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Top US Holocaust officials: Oct. 7 massacre creates ‘new momentum’ for restitution
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Hamas’ massacres on Oct. 7 delivered “new momentum” to the effort to deliver restitution to the descendants of Holocaust survivors and victims whose property was stolen, Stuart Eizenstat, the State Department’s special adviser on Holocaust issues, said Thursday at a meeting with reporters for Jewish publications.
“There’s a new momentum behind Holocaust remembrance, Holocaust restitution, and Holocaust lessons,” he said. “And those who say, you know, it’s just a thing of the past, we’re reminded by what’s happened in the last few weeks that that’s not the case.”
Hamas’ invasion of Israel on Oct. 7 killed 1,400 people, most of them civilians, wounded thousands and abducted more than 200, in the deadliest single day for Jews since the Holocaust.
Thursday’s press conference featured Eizentstat; Ellen Germain, the department’s special envoy for Holocaust issues; and Mark Weitzman, COO of the World Jewish Restitution Organization. They spoke the day after a meeting convened by the State Department and the WJRO including representatives of 14 countries seeking to advance restitution to descendants of Holocaust survivors and victims.
The Nazis and their allies and proxies, among others, looted and confiscated hundreds of thousands of pieces of property belonging to Jews during and after World War II. The U.S.-led restitution effort, launched by Eizenstat in the late 1990s, has recovered thousands of pieces, including many valuable works of art. A number of countries including, notably, Poland, have limited the ability to seek restitution and say that Holocaust restitution should not be treated as unique. Rather, they say, it should be addressed in the context of privations others suffered in the war and, afterward, during decades of communist rule.
Countries represented at the meeting Wednesday included Israel, the United States, Britain, Croatia, Germany, Moldova, Romania, France, the Czech Republic, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Austria, Canada and Greece. As part of the recent U.S.-led initiative to advance restitution, five of those countries — the Netherlands, Britain, France, Germany and Austria — have established commissions to examine restitution issues, and Luxembourg has effectively completed its restitution process.
Germain said that those efforts, to pursue justice decades after the thefts and atrocities occurred, makes it clear that the crimes of Oct. 7 will also be addressed — however long it takes.
“Maintaining the values of our liberal democracies, all of that has been thrown into such stark relief with the events of the last few weeks, and that all connects right up with bringing a measure of justice for Holocaust survivors and their families, even after 80 years,” she said. “There is no statute of limitations on trying to bring perpetrators of such a great injustice to account for what they’ve done.”
Eizenstat said that virtually every diplomat and official present at the restitution meeting on Wednesday framed their mission in the context of Oct. 7. “It was a major focus of attention, the number of countries as we went around the table, who spoke about it, who said that this demonstrates that the hatred against Jews and against Israel is not something of the past, was itself very enlightening,” he said.
Eizenstat said Oct. 7 also brought the horrors of the Holocaust home for younger Israelis and Jews. “The number of young people who were involved in these attacks, who said, ‘Now we understand what our parents and grandparents went through’,” he said.”It thrust the Jewish past into the present.”
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The post Top US Holocaust officials: Oct. 7 massacre creates ‘new momentum’ for restitution appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Trump Administration to Release Over $5 Billion School Funding That It Withheld
US Secretary of Education Linda McMahon and President Donald Trump, in the East Room at the White House in Washington, DC, US, March 20, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Carlos Barria
President Donald Trump’s administration will release more than $5 billion in previously approved funding for K-12 school programs that it froze over three weeks ago under a review, which had led to bipartisan condemnation.
“(The White House Office of Management and Budget) has completed its review … and has directed the Department to release all formula funds,” Madi Biedermann, deputy assistant secretary for communications at the U.S. Education Department, said in a statement, adding funds will be dispersed to states next week.
Further details on the review and what it found were not shared.
A senior administration official said “guardrails” would be in place for the amount being released, without giving details.
Early in July, the Trump administration said it would not release funding previously appropriated by Congress for schools and that an initial review found signs the money was misused to subsidize what it alleged was “a radical leftwing agenda.”
States say $6.8 billion in total was affected by the freeze. Last week, $1.3 billion was released.
After the freeze, a coalition of mostly Democratic-led states sued to challenge the move, and 10 Republican US senators wrote to the Republican Trump administration to reverse its decision.
The frozen money covered funding for education of migrant farm workers and their children; recruitment and training of teachers; English proficiency learning; academic enrichment and after-school and summer programs.
The Trump administration has threatened schools and colleges with withholding federal funds over issues like climate initiatives, transgender policies, pro-Palestinian protests against U.S. ally Israel’s war in Gaza and diversity, equity and inclusion practices.
Republican US lawmakers welcomed the move on Friday, while Democratic lawmakers said there was no need to disrupt funding in the first place.
Education Secretary Linda McMahon separately said she was satisfied with what was found in the review and released the money, adding she did not think there would be future freezes.
The post Trump Administration to Release Over $5 Billion School Funding That It Withheld first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Israel to Resume Airdrop Aid to Gaza on Saturday, Military Says
Palestinians carry aid supplies which they received from the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, in the central Gaza Strip, May 29, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ramadan Abed/File Photo
Israel will resume airdrop aid to Gaza on Saturday night, the Israeli military said, a few days after more than 100 aid agencies warned that mass starvation was spreading across the enclave.
“The airdrops will include seven pallets of aid containing flour, sugar, and canned food to be provided by international organizations,” the military added in a statement.
The post Israel to Resume Airdrop Aid to Gaza on Saturday, Military Says first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Trump Says Hamas ‘Didn’t Want to Make a Deal,’ Now Likely to Get ‘Hunted Down’
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a cabinet meeting at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., July 8, 2025. Photo: Kevin Lamarque via Reuters Connect.
i24 News – US President Donald Trump on Friday said the Palestinian jihadists of Hamas did not want to make a deal on a ceasefire and hostage release in Gaza.
“Now we’re down to the final hostages, and they know what happens after you get the final hostages. And basically because of that, they really didn’t want to make a deal,” Trump said.
The comments followed statements by Middle East peace envoy Steve Witkoff and Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the effect that Israel was now considering “alternative” options to achieve its goals of bringing its hostages home from Gaza and ending the terror rule of Hamas in the coastal enclave.
Trump added he believed Hamas leaders would now be “hunted down.”
On Thursday, Witkoff said the Trump administration had decided to bring its negotiating team home for consultations following Hamas’s latest proposal. Witkoff said overnight that Hamas was to blame for the impasse, with Netanyahu concurring.
Trump also dismissed the significance of French President Emmanuel Macron’s announcement that Paris would become the first major Western power to recognize an independent Palestinian state.
Macron’s comments, “didn’t carry any weight,” the US leader said.
The post Trump Says Hamas ‘Didn’t Want to Make a Deal,’ Now Likely to Get ‘Hunted Down’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.