Nations for saving Jews.
“You can see the street where the Jews lived,” the docent noted. I perked up and jotted down her directions.
Six blocks away, I found a simple black plaque with white lettering, barely the size of my forearm and posted high on a white brick wall. It read, “Rruga Hebrentje.” I stared at it. Two millennia of Jewish history in the country, and one closed museum forced me to take heart in a little sign saying “Jew Street.”
A sign in Berat, Albania, reads Rruga Hebrentje, or Jew Street. (Naomi Tomky)
Jews have company in this razing of history: The brutal post-World War II communist regime of dictator Enver Hoxha shuttered all religious institutions in 1967, declaring Albania the world’s first atheist state. His forces destroyed more than 2,000 mosques, churches and other sacred buildings, arresting priests, clerics and imams, many of whom disappeared forever into labor camps and hidden graves. “Religion is the opium of the people,” Hoxha wrote, quoting Karl Marx.
It felt selfish to pout about the lack of Jewish history when so much religion, so many people and huge swaths of Albanian culture had been so recently and violently erased. I joined my friends to explore Berat’s exceptions to the wanton destruction, starting at the Sultan’s Mosque, which dates to the 15th century and boasts an intricately carved wooden ceiling. We expected to admire just the outside, since our guidebook said the doors opened only around Friday prayer.
But as we stared at the somewhat ordinary façade, a friendly gentleman chatted us up. He spoke Albanian, Greek and a bit of Italian, the last of which proved useful at matching up to our Spanish and French. He told us a little about the mosque and the casual styles of observance by most Albanian Muslims, but we only realized he worked there when he invited us inside, retrieving a key when we responded with excitement.
We marveled at the green, red and gold ceiling, illuminated by a round chandelier. He asked if we wanted to climb up the minaret, warning us about the ascent. Narrower than the width of my hips, the tightly coiled spiral of 94 stairs featured a layer of dust and cobwebs that stuck to our bare feet. But at the top, swallowing my fear of heights, confined spaces and bugs, I reaped the reward: a 360-degree view of the “thousand windows” that give the town its nickname, flanking both banks of the Osumi River, and the double eagle of Albania’s red flag flying proudly above it all from the castle.
A view of the ceiling inside the Sultans Mosque in Berat. (Naomi Tomky)
Back on the ground, we thanked the man profusely and dropped donations in the box outside the mosque door as we prepared to say goodbye. Instead, he led us across the square to another building – the Halveti Tekke, or Teqe. Light flowed through the high stained-glass windows onto the walls of the 700-year-old gathering place belonging to the mystic order of Sufi Muslims called Bektashi. Chains hung from the ornate gold-leaf-decorated ceiling over a space where, according to our new friend, the bektashi, or dervishes, used to perform their whirling rituals.
“You want to go up?” he asked my friend’s eight-year-old daughter. She nodded excitedly, and he tossed her a ring of keys, pointing the way to the balcony. As she climbed the stairs, I noticed a pair of six-pointed stars framing the main doorway, a reminder of my original mission, even if they were likely not Stars of David.
But if I felt sad about missing out on the Jewish museum, I was heartened by what I did receive: a first-hand lesson on Albania’s life-saving culture of hospitality.
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Most American Jews believe Zohran Mamdani will make NYC Jews less safe, Israeli poll finds
(JTA) — More than two-thirds of American Jews believe that New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani will make the city’s Jews less safe, according to a new survey by a nonpartisan Israeli research institute.
The finding came in the Jewish People Policy Institute’s latest Voice of the Jewish People Index, which surveyed 745 American Jews about a range of topics last month, just 10 days after Mamdani was elected. It offers the latest insight into Jewish sentiments about Mamdani, whose staunch criticism of Israel has drawn attention, and at times allegations of antisemitism, from Jews around the world.
The survey found that 67% of respondents believed Mamdani’s election would make New York City’s Jews less safe, while 6% believed they would be more safe and 18% believed he would make them neither more or less safe.
Among Jews identifying as politically conservative, 93% said they believed Mamdani would make New York City Jews less safe. Concerns were lower among liberal-leaning Jews, but still one third of respondents who identified as “strongly liberal” said they believed Mamdani would make Jews less safe.
Over half of respondents said they felt “worried” about the election of Mamdani, while 11% said they were “afraid.” Another 13% said they were “hopeful.”
A different poll in August found that 58% of Jewish New Yorkers believed the city would be less safe for Jews under Mamdani.
The Jewish People Policy Institute conducts regular surveys of Jewish sentiment, drawing on a pool of Jews who have agreed to be part of a survey pool. The institute notes that as a result, “the survey tends to reflect the attitudes of ‘connected’ American Jews, that is, those with a relatively strong attachment to the Jewish community and/or Israel and/or Jewish identity.”
It found that 70% of respondents identified as Zionist, while 12% identified as “not a Zionist, but a supporter of Zionism.” Additionally, 7% identified as “neither a supporter nor an opponent of Zionism,” 5% identified as a post-Zionist and 3% identified as an anti-Zionist.
Among strong liberal respondents, 52% identified as Zionists, while 79% of strong conservatives identified as Zionists.
Asked whether they believed that Zionism is racism, a charge frequently leveled by Israel’s critics, 59% of respondents said they believed that Zionism is “not at all racism.” Among strong liberal respondents, the proportion was 28%, compared to 86% of strong conservatives.
The survey also asked respondents about their perception of antisemitism coming from the political left and right in the United States. In recent months, calls to condemn right-wing antisemitism among Jewish conservatives have revealed growing rifts within the party.
Among the survey’s respondents, 62% said they were worried about antisemitism from both the left and the right, while 20% said they were more worried about antisemitism on the left and 17% were more worried about it on the right. Among strong liberals, just 5% were worried about antisemitism on the left while just 1% of conservatives were worried about antisemitism on the right.
The post Most American Jews believe Zohran Mamdani will make NYC Jews less safe, Israeli poll finds appeared first on The Forward.
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Palestinian restaurant opening near Columbia names its location to honor girl killed in Gaza, campus protesters
(JTA) — A Palestinian restaurant in New York City has named its new location “Hinds Hall” after the moniker pro-Palestinian protesters at Columbia University gave to a campus building they occupied last spring.
In a post on Instagram on Thursday, the restaurant, Ayat NYC, which has eight locations, announced that its new storefront in Morningside Heights would be renamed in solidarity with the protesters at Columbia.
“It stands right next to Columbia University where students stood up for Gaza and renamed Hamilton Hall, a campus building to Hinds Hall and we choose to stand with them and carry that name forward,” the post read.
Critics of Columbia’s pro-Palestinian protests at the time accused its participants of antisemitism and calling for violence against Jews. In June, a report by the Columbia University Task Force on Antisemitism found that over half of its Jewish student body had experienced discrimination and exclusion after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel.
The new location for the restaurant, which is owned by restaurateur Abdul Elenani and his wife, Ayat Masoud, faced criticism from some of the neighborhood’s Jewish residents, who say they have been overwhelmed by pro-Palestinian symbols and sentiment since Columbia became an epicenter of the encampment movement last year.
Ayat wove pro-Palestinian advocacy into its practices throughout the war in Gaza. In January 2024, one of its locations drew a public outcry after its menu featured the phrase “From the River to the Sea,” a phrase frequently used by pro-Palestinian activists that Jewish watchdogs view as a call for Israel’s destruction. Afterwards, the location hosted a free Shabbat dinner for over 1,300 people that drew anti-Zionist and pro-Palestinian Jews and others.
“Our restaurants will not only ever serve food. It will serve memory, truth, and responsibility,” the new post from Ayat NYC continued. “The least we can do is carry her name in our hearts and on our storefront so that everyone who walks by knows that Hind mattered and every single child matters.”
The location’s name, which was also adopted in a song by rapper Macklemore, pays homage to Hind Rajab, a 6-year-old Palestinian girl who was killed in Gaza in January 2024. (The Israeli military denied responsibility for her death, but a Washington Post investigation found that Israeli armored vehicles were present in the area.)
Her heavily publicized death, and the phone call she made to paramedics with the Palestine Red Crescent Society while stranded in a vehicle, also inspired the docudrama “The Voice of Hind Rajab,” which won a top prize at the Venice Film Festival in September.
“Her name carries the weight of all the children whose voices were silenced and whose blood was treated like it meant nothing,” the post by Ayat NYC continued.
An opening date has not yet been set for the Upper West Side location. A new location opened in late October in Astoria, the Queens neighborhood that is home to Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani and home to a thriving pro-Palestinian activist community.
The post Palestinian restaurant opening near Columbia names its location to honor girl killed in Gaza, campus protesters appeared first on The Forward.
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NC activists claimed ‘victory’ in their Israel-divestment push. The state treasury says they’re wrong.
(JTA) — Earlier this week, several pro-Palestinian groups in North Carolina touted the state pension fund’s sale of $6.7 million in Israeli government bonds as a “victory.”
But despite the groups’ claims, the North Carolina Department of State Treasurer said that the sale had nothing to do with “divestment” but was simply a part of a routine portfolio rebalance.
“The sale of two Israel Government International bonds was not related to a divestment exercise,” the North Carolina Department of State Treasurer said in a statement to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “The previously held bonds were sold in October during a larger fixed income portfolio rebalancing exercise that sold bonds with shorter remaining maturity than the portfolio typically holds.”
The activists had hailed the sale as a win for the boycott Israel movement.
“VICTORY: NC DIVESTS FROM ISRAEL!! Genocide and apartheid are a bad investment,” wrote the Jewish Voice for Peace chapter of Triangle North Carolina in a post on Instagram, adding that the sale was a result of a “powerful campaign” supported by over 40 local organizations.
The JVP chapter had joined with several other groups, including Muslims for Social Justice and Jewish Voice for Peace Charlotte, to form Break the Bonds North Carolina Coalition, a campaign advocating for divestment. Similar campaigns have long lobbied treasury officials in other places.
But the likelihood that officials in North Carolina would pass BDS measures appeared unlikely. In 2017, the state’s governor signed into law a bill that banned state agencies from doing business with companies that boycott Israel. The elected state treasurer, Brad Briner, is a Republican, as is the majority of the legislature. The governor, meanwhile, is a moderate Jewish Democrat who has never made Israel a centerpiece of his politics.
Still, anti-Israel sentiment that has surged among Democrats have made an impact on the state. In June, the North Carolina Democratic Party passed a resolution calling for the United States to implement an immediate arms embargo on Israel. And in August, the Democratic Rep. Valerie Foushee announced that she “will not accept” donations for the 2026 elections from the pro-Israel lobby AIPAC.
Last month, on Oct. 29, Break the Bonds gathered outside the State Treasurer’s Office to deliver a petition with 4,600 signatories and called on the state to divest the Israeli bonds held in its pension fund.
“The people of North Carolina do not want a retirement fund invested in genocide, occupation, and apartheid,” the petition read. “We demand that our savings be used to make our communities stronger and healthier, not to fund crimes against humanity abroad.”
But while a press release from JVP cited the petition as part of its efforts to pressure the state to divest, the treasury said that its “rebalancing exercise took place before Break the Bonds NC Coalition presented its petition to our department.”
The treasurer also added that as of the end of October, it still held some Israeli bonds within its broader investments.
The discrepancy between the group’s celebratory tone and the treasury’s explanation was not the first time that a Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions effort elicited a conflicting response.
In April 2024, anti-Zionist activists at Pitzer College in California, including the local JVP chapter, claimed victory after the school announced it would no longer pre-approve students to study abroad at Haifa University. The school later said the decision had come from waning student interest, not a principled objection.
A similar episode also occurred this month in Minnesota, where pro-Palestinian advocates claimed they had successfully pressured the State Board of Investment to divest from Israeli bonds.
Despite the statements from the groups, which included MN BDS Community and the Anti-War Committee, the state board told TCJewfolk that the sale of some Israeli bonds was a fiscal choice.
“Contrary to statements from the organization referenced in your inquiry, the Minnesota State Board of Investment (SBI) has not changed its investment policy regarding permitted investments,” the SBI told TCJewfolk. “The SBI hires professional, third-party institutional investment managers to make investment decisions at the individual security level. These holdings are not static.”
The status of Israel bonds in New York City offers another glimpse at the complicated politics of the contested holdings. This year, Comptroller Brad Lander, a progressive, declined to reinvest Israel bonds that matured, giving anti-Israel activists a sense of the victory. But the city remains invested in Israeli assets, and activists there are continuing to push for divestment — which the mayor-elect, Zohran Mamdani, favors and the comptroller-elect, Mark Levine, says he does not plan to do.
In a press release Tuesday, JVP said that the sale in North Carolina came shortly after “Minnesota and Michigan announced their decisions not to re-invest.
Reached for comment by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Ari Rosenberg, a member of Jewish Voice for Peace Triangle and the Break the Bonds NC Coalition, said the state’s decision “represents the power of people’s voices from across the state — including public sector workers — who had been calling attention to these problematic investments for nearly a year.”
“For months, we met with the Treasurer’s office, gathered 5,000 signatures from concerned citizens, and rallied with state pension fund recipients and community members to deliver our petition and our message,” Rosenberg said in an emailed statement. “The Treasurer’s decision makes it clear that our voices were heard.”
The post NC activists claimed ‘victory’ in their Israel-divestment push. The state treasury says they’re wrong. appeared first on The Forward.