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A chance for the descendants of Holocaust victims to reclaim a piece of the past
Levi Buxbaum boarded the S.S. St. Louis on May 13, 1939, both relieved and hopeful. Relieved to be leaving Nazi Germany behind, hopeful that he would soon reunite with his daughters. But 14 days later, when the ship arrived in Havana, most of its passengers were denied entry.
Refused safe harbor in Cuba, the United States and Canada, the refugees were forced to return to Europe. That June, Buxbaum and 222 other passengers disembarked in France. Discouraged but undeterred, he clung to the hope that he would eventually secure a visa to America.
It was not to be. Sometime between Nov. 6 and Nov. 8, 1942, Buxbaum died aboard a transport bound for Auschwitz-Birkenau. Until recently, that was all Bonnie Elkaim knew about her great-grandfather.
Now, thanks to the Center for Jewish History’s newly launched initiative, “Histories and Mysteries,” Elkaim knows what happened between Buxbaum’s arrival in France in 1939 and his death three years later. The project helps families investigate Holocaust-era cold cases through crowdsourced genealogy, expert archival research and community collaboration.
“I’m extremely grateful that I filled in some of the pieces. I didn’t want my great-grandfather to just be a statistic,” Elkaim, 58, told me in a Zoom interview.
The initiative was made possible by a nearly $300,000 grant from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, or the Claims Conference. Since the project was launched in January, genealogists at CJH have received nearly 50 inquiries from the United States, Germany, Austria, the United Kingdom, and Canada, and have begun work on 11 cases.
“This project brings together passed-down family stories and the irreplaceable truth found in the archive. By taking part in this work, each person helps restore histories stolen in the Holocaust and gives families a chance to reclaim pieces of their past,” said Jenny Rappaport, head genealogist at the Ackman & Ziff Family Genealogy Institute.
Elkaim’s story will be the first shared publicly, released in weekly social media posts through July 31.
Miriam Frankel, CJH’s director of social media, said she hopes the project’s collaborative nature will resonate with audiences.
“What I love about the project is the communal aspect and being able to steward these stories into the digital world and affirm that they matter,” Frankel said.
The idea for the project grew out of the family history of Ilana Rosenbluth, CJH’s communications director.
When Nazi Germany invaded Poland on Sept. 1, 1939, Rosenbluth’s father, then four years old, was living with his parents in eastern Poland. By month’s end, the country had been divided between Germany and the Soviet Union.
Rosenbluth’s family fled eastward, moving from Lvov to Siberia and eventually Uzbekistan, where food was scarce and disease rampant. During that time, her grandmother gave birth to a daughter, Lucia, known as Lucy, who later died of starvation.
In 1943, desperate to support his family, Rosenbluth’s grandfather boarded a train carrying bolts of fabric and disappeared.
“There are varying accounts of what happened to him, but the truth is my family has never had closure,” Rosenbluth said, adding that this initiative may be the last chance for us, and people like us to find answers.
As the number of living witnesses declines, preserving Holocaust history has taken on new urgency, said Gideon Taylor, president of the Claims Conference.
“We’re at a unique moment in time in terms of Holocaust memory and education. Fewer and fewer people have direct knowledge of it,” Taylor said.
A 2020 Claims Conference survey found that 63% of Americans do not know that six million Jews were murdered in the Holocaust, and nearly half cannot name a single one of the more than 400,000 camps and ghettos that existed across Europe.
Elkaim, a retired New York City teacher, says she first learned about the Holocaust when she was nine years old.
“I only knew a few limited facts. I knew my grandparents had survived and my great-grandfather hadn’t. My grandmother felt a lot of survivor guilt and didn’t talk about it, and people didn’t ask questions then,” she said.
Now an educator and guide at CJH’s Anne Frank exhibition, Elkaim spent years searching for fragments of information that might transform her great-grandfather from an abstraction into a living, breathing person.
“I wanted to feel a connection with him,” she said.
When Rappaport received Elkaim’s inquiry, she immediately began contacting archivists in Germany and France. She also worked with CJH partner organizations, including the Leo Baeck Institute and YIVO, which held a census record from the General Union of French Israelites. The document placed Buxbaum in Vienne, France, between 1941 and 1942 and showed that he was unemployed. Rappaport also combed databases such as Ancestry.com, which contains extensive German vital records.
“Sometimes a single clue can rewrite an entire family story,” Rappaport said.
In Elkaim’s case, it was three clues.
The first breakthrough was the death record of Elkaim’s great-grandmother, Pauline Rothschild Buxbaum, which confirmed that he was in Kassel, Germany, on March 24, 1939.
Next came his 1876 German birth record, which verified his identity across multiple French documents.
Finally, a typed marriage record for Levi Buxbaum and Pauline Rothschild further confirmed the timeline, placing him definitively in Germany shortly before his flight from Nazi persecution.
Piece by piece, Rappaport reconstructed what followed.
In September 1939, Buxbaum was interned as an “enemy alien” at Camp du Ruchard, a former convalescence hospital for Belgian soldiers after World War I. He lived as a refugee for four years before being arrested and transferred to the Drancy internment camp. All the while he never stopped trying to get to America.
The last document bearing his name appears on Transport 42 from Drancy to Auschwitz-Birkenau.
“He either died on the transport or immediately after arriving. There’s no way to know exactly. But I admire him so much and how hard he fought to survive,” Elkaim said.
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The Netherlands will return to Eurovision after boycott over Israel
(JTA) — The Netherlands will return to the Eurovision Song Contest, overriding a broadcaster that withdrew over Israel’s actions in Gaza.
The Dutch organization that oversees public broadcasting, the Nederlandse Publieke Omroep, said on Wednesday that it will take over the country’s entry to Eurovision after Avrotros, the broadcaster that usually takes part in Eurovision for the Netherlands, pulled out of the 2027 event in Burgas, Bulgaria.
Avrotros said last month that it withdrew because the event “can no longer be considered neutral,” citing Israel’s inclusion amid “the severe humanitarian suffering in Gaza and the ongoing restrictions on press freedom.”
Avrotros dropped out of the most recent contest in May 2026, and the Netherlands did not participate after the NPO ruled out identifying another broadcaster. Spain, Ireland, Iceland and Slovenia also boycotted this year’s Eurovision. Israel’s participation in the world’s largest music contest has become a source of intense controversy, sparking mass protests. The contest drew 35 million fewer viewers this year.
For the next Eurovision, NPO is assigning the broadcaster NOS to provide coverage of the event and an “independent team of experts” to select the Dutch act.
“We understand that participation in the Eurovision Song Contest evokes mixed feelings in the Netherlands,” said Jet de Ranitz, the chairman of the NPO’s executive board. “We have explicitly asked the [European Broadcasting Union] to once again make the unifying character of the festival an important part of the event, in recognition of a time of geopolitical unrest, war, and polarization.”
The NPO added that the EBU, which owns the contest, has “taken significant steps regarding the rules of the Eurovision Song Contest.” The EBU introduced changes in August that included barring countries involved in armed conflict from hosting the competition. It also made adjustments to the voting process after accusations of politically motivated voting.
Avrotros said the new rules were not sufficient to ensure that Eurovision remains “independent and neutral.”
Martin Green, the director of Eurovision, said in a statement that the contest was “delighted to welcome the Netherlands back” in 2027.
Ireland is set to boycott Eurovision again in 2027 after RTÉ, the national broadcaster, said last week that its position “remains unchanged.”
RTÉ cited “the appalling and ongoing loss of lives in Gaza and the humanitarian crisis there which continues to put the lives of so many civilians at risk,” adding that it was “deeply concerned by the continued denial of independent access to international journalists to the territory.”
Spain could also stay out of Eurovision next year. José Pablo López, the president of Spanish broadcaster RTVE, announced at a Senate hearing on Tuesday that he supported a continued boycott, saying it was “painful that Israel continues to participate.”
Meanwhile, Belgium confirmed its participation despite calls for a boycott by its public media unions.
“Participation is in no way an endorsement or normalization of what is happening in Gaza and the rest of the world,” said Frederik Delaplace, the CEO of the Flemish broadcaster VRT. “We do note, however, that the EBU is no longer shying away from these difficult societal and geopolitical issues.”
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Police label shooting in Belleville, Ontario, a hate-motivated attack against the Jewish community
(JTA) — TORONTO – The shooter who opened fire on a Belleville, Ontario, synagogue Sunday evening committed an anti-Jewish hate-motivated offense, according to the city’s police chief.
“This was a deliberate attack directed at members of the Jewish community during one of the holiest observances of the year,” Belleville police chief Murray Rodd said at a press conference on Thursday, adding that the shooter had combustible materials, including gasoline, in his truck.
He said the threat posed to Jewish communities required increased alertness on the part of Canadian law enforcement. Police stationed outside the Sons of Jacob synagogue had engaged in a shootout with the assailant, Sean Ward, that prevented him from entering the building as members of the congregation were about to begin Yom Kippur services.
Rodd noted that the force had a long-time relationship with the Jewish community that involved “our proactive pre-positioning of on-duty staff” to ensure the safety of Jewish worshippers. “One of the messages to my colleagues around the province and the country is: It is clearly time that we all be proactive.”
Rodd said the efforts of Constables Jeff Smith and Michael McCurdy prevented the attacker from using the explosive materials he had with him, as well as a “significant” amount of ammunition.
Smith, who was stationed outside of Sons of Jacob to provide security, remains in critical condition but is making progress, according to Rodd. Ward later died of his wounds from the exchange with police.
“[The shooter] had the means, the mechanism, and the motive to perpetrate a greater act. The only thing that stopped entry into the synagogue to execute the intent were the two officers,” said Rodd. “He was equipped with other weapons and the means to carry on a gun battle for a long period of time.”
The CBC reported that police obtained a video of the attack in Belleville, a town over 100 miles east of Toronto on the north shore of Lake Ontario. On the video, Ward is heard shouting. Police report he is saying, “You are going to die for the Jews.”
Rodd confirmed that before Ward targeted the Sons of Jacob, he scoped out the synagogue grounds. “We know that there was a reconnaissance in the presence of our officer, but nothing that would have alarmed him or would have triggered him to be on the defensive,” Rodd said.
Ward was a former member of the Canadian Armed Forces. Rodd noted.
“He was shot multiple times in multiple places,” Rodd said. “He has everything extending from fractures to wounds, and is still bearing shrapnel.”
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US Senate Democrats seek sanctions on those facilitating controversial West Bank settlement project
(JTA) — A slate of U.S. Senate Democrats, led by staunch Israel supporter Chris Coons, is seeking to sanction individuals and businesses linked to a controversial settlement expansion in the West Bank.
The massive E1 project, which would add 3,401 housing units east of Jerusalem, would effectively bisect the West Bank, inhibiting the prospects for a contiguous Palestinian state in the West Bank. It would also further separate the West Bank from East Jerusalem, which Palestinians seek as the capital of a future state. Israel recently issued new construction tenders for the project, following the government’s approval of the plans last summer.
Coons, of Delaware, introduced legislation this week that would target “any foreign person” deemed “responsible for or complicit in” the construction or financing of, or investment in, the planned E1 settlement, as well as the leaders of any entity that has engaged in such activities.
“As Palestinian civilians face a campaign of devastation and fear from violent extremist settlers, the United States must send a strong message that this behavior is unacceptable,” Coons said in a statement.
Israel, he added, must demonstrate “that it remains committed to freedom, security, prosperity, and self-determination for all Israelis and Palestinians.”
Global leaders have slammed the prospective development, as have many U.S. lawmakers. Yet even amid the increased criticism of the Israeli government, the bill is unlikely to advance in a Congress with Republican majorities in both chambers.
Coons thus far has garnered support from 18 of the Senate’s 44 other Democrats, including three co-authors: Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Ron Wyden of Oregon and Ruben Gallego of Arizona. Wyden is Jewish and a longtime Israel supporter.
“For decades, American presidents from both parties have warned successive Israeli governments that construction in E1 threatened the viability of a Palestinian state and was unacceptable to the United States,” Coons said.
As unlikely as it is that the bill will pass, its introduction is symbolic of the chasm that has grown in recent years between Israel and the Democratic Party. The legislation is led by Coons, who has a solid pro-Israel record. Previous sanctions backed by Democrats, including by former President Joe Biden, have generally targeted settler violence and offensive weapons, while this bill centers on what Israel’s government would regard as a conventional building project.
Warren, Wyden and Gallego all voted in favor of a failed resolution authored by independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, which sought to stop the sale of military bulldozers to Israel. Coons, who voted against the measure, was one of just seven Democrats to do so.
While Warren’s position on Israel has fluctuated in recent years, she has consistently maintained that Israel has a right to defend itself and has voted against measures to boycott, divest from and sanction Israel. But she has been a sharp critic of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and suggested conditioning military aid to Israel on compliance with U.S. and international humanitarian law.
Regarding the E1 settlement sanctions bill, Warren said the U.S. “must use all diplomatic and economic tools available to counter rapid settlement expansion and extremist settler violence.” These “spiraling trends” risk undermining “the prospect of lasting peace for Israelis and Palestinians,” she added.
The bill would sanction “foreign persons that have facilitated Israeli settlement construction in the E1 area,” including those who have submitted tender bids, offered guarantees to such bids, signed development or lease agreements, provided construction-related services or financed related infrastructure.
The sanctions would “block and prohibit all transactions in property and interests in property” of such a person in the U.S., with exceptions made for those providing humanitarian assistance or conducting intelligence activities in the area.
“The E1 settlement project is a move towards de facto annexation of the West Bank,” Warren stated. “Those who choose to facilitate settlement construction should understand that they risk losing access to the U.S. financial system.”
Wyden, who has a similar record of backing Israel while criticizing Netanyahu, slammed the prime minister’s “disgraceful policy of expanding West Bank settlements,” noting that such activity “crosses a clear red line and makes Palestinian statehood and lasting peace even more difficult.”
He, too, urged the U.S. to “stand up against Netanyahu’s campaign of violence and aggression against Palestinian civilians” by sanctioning those who “are complicit in this unlawful action.”
The fourth co-author, Gallego, in recent months has shifted his stance from pro-Israel centrist to a fierce and outspoken opponent of the country’s current military operations.
“Proposed Israeli construction of new settlement homes in the E1 area would cut off East Jerusalem from the West Bank and threaten a viable Palestinian state,” he said.
Describing the project as “a step in the wrong direction,” he noted that “for decades, Democrats and Republicans alike have pushed for a two-state solution.”
Coons, Warren, Wyden and Gallego are not alone in hammering the advancement of the E1 project. Their bill followed collective action taken by the United Kingdom, France and Canada earlier this month, when the countries decided to ban goods from West Bank settlements and Jewish areas of East Jerusalem.
At the same time, the U.K. and 11 other nations released a joint statement announcing “their intention to introduce national and/or support European restrictions on trade in goods with settlements which are illegal under international law.”
At the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday, British Prime Minister Andy Burnham warned that the E1 settlement’s construction would “threaten to put a viable Palestinian state beyond reach.”
“We want to see the suffering and death finally come to an end,” Burnham added. “We want to see Israeli and Palestinian people living side by side in peace and security.”
Back in Washington, joining the four co-authors of the bill were 15 other senators who signed on as cosponsors, most of whom are likewise long-time allies of Israel but sharp critics of the Netanyahu government.
The co-sponsors include Michael Bennet of Colorado, Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, Martin Heinrich of New Mexico, Tim Kaine of Virginia, Mark Kelly of Arizona, Andy Kim of New Jersey, Jeff Merkley of Oregon, Chris Murphy of Connecticut, Patty Murray of Washington, Jack Reed of Rhode Island, Brian Schatz of Hawaii, Adam Schiff of California, Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, Chris Van Hollen of Maryland and Peter Welch of Vermont.
The liberal pro-Israel group J Street welcomed the legislation, with its president, Jeremy Ben-Ami, declaring “the end of the era in which right-wing Israeli governments could ignore U.S. demands to halt settlement expansion.”
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