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80 years later, Thessaloniki’s documentary film festival to pay tribute to deported Jews
(JTA) — On March 15, 1943, the first train bound for Auschwitz departed from the northern Greek city of Thessaloniki, once home to one of the largest Sephardic Jewish communities in the world.
Eighty years later, the city’s documentary film festival is paying tribute to Jews killed during the Holocaust and to the Jewish community’s enduring importance to the city.
The Thessaloniki International Documentary Festival, which runs March 2-12, will feature several documentaries about the Holocaust and the Jewish experience in Greece, along with panel discussions and other screening events — in-person and online — on the subject. The full tribute is called “Adio Kerida,” the name of a traditional Sephardic love song in Ladino, the Judeo-Spanish language once commonly heard throughout the city’s streets.
“Legend has it that the members of the Jewish community sang it just before getting on the trains that would take them to the Nazi concentration camps, saying goodbye to their own people and their beloved Thessaloniki,” said Orestis Andreadakis, the festival’s director.
The documentaries to be shown include “By-standing and Standing-by” (2012), which traces the history of Thessaloniki’s Jewish population and the lesser-known community in nearby Katerini; “Salonique, ville du silence” (2006), in which Thessaloniki-born director Maurice Amaraggi brings together modern images of the city with testimonies from Holocaust survivors; “Kisses to the Children” (2011), which follows the stories of five Jews who were taken in by Christian families during Germany’s occupation of Greece; and “Heroes of Salonika” (2021), which highlights the brutal experiences of six Holocaust survivors from the city.
Other highlights include a full screening of Claude Lanzmann’s 9-plus hour “Shoah,” and a screening of “The Golem,” one of the earliest horror movies from the silent film era. The latter is set in 16th-century Prague, where a rabbi creates a golem — a giant clay creature brought to life in order to protect the city’s Jewish community. The film will be accompanied by an original score by renowned Greek filmmaker and composer Yannis Veslemes, played live during the screening.
Before World War II, the city was nicknamed “La madre de Israel” (“The mother of Israel”), with a Jewish population over 50,000. The present-day community, which now numbers just over 1,000, played a key role in putting the festival tribute together.
“[This tribute] is extremely important,” said Andreadakis. “The Jewish community has defined the history of the city.”
The festival is holding online and in-person screenings.
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Israel’s Netanyahu Hopes to ‘Taper’ Israel Off US Military Aid in Next Decade
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks to the press on Capitol Hill, Washington, DC, July 8, 2025. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in an interview published on Friday that he hopes to “taper off” Israeli dependence on US military aid in the next decade.
Netanyahu has said Israel should not be reliant on foreign military aid but has stopped short of declaring a firm timeline for when Israel would be fully independent from Washington.
“I want to taper off the military within the next 10 years,” Netanyahu told The Economist. Asked if that meant a tapering “down to zero,” he said: “Yes.”
Netanyahu said he told President Donald Trump during a recent visit that Israel “very deeply” appreciates “the military aid that America has given us over the years, but here too we’ve come of age and we’ve developed incredible capacities.”
In December, Netanyahu said Israel would spend 350 billion shekels ($110 billion) on developing an independent arms industry to reduce dependency on other countries.
In 2016, the US and Israeli governments signed a memorandum of understanding for the 10 years through September 2028 that provides $38 billion in military aid, $33 billion in grants to buy military equipment and $5 billion for missile defense systems.
Israeli defense exports rose 13 percent last year, with major contracts signed for Israeli defense technology including its advanced multi-layered aerial defense systems.
US Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, a staunch Israel supporter and close ally of Trump, said on X that “we need not wait ten years” to begin scaling back military aid to Israel.
“The billions in taxpayer dollars that would be saved by expediting the termination of military aid to Israel will and should be plowed back into the US military,” Graham said. “I will be presenting a proposal to Israel and the Trump administration to dramatically expedite the timetable.”
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In Rare Messages from Iran, Protesters ask West for Help, Speak of ‘Very High’ Death Toll
Protests in Tehran. Photo: Iran Photo from social media used in accordance with Clause 27a of the Copyright Law, via i24 News
i24 News – Speaking to Western media from beyond the nationwide internet blackout imposed by the Islamic regime, Iranian protesters said they needed support amid a brutal crackdown.
“We’re standing up for a revolution, but we need help. Snipers have been stationed behind the Tajrish Arg area [a neighborhood in Tehran],” said a protester in Tehran speaking to the Guardian on the condition of anonymity. He added that “We saw hundreds of bodies.”
Another activist in Tehran spoke of witnessing security forces firing live ammunition at protesters resulting in a “very high” number killed.
On Friday, TIME magazine cited a Tehran doctor speaking on condition of anonymity that just six hospitals in the capital recorded at least 217 killed protesters, “most by live ammunition.”
Speaking to Reuters on Saturday, Setare Ghorbani, a French-Iranian national living in the suburbs of Paris, said that she became ill from worry for her friends inside Iran. She read out one of her friends’ last messages before losing contact: “I saw two government agents and they grabbed people, they fought so much, and I don’t know if they died or not.”
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Report: US Increasingly Regards Iran Protests as Having Potential to Overthrow Regime
United States President Donald J Trump in White House in Washington, DC, USA, on Thursday, December 18, 2025. Photo: Aaron Schwartz via Reuters Connect.
i24 News – The assessment in Washington of the strength and scope of the Iran protests has shifted after Thursday’s turnout, with US officials now inclined to grant the possibility that this could be a game changer, Axios reported on Friday.
“The protests are serious, and we will continue to monitor them,” an unnamed senior US official was quoted as saying in the report.
Iran was largely cut off from the outside world on Friday after the Islamic regime blacked out the internet to curb growing unrest, as videos circulating on social media showed buildings ablaze in anti-government protests raging across the country.
US President Donald Trump warned the Ayatollahs of a strong response if security forces escalate violence against protesters.
“We’re watching it very closely. If they start killing people like they have in the past, I think they’re going to get hit very hard by the United States,” Trump told reporters when asked about the unrest in Iran.
The latest reported death toll is at 51 protesters, including nine children.