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When Will the Need to Proclaim, ‘Never Again’ Ever End?
People with Israeli flags attend the International March of the Living at the former Auschwitz Nazi German death camp, in Brzezinka near Oswiecim, Poland, May 6, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Kuba Stezycki
The familiar mantra “Never Again” echoes through the ages as often as Jews have been set upon by their enemies. Will the need to proclaim, “Never Again” ever end?
Let us scroll back to the era of the First Temple in Jerusalem, 2,600 years ago. The Babylonians, under the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, destroyed the holy temple and drove the Jews from the Kingdom of Judea into exile. Forty-eight years later, during the reign of Cyrus the Great, the Jews returned to Jerusalem and under King Solomon’s sovereignty were able to build the Second Temple. Then in 70 CE, the Jewish people suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of Titus of Rome, and — except for a remnant who managed to remain in Israel — Jews were exiled, enslaved, or murdered by the conquerors.
The surviving Jews found themselves a landless people, sometimes welcomed or begrudgingly tolerated by the inhabitants of foreign lands. The First Crusade erupted in 1096 in Western Germany along the Rhine River, a thousand years after the Jews lost their homeland. The Crusade led to the mass slaughter of Jews who had settled in Rhineland, and the same fate awaited them later in the Holy Land.
One of the worst antisemitic massacres of the Middle Ages took place in England in 1190; it is known as the York pogrom. The city’s entire Jewish community was trapped by an angry mob inside the tower of York Castle. Members of the Jewish community were forcibly baptized or murdered by the attackers. The survivors of the carnage were summarily expelled from England.
For over two millennia, we Jews have suffered a long and woeful history of oppression, expulsion, and murder. What began in Babylonia, continued in Rome as a never-ending stream of persecution that persisted during the Crusades which flowed into the infamous Spanish pogrom of 1391, when Sephardic Jews were given the option of conversion to Catholicism or death. By 1492, any Jews fortunate to survive, were expelled from Spain.
Following those dark and dangerous days, the remaining Jews scattered throughout the world in what is called the Diaspora. Unfortunately, instead of receiving a friendly and neighborly welcome, they were greeted by Eastern Europe populations with a succession of attacks and massacres in their small villages, known as shtetls. Most notable was the uprising of Cossacks in what is known as the Khmelnitsky pogrom that swept through Poland, Lithuania, and Ukraine. Tens of thousands of Jews were brutally murdered during the massacres between the years 1648 and 1667.
Two-hundred years passed before Europe’s festering antisemitism once again erupted into violence. Beginning in 1881, the renewal of pogroms plagued the Jewish communities in southern Russia, when thousands of shtetls and their inhabitants were eliminated, culminating in the murder of 250,000 Jews in Ukraine between the years of 1918 and 1920.
Then came the Holocaust. From 1933 to 1945, Germany, with the assistance of all too willing European collaborators, embarked upon the state-sponsored persecution and industrialized murder of six million European Jewish men, women, and children.
Three years after the end of World War II, the modern State of Israel was established. But only one day after Israel’s declaration of Independence in 1948, five Arab armies sought to purge the region of Jews. This time it was different; the Jews once again had a homeland to defend. They successfully defeated the existential threat of annihilation posed by the neighboring Arab countries.
The question of, will “Never Again” ever end, was abruptly and savagely answered again on the morning of Oct. 7, 2023, when approximately 1,200 people were murdered and 250 others abducted into Gaza, including children and infants. Today, the vulnerable Jewish shtetls of yesteryear no longer exist because the IDF (Israel Defense Forces), world Jewry, and morally driven Gentiles, have Israel’s back.
The Oct. 7 jihad occurred because of the genocidal aims of Hamas and its supporting cast of radical Islamist terrorists to rid Israel of its Jews. After thousands of years of being murdered simply for who we are, a vital lesson has been learnt. Elie Wiesel expressed it best: “I learned to trust the threats of enemies before the promises of friends.”
The post When Will the Need to Proclaim, ‘Never Again’ Ever End? first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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After False Dawns, Gazans Hope Trump Will Force End to Two-Year-Old War
Palestinians walk past a residential building destroyed in previous Israeli strikes, after Hamas agreed to release hostages and accept some other terms in a US plan to end the war, in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa
Exhausted Palestinians in Gaza clung to hopes on Saturday that US President Donald Trump would keep up pressure on Israel to end a two-year-old war that has killed tens of thousands and displaced the entire population of more than two million.
Hamas’ declaration that it was ready to hand over hostages and accept some terms of Trump’s plan to end the conflict while calling for more talks on several key issues was greeted with relief in the enclave, where most homes are now in ruins.
“It’s happy news, it saves those who are still alive,” said 32-year-old Saoud Qarneyta, reacting to Hamas’ response and Trump’s intervention. “This is enough. Houses have been damaged, everything has been damaged, what is left? Nothing.”
GAZAN RESIDENT HOPES ‘WE WILL BE DONE WITH WARS’
Ismail Zayda, 40, a father of three, displaced from a suburb in northern Gaza City where Israel launched a full-scale ground operation last month, said: “We want President Trump to keep pushing for an end to the war, if this chance is lost, it means that Gaza City will be destroyed by Israel and we might not survive.
“Enough, two years of bombardment, death and starvation. Enough,” he told Reuters on a social media chat.
“God willing this will be the last war. We will hopefully be done with the wars,” said 59-year-old Ali Ahmad, speaking in one of the tented camps where most Palestinians now live.
“We urge all sides not to backtrack. Every day of delay costs lives in Gaza, it is not just time wasted, lives get wasted too,” said Tamer Al-Burai, a Gaza City businessman displaced with members of his family in central Gaza Strip.
After two previous ceasefires — one near the start of the war and another earlier this year — lasted only a few weeks, he said; “I am very optimistic this time, maybe Trump’s seeking to be remembered as a man of peace, will bring us real peace this time.”
RESIDENT WORRIES THAT NETANYAHU WILL ‘SABOTAGE’ DEAL
Some voiced hopes of returning to their homes, but the Israeli military issued a fresh warning to Gazans on Saturday to stay out of Gaza City, describing it as a “dangerous combat zone.”
Gazans have faced previous false dawns during the past two years, when Trump and others declared at several points during on-off negotiations between Hamas, Israel and Arab and US mediators that a deal was close, only for war to rage on.
“Will it happen? Can we trust Trump? Maybe we trust Trump, but will Netanyahu abide this time? He has always sabotaged everything and continued the war. I hope he ends it now,” said Aya, 31, who was displaced with her family to Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.
She added: “Maybe there is a chance the war ends at October 7, two years after it began.”
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Mass Rally in Rome on Fourth Day of Italy’s Pro-Palestinian Protests
A Pro-Palestinian demonstrator waves a Palestinian flag during a national protest for Gaza in Rome, Italy, October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Claudia Greco
Large crowds assembled in central Rome on Saturday for the fourth straight day of protests in Italy since Israel intercepted an international flotilla trying to deliver aid to Gaza, and detained its activists.
People holding banners and Palestinian flags, chanting “Free Palestine” and other slogans, filed past the Colosseum, taking part in a march that organizers hoped would attract at least 1 million people.
“I’m here with a lot of other friends because I think it is important for us all to mobilize individually,” Francesco Galtieri, a 65-year-old musician from Rome, said. “If we don’t all mobilize, then nothing will change.”
Since Israel started blocking the flotilla late on Wednesday, protests have sprung up across Europe and in other parts of the world, but in Italy they have been a daily occurrence, in multiple cities.
On Friday, unions called a general strike in support of the flotilla, with demonstrations across the country that attracted more than 2 million, according to organizers. The interior ministry estimated attendance at around 400,000.
Italy’s right-wing government has been critical of the protests, with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni suggesting that people would skip work for Gaza just as an excuse for a longer weekend break.
On Saturday, Meloni blamed protesters for insulting graffiti that appeared on a statue of the late Pope John Paul II outside Rome’s main train station, where Pro-Palestinian groups have been holding a protest picket.
“They say they are taking to the streets for peace, but then they insult the memory of a man who was a true defender and builder of peace. A shameful act committed by people blinded by ideology,” she said in a statement.
Israel launched its Gaza offensive after Hamas terrorists staged a cross border attack on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 people hostage.
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Hamas Says It Agrees to Release All Israeli Hostages Under Trump Gaza Plan
Smoke rises during an Israeli military operation in Gaza City, as seen from the central Gaza Strip, October 2, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
Hamas said on Friday it had agreed to release all Israeli hostages, alive or dead, under the terms of US President Donald Trump’s Gaza proposal, and signaled readiness to immediately enter mediated negotiations to discuss the details.