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Yad Vashem has turned itself into a school for children whose communities were attacked on Oct. 7
(JTA) — On the day Israel was attacked, one of Hannah Asnafi’s first-graders from the southern Israeli community of Kfar Maimon hid for hours in a cramped attic.
Now, seven weeks later, the child has joined Asnafi and the rest of his class in a makeshift school housed at Israel’s Holocaust museum, which has opened its doors to evacuees from the south as part of a widespread repurposing of available space across central Israel.
The symbolism of educating children whose experiences echo famous stories from the Holocaust isn’t lost on anyone involved in the enterprise.
“We’re all inspired about what we teach and learn about the Holocaust, about how people were there for one another, about how educators in the Holocaust taught,” said Shani Lourie-Farhi, who heads the International School for Holocaust Studies at Yad Vashem and is serving as the acting principal of the newly established school, called B’shvilei Hachinuch.
“I don’t think we’ve ever had a discussion about it but it’s an unspoken inspiration,” Lourie-Farhi said. Using the Hebrew word for mission, she added, “We’re very connected to our past and there’s something there that brought us into this shlichut.”
The impromptu school at Yad Vashem is part of a sweeping effort to make sure that the children among the estimated 300,000 people evacuated from Israel’s southern and northern communities can continue learning while their home schools are closed. Students are not obligated to attend school right now, and the national high school exam has been postponed. Even in areas that were not hit hard on Oct. 7, schools remain shuttered or limited in their operations, particularly, if they do not have adequate bomb shelters for their students. But families and educators know that getting back to school is a key element of providing stability for children at a time when it is gravely needed.
To fill the gaps, individuals, nonprofits and local organizations have turned fallow space into classrooms, gathered school supplies, collected donations to pay educators and even volunteered to teach themselves. The newly reopened National Library of Israel, for example, is using some of its seminar rooms to host evacuated students, while educators have held lessons for students living in Dead Sea hotels at Masada, the site of a first-century resistance by Jewish patriots.
Children at the new Kedem school for Oct. 7 evacuees sit in a classroom at the recently opened National Library of Israel, November 2023. (National Library/X)
Asnafi was off work for three weeks after the Oct. 7 massacre but returned once Yad Vashem made the decision to convert its unused space into a regular school for some 400 children, ranging from grades 1 through 12, who were evacuated from Kfar Maimon and three other southern border communities to Jerusalem and the surrounding areas.
Yad Vashem chairman Dani Dayan said in a statement that he felt it was the Holocaust memorial’s “duty to extend a helping hand and do what we can to support those affected.” The museum’s public display remains open.
The metamorphosis didn’t come without snags. Despite its name, the International School for Holocaust Studies is more of a teacher training institute than a school and its 25 classrooms are more suited to seminars than activities for children.
“The educational space is actually geared towards adults,” Asnafi said, adding that the Yad Vashem staff were making “tremendous” efforts to adapt it in the maximal way possible.
To that end, the first things to go were Holocaust posters and memorabilia — a move that aimed aimed at turning the building into a “safe zone,” Lourie-Farhi said.
“Bringing first- and second-graders, and even high school kids, into a place like this when they went through such a traumatic event [led to] the choice to say that while of course our role is to commemorate the Holocaust, we’re excluding the Holocaust in this building for this period,” Lourie-Farhi told JTA.
When the school initially opened, many of the children struggled with separating from their parents as the school bus departed each morning from the hotels where evacuees have been staying. While Kfar Maimon was not directly infiltrated by Hamas, the majority of children were traumatized from the ordeal of hiding upwards of 12 hours and then having to escape in a hurry, especially with the presence of terrorists in the vicinity in the days following the attack. Asnafi said she and her children and grandchildren were in her safe room for hours, with one son training his gun on the door.
Lourie-Farhi said she believed the new school could help the children recover. “We want to make the school part of their process of building resilience and finding some sort of routine.”
Children attending B’shvilei Hachinuch, a school established at Yad Vashem. walk on the campus of the Holocaust memorial and museum. (Courtesy Yad Vashem)
But staffing has been a challenge. While some teachers, like Asnafi, have continued in their roles as usual, many were unable to for a range of reasons. Some were too traumatized to teach; others relocated elsewhere within Israel and could not get to the school; others yet had spouses called into military service, making it impossible for them to work.
Some 50 Yad Vashem staff members volunteered to fill in the gaps.
“Suddenly you’ve gone from being [a Holocaust studies] educator to a second-grade teacher,” Farhi said. Her staff members took on the onus of adapting into their new roles themselves, including reaching out to other educators to learn the curriculum and how to teach it.
“They’re all very invested. Everybody’s heart is in this project,” she said. “We’re a link in the chain. Some time when this is over — and it will be over — at least this aspect will not be broken.”
Lourie-Farhi said she was also inundated by calls and messages from people wanting to help, including retired teachers or those on sabbatical, some of whom came on board.
In another case cited by Asnafi, the Holocaust memorial’s bookkeeper became the person who greets the children every day on their arrival. “If she doesn’t come to the bus, the kids cry,” she said.
The warmth and dedication of everyone at Yad Vashem went some ways in mitigating some of the challenges, Asnafi said. She did, however, issue sharp criticism of the Israeli’s education ministry, which she said had not adequately supported the schools or their students as they reestablished themselves in new locations.
Anati Manshury, a spokesperson for the ministry, said the government had allocated millions of shekels to setting up new schools for students who were displaced across hundreds of locations. The ministry has hired new teachers, added psychologists, delivered thousands of computers to families and authorized the construction of new buildings in a handful of locations, she said.
For B’shvilei Hachinuch, the challenges are ongoing and speak to the ongoing nature of Israel’s current crisis. The student body comes from existing schools and a yeshiva high school from four religious communities from the Eshkol Regional Council, but new children from other evacuated areas are joining every day, including from the north.
Young children sit in a classroom converted from seminar space at Yad Vashem, which has created a school to education children evacuated from Israeli communities attacked on Oct. 7. (Courtesy Yad Vashem)
“We have to integrate new kids all the time and it can be disruptive,” Asnafi said. “Not only do they not know their peers, but they’re from completely different backgrounds.”
Asnafi gave an example of a boy who had joined her class from the northern border town of Kiryat Shmona. He sat crying silently and it was a while before Asnafi was able to decipher that the boy, who hails from a secular family, was upset that he was one of only a few boys without a kippah.
“When I came the next day with a kippah my daughter knitted for him, he was overjoyed,” she said.
With exams delayed and so much in turmoil, some in Israel say they would be satisfied with a school year in which children simply feel safe and supported. But while Lourie-Farhi recognized the significance of warmth and support from ancillary staff, such as counselors and psychologists, in creating a secure environment, she stressed the necessity to “emphasize that this is still a school.”
“It’s about being serious, there’s math, there’s English, we’re going to learn,” she said, adding that she saw her new role as a part of the country’s war effort.
“So many people have been recruited, everywhere you go there are people wearing uniforms,” Lourie-Farhi said. “This is our call to duty. This is what we know how to do. We know how to teach.”
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Syria’s Sharaa Says Talks With Israel Could Yield Results ‘In Coming Days’
Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa speaks at the opening ceremony of the 62nd Damascus International Fair, the first edition held since the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime, in Damascus, Syria, Aug. 27, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Khalil Ashawi
Syria’s President Ahmed al-Sharaa said on Wednesday that ongoing negotiations with Israel to reach a security pact could lead to results “in the coming days.”
He told reporters in Damascus the security pact was a “necessity” and that it would need to respect Syria’s airspace and territorial unity and be monitored by the United Nations.
Syria and Israel are in talks to reach an agreement that Damascus hopes will secure a halt to Israeli airstrikes and the withdrawal of Israeli troops who have pushed into southern Syria.
Reuters reported this week that Washington was pressuring Syria to reach a deal before world leaders gather next week for the UN General Assembly in New York.
But Sharaa, in a briefing with journalists including Reuters ahead of his expected trip to New York to attend the meeting, denied the US was putting any pressure on Syria and said instead that it was playing a mediating role.
He said Israel had carried out more than 1,000 strikes on Syria and conducted more than 400 ground incursions since Dec. 8, when the rebel offensive he led toppled former Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad.
Sharaa said Israel’s actions were contradicting the stated American policy of a stable and unified Syria, which he said was “very dangerous.”
He said Damascus was seeking a deal similar to a 1974 disengagement agreement between Israel and Syria that created a demilitarized zone between the two countries.
He said Syria sought the withdrawal of Israeli troops but that Israel wanted to remain at strategic locations it seized after Dec. 8, including Mount Hermon. Israeli ministers have publicly said Israel intends to keep control of the sites.
He said if the security pact succeeds, other agreements could be reached. He did not provide details, but said a peace agreement or normalization deal like the US-mediated Abraham Accords, under which several Muslim-majority countries agreed to normalize diplomatic ties with Israel, was not currently on the table.
He also said it was too early to discuss the fate of the Golan Heights because it was “a big deal.”
Reuters reported this week that Israel had ruled out handing back the zone, which Donald Trump unilaterally recognized as Israeli during his first term as US president.
“It’s a difficult case – you have negotiations between a Damascene and a Jew,” Sharaa told reporters, smiling.
SECURITY PACT DERAILED IN JULY
Sharaa also said Syria and Israel had been just “four to five days” away from reaching the basis of a security pact in July, but that developments in the southern province of Sweida had derailed those discussions.
Syrian troops were deployed to Sweida in July to quell fighting between Druze armed factions and Bedouin fighters. But the violence worsened, with Syrian forces accused of execution-style killings and Israel striking southern Syria, the defense ministry in Damascus and near the presidential palace.
Sharaa on Wednesday described the strikes near the presidential palace as “not a message, but a declaration of war,” and said Syria had still refrained from responding militarily to preserve the negotiations.
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Anti-Israel Activists Gear Up to ‘Flood’ UN General Assembly
US Capitol Police and NYPD officers clash with anti-Israel demonstrators, on the day Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses a joint meeting of Congress, on Capitol Hill, in Washington, DC, July 24, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Umit Bektas
Anti-Israel groups are planning a wave of raucous protests in New York City during the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) over the next several days, prompting concerns that the demonstrations could descend into antisemitic rhetoric and intimidation.
A coalition of anti-Israel activists is organizing the protests in and around UN headquarters to coincide with speeches from Middle Eastern leaders and appearances by US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The demonstrations are expected to draw large crowds and feature prominent pro-Palestinian voices, some of whom have been criticized for trafficking in antisemitic tropes, in addition to calling for the destruction of Israe.
Organizers of the demonstrations have promoted the coordinated events on social media as an opportunity to pressure world leaders to hold Israel accountable for its military campaign against Hamas in Gaza, with some messaging framed in sharply hostile terms.
On Sunday, for example, activists shouted at Israel’s Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon.
“Zionism is terrorism. All you guys are terrorists committing ethnic cleansing and genocide in Gaza and Palestine. Shame on you, Zionist animals,” they shouted.
BREAKING: PRO-PALESTINE PROTESTORS CONFRONT “ISRAELI” AMBASSADOR DANNY DANON AT THE UNITED NATIONS
1/5 pic.twitter.com/4G1VYEMGzV
— Within Our Lifetime (@WOLPalestine) September 14, 2025
The Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM), warned on its website that the scale and tone of the planned demonstrations risk crossing the line from political protest into hate speech, arguing that anti-Israel activists are attempting to hijack the UN gathering to spread antisemitism and delegitimize the Jewish state’s right to exist.
Outside the UN last week, masked protesters belonging to the activist group INDECLINE kicked a realistic replica of Netanyahu’s decapitated head as though it were a soccer ball.
US activist group plays soccer with Bibi’s mock decapitated HEAD right outside NYC UN HQ
Peep shot at 00:40
Footage posted by INDECLINE collective just as UN General Assembly about to kick off
‘Following the game, ball was donated to Palestinian Genocide Museum’ pic.twitter.com/TQ84sgZhKr
— RT (@RT_com) September 9, 2025
Within Our Lifetime (WOL), a radical anti-Israel activist group, has vowed to “flood” the UNGA on behalf of the pro-Palestine movement.
WOL, one of the most prolific anti-Israel activist groups, came under immense fire after it organized a protest against an exhibition to honor the victims of the Oct. 7 massacre at the Nova Music Festival in southern Israel. During the event, the group chanted “resistance is justified when people are occupied!” and “Israel, go to hell!”
“We will be there to confront them with the truth: Their silence and inaction enable genocide. The world cannot continue as if Gaza does not exist,” WOL said of its planned demonstrations in New York. “This is the time to make our voices impossible to ignore. Come to New York by any means necessary, to stand, to march, to demand the UN act and end the siege.”
Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM), two other anti-Israel organizations that have helped organize widespread demonstrations against the Jewish state during the war in Gaza, also announced they are planning a march from Times Square to the UN headquarters on Friday.
“The time is now for each and every UN member state to uphold their duty under international law: sanction Israel and end the genocide,” the groups said in a statement.
JVP, an organization that purports to fight for “Palestinian liberation,” has positioned itself as a staunch adversary of the Jewish state. The group argued in a 2021 booklet that Jews should not write Hebrew liturgy because hearing the language would be “deeply traumatizing” to Palestinians. JVP has repeatedly defended the Oct. 7 massacre of roughly 1,200 people in southern Israel by Hamas as a justified “resistance.” Chapters of the organization have urged other self-described “progressives” to throw their support behind Hamas and other terrorist groups against Israel
Similarly, PYM, another radical anti-Israel group, has repeatedly defended terrorism and violence against the Jewish state. PYM has organized many anti-Israel protests in the two years following the Oct. 7 attacks in the Jewish state. Recently, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AK) called for a federal investigation into the organization after Aisha Nizar, one of the group’s leaders, urged supporters to sabotage the US supply chain for the F-35 fighter jet, one of the most advanced US military assets and a critical component of Israel’s defense.
The UN General Assembly has historically been a flashpoint for heated debate over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Previous gatherings have seen dueling demonstrations outside the Manhattan venue, with pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian groups both seeking to influence the international spotlight.
While warning about the demonstrations, CAM noted it recently launched a new mobile app, Report It, that allows users worldwide to quickly and securely report antisemitic incidents in real time.
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Nina Davidson Presses Universities to Back Words With Action as Jewish Students Return to Campus Amid Antisemitism Crisis
Nina Davidson on The Algemeiner’s ‘J100’ podcast. Photo: Screenshot
Philanthropist Nina Davidson, who served on the board of Barnard College, has called on universities to pair tough rhetoric on combatting antisemitism with enforcement as Jewish students returned to campuses for the new academic year.
“Years ago, The Algemeiner had published a list ranking the most antisemitic colleges in the country. And number one was Columbia,” Davidson recalled on a recent episode of The Algemeiner‘s “J100” podcast. “As a board member and as someone who was representing the institution, it really upset me … At the board meeting, I brought it up and I said, ‘What are we going to do about this?’”
Host David Cohen, chief executive officer of The Algemeiner, explained he had revisited Davidson’s remarks while she was being honored for her work at The Algemeiner‘s 8th annual J100 gala, held in October 2021, noting their continued relevance.
“It could have been the same speech in 2025,” he said, underscoring how longstanding concerns about campus antisemitism, while having intensified in the aftermath of Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, are not new.
Davidson argued that universities already possess the tools to protect students – codes of conduct, time-place-manner rules, and consequences for threats or targeted harassment – but too often fail to apply them evenly. “Statements are not enough,” she said, arguing that institutions need to enforce their rules and set a precedent that there will be consequences for individuals who refuse to follow them.
She also said that stakeholders – alumni, parents, and donors – are reassessing their relationships with schools that, in their view, have not safeguarded Jewish students. While supportive of open debate, Davidson distinguished between protest and intimidation, calling for leadership that protects expression while ensuring campus safety.
The episode surveyed specific pressure points that administrators will face this fall: repeat anti-Israel encampments, disruptions of Jewish programming, and the challenge of distinguishing political speech from conduct that violates university rules. “Unless schools draw those lines now,” Davidson warned, “they’ll be scrambling once the next crisis hits.”
Cohen closed by framing the discussion as a test of institutional credibility, asking whether universities will “turn policy into protection” in real time. Davidson agreed, pointing to students who “need to know the rules aren’t just on paper.”
The full conversation is available on The Algemeiner’s “J100” podcast.