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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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Hamas’s Grip on Gaza NGOs Exposed as World Plans Post-War Rebuilding Efforts
Palestinians gather to collect aid supplies from trucks that entered Gaza, amid a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, Oct. 11, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ramadan Abed
As world powers outline multi-billion-dollar plans to rebuild Gaza, newly obtained documents reveal that Hamas has long run a coordinated effort to penetrate and influence NGOs in the war-torn enclave — contradicting years of denials from major humanitarian organizations.
On Wednesday, NGO Monitor — an independent Jerusalem-based research institute that tracks anti-Israel bias among nongovernmental organizations — released a new study revealing how Hamas has for years systematically weaponized humanitarian aid in Gaza, tightening its grip over foreign NGOs operating in the territory and exposing patterns of complicity and collaboration that contradict the groups’ persistent denials.
While international media has repeatedly accused Israel of unfairly and illegally targeting humanitarian NGOs, Israeli officials have long argued that many of these groups have been infiltrated and manipulated by Hamas, the Palestinian terrorist group that has ruled Gaza for nearly two decades — with the extent of NGO involvement far deeper than their public statements suggest.
Dozens of internal Hamas documents are now being published, providing systematic evidence and even detailing the officials tasked with coordinating and overseeing the Islamist group’s interactions with international NGOs.
According to the documents, Hamas officials designated specific points of contact with “highly respected” international NGOs, including Doctors Without Borders, Oxfam, Save the Children, and the Norwegian Refugee Council.
Referred to as “guarantors,” these Hamas-approved senior officials at each NGO allowed the terrorist group to closely oversee activities, influence decision-making, and circumvent restrictions imposed by some Western governments on direct engagement with Hamas.
Gerald Steinberg, founder and president of NGO Monitor, said the newly released study offers a crucial guide for the US and its allies to vet aid partners, emphasizing the need to carefully screen NGOs to prevent a repeat of Hamas’s domination of Gaza’s reconstruction efforts.
“This research is timely and highly consequential,” Steinberg said in a statement. “Governments and international organizations are planning to provide billions of dollars for the rebuilding of Gaza, and will partner with numerous NGOs to reconstruct infrastructure, provide municipal services like utilities and education, and probably distribute cash payments.”
“We now know which NGOs and their local affiliates have been propping up the Hamas terror regime,” he continued.
The study also found that at least 10 “guarantors” — senior NGO officials — were not just Hamas-approved, but were also members, supporters, or employees of Hamas-affiliated authorities, who leveraged their positions in numerous NGOs to create Hamas-approved beneficiary lists for UN and other aid programs.
According to one of the obtained internal documents, Hamas conducted extensive surveillance of NGO officials in Gaza, noting that the “guarantors” across 48 NGOs “can be exploited for security purposes” to infiltrate foreign organizations and listing the names and personal details of 55 individuals already serving in those roles.
The document also explicitly outlines the terrorist organization’s intent to further develop or compel “guarantors” to serve as intelligence assets.
The findings appear to corroborate the concerns of many experts and Israeli officials, who have long said that Hamas steals much of the aid flowing into Gaza to fuel its terrorist operations and sells the remainder to Gaza’s civilian population at an increased price. Jerusalem has also said that aid distribution cannot be left to international organizations, which it accuses of allowing Hamas to seize supplies intended for the civilian population. According to UN data, the vast majority of humanitarian aid entering Gaza during the Israel-Hamas war was intercepted before reaching its intended civilian recipients.
With NGOs in Gaza — both local and international — required to secure Hamas’s approval to provide services and run projects, the report shows the group wields veto power over humanitarian operations, allowing it to control, manipulate, and exploit aid to advance its political and military objectives.
“NGO Monitor’s groundbreaking report proves that Hamas controls all humanitarian operations in Gaza, on an institutional level and an individual one,” Naftali Shavelson, NGO Monitor international spokesperson, said in a statement.
“There is no NGO freedom of operation in Gaza. And most crucially, never once did NGOs say anything about this Hamas infiltration,” he continued. “If anything, they issued statements blaming their inhibited operations on Israel – thus ignoring the problem and allowing Hamas to continue harming Gazans.”
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NYC principal turns down Holocaust survivor’s talk over his ‘messages around Israel and Palestine’
(JTA) — A New York City public school principal turned down a parent’s request to host a talk by Holocaust survivor Sami Steigmann, citing content in his presentation that related to “Israel and Palestine.”
In an email to the parent on Nov. 18, the principal of the Brooklyn middle school MS 447, Arin Rusch, said that she believed that hosting Steigman’s presentation was not “right” for the school.
“In looking at his website material, I also don’t think that Sami’s presentation is right for our public school setting, given his messages around Israel and Palestine,” Rusch wrote in an email obtained by the New York Post.
Rusch added that she would “love to explore other speakers” who could talk about the Holocaust and antisemitism. The Post did not name the parent.
Steigmann, 85, speaks frequently about his experiences as a child survivor of the Mogilev-Podolski labor camp from 1941 to 1944, according to his website. During the Holocaust, he was also subjected to Nazi medical experiments and starvation, though he says he does not remember the experiences. His website describes him as a motivational speaker “who lives to tell his story.”
While it was unclear what part of Steigmann’s website Rusch allegedly took issue with, Steigmann’s PowerPoint presentation, which is found on his site, features an Israeli flag as the backdrop of a number of slides.
There is also a slide labeled “Zionism,” which includes various assertions about the founding of Israel, including a definition that Zionism is the “Right of the Jewish people to feel safe and secure in their homeland” and a bullet point calling Zionism a “social justice movement for the Jewish people.”
In a video shared on Facebook by StandWithUs, a nonprofit that trains students in pro-Israel advocacy, Steigmann is seen urging the students to intern with the organization.
On Steigmann’s Instagram page he has also frequently reposted commentary on Israel and antisemitism, including one post from July where he wrote that “Palestine was Jewish before it became Israel.”
Steigmann told The Post that he believed it was wrong for Rusch to deny his presentation, adding that he doesn’t discuss Middle East politics in public schools and would have accommodated a request for him to avoid the subject.
“She didn’t even have the courtesy to call me,” Steigmann told The Post.
The rejection drew condemnation from The Blue Card, a nonprofit that supports Holocaust survivors and with which Steigmann is affiliated.
“It is outrageous that a Holocaust survivor was denied the chance to speak to students,” said Masha Pearl, the executive director of The Blue Note, in a statement. “His testimony as a child survivor of a Nazi labor camp is not political. It is history. Silencing him at a moment of rising antisemitism is dangerous and deeply wrong, and makes New York City less tolerant.”
Pearl also called on Rusch to meet with The Blue Note to discuss Holocaust education as well as on New York City Public Schools Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos to “condemn this act and open an investigation.”
In a statement to the Post, the New York City Department of Education said that it evaluates every speaker to ensure they “maintain political neutrality.”
“We do not shy away from teaching history in our classrooms, and we are proud to have welcomed many Holocaust survivors into our schools, including MS 447, to share their stories. We thoroughly evaluate every classroom speaker and are careful to ensure speakers maintain political neutrality, especially on contentious current events, as required in a public school setting,” Department of Education spokeswoman Nicole Brownstein told The Post.
JTA sought comment from the NYC Department of Education, Mayor Eric Adams’s office and the principal, but did not receive responses.
Moshe Spern, the president of the United Jewish Teachers, an advocacy group. also criticized the rejection in an email on Nov. 26 to Brooklyn District 15 Superintendent Rafael Alvarez and aides for Aviles-Ramos.
“Although [Rusch] mentions that [she] would be open to other speakers, this begs the question of are we now censoring Holocaust survivors for their views on Israel,” wrote Spern. “This action by Principal Rusch is extremely inappropriate and I expect this situation to be remedied immediately.”
New York City Mayor Eric Adam’s office also told The Post that while he was committed to ensuring students hear from Holocaust survivors, Steigmann “wasn’t the right fit.”
“Mayor Adams is dedicated to ensuring all New Yorkers — particularly our students and young adults — hear stories from the genocide and oppression of the Holocaust, so we never again perpetrate such evil,” a City Hall spokesman told The Post. “While this speaker wasn’t the right fit, we will continue to ensure our students hear from the living survivors of this history into the future.”
The post NYC principal turns down Holocaust survivor’s talk over his ‘messages around Israel and Palestine’ appeared first on The Forward.
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Trump appointee promoted after reports he texted about having a ‘Nazi streak’
A group of six Democratic senators is calling on the Trump administration to stop promoting an official who previously faced congressional scrutiny for remarks he reportedly made praising Nazis.
Paul Ingrassia, who previously served as a White House liaison to the Department of Homeland Security, was initially nominated to lead the Office of Special Counsel. But the administration withdrew the nomination in October after several top Republican senators pledged to block his confirmation following revelations of racist and antisemitic comments he was reported to have made in text messages. He was later appointed as deputy general counsel at the General Services Administration. This week, it was announced that he has become acting general counsel of the GSA.
In a letter addressed to Michael Rigas, the GSA’s acting administrator, and to Dan Scavino, a senior Trump aide who oversees the selection and appointment of most government positions, the senators write that Ingrassia’s continued employment is “unacceptable” and “betrays the trust of every American.”
According to a Politico report, Ingrassia wrote in a chat of six GOP operatives and influencers that he has “a Nazi streak from time to time.” The May 2024 comment came after another chat participant joked that Ingrassia “belongs in the Hitler Youth with Obergruppenführer Steve Bannon,” assigning a senior Nazi paramilitary rank to the Republican strategist instrumental in Trump’s 2016 victory, who remains influential within the MAGA movement.
Ingrassia, who also faces allegations of sexual harassment, published in 2023 a blog post urging Elon Musk to reinstate the X account of Nick Fuentes, an avowed white nationalist and Holocaust denier, after he was banned in 2021 for repeated violations of the platform’s content rules. Ingrassia was also reportedly in attendance at a 2024 rally at which Fuentes declared, “Down with Israel.” He has also repeatedly called the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel a “psyop.”
The Democrats who signed the letter, including Jewish senators Adam Schiff of California and Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, said that Ingrassia’s reappointment to a senior position after Trump himself withdrew his nomination “embraces the very hatred” and antisemitism that the administration proclaims to combat.
“Ingrassia and its multiple attempts to find a place for him in this government betray a concerning willingness to support and, intended or not, promote his extremist, misogynist, and antisemitic views,” they wrote.
Ingrassia is one of several Trump administration appointees who have been scrutinized for remarks offensive to Jews and other minorities. Trump withdrew the nominations of some of his candidates amid the outrage.
The post Trump appointee promoted after reports he texted about having a ‘Nazi streak’ appeared first on The Forward.