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A sign in my neighborhood says ‘The Holocaust is fake’ — I wish I felt surprised
When I saw a sign on my streetcorner in Chicago that said “The Holocaust is fake,” I immediately stopped. I had just left the pool and was on my way to shop for Shabbat. Disgusted, I brought an older neighbor to take a look. I knew he had taken down his mezuzah in fear after some of the protests after Oct. 7 and had only recently put another Jewish symbol back up.
I wanted company as I snapped a picture of the sign, but I also wanted him to be aware of what was happening in the neighborhood. Because these days, the truth and lies are blurred.
Later, I learned that similar stickers and graffiti, some of it misspelled, had appeared on other corners and benches on the Far North side of Chicago, traditionally a stronghold of the Jewish community here, which is the third largest in the U.S.
“Holocaust” and “fake” are two words whose meanings used to be clear to all. Yet the doubt cast on both “Holocaust” and “fake” represent two disturbing trends; their convergence is dangerous, and entirely predictable.
Those who traffic in Holocaust minimization and denial have been recent guests on The Joe Rogan Experience, the country’s #1 podcast, which has far more listeners than network television. Rogan, who has hosted the “Holocaust revisionist” Darryl Cooper, has 19.4 million subscribers on YouTube, 19.7 million on Instagram and 15 million on X. Meanwhile, NBC and CBS News average 5.6 and 3.6 million viewers, respectively.
Redefining fake
Meanwhile, the mainstream news media, where fact-checking is prized, has been maligned for years as “fake news,” a term the current U.S. president uses so often that no one blinks when something real is dismissed. When fact-checked information is “fake,” it’s not surprising to see history described that way too.
The Holocaust was the ultimate truth of the 20th century. The ghettos, the crematoria, the gas chambers — so many elements of the industrialized and intentional slaughter of an entire people were without precedent and were the final stop on centuries of anti-Jewish hatred.
In the weeks after Oct. 7, I was haunted by the thought that the “genocide” charge against Israel was not just about criticizing Israel, but at root, about minimizing the Holocaust.
The term “genocide” was coined by Raphael Lemkin, a Polish-Jewish lawyer who had lost 49 members of his family in the Holocaust.
Yet the world’s oldest Holocaust archive changed its name in September 2019 from the Wiener Library for the Study of the Holocaust and Genocide to the Wiener Holocaust Library. The Library, located in London, stated that it wanted to clarify “the centrality of the Holocaust” to our work without changing its “commitment to furthering the study of genocide.”
A few years earlier, in 2011, Jeremy Corbyn, who would become Labour Party leader in 2015, sought to change “Holocaust Memorial Day” to “Genocide Memorial Day — Never Again for Anyone” in 2011. That prompted swift backlash.
“Holocaust Memorial Day already rightly includes all victims of the Nazis and subsequent genocides,” Karen Pollock, chief executive of the UK’s Holocaust Educational Trust, wrote at the time on Twitter. “But the Holocaust was a specific crime, with antisemitism at its core. Any attempt to remove that specificity is a form of denial and distortion.”
Changing the meaning of the word ‘Holocaust’
Increasingly, the word ‘Holocaust’ is being used to describe what was not the Holocaust.
Simon and Schuster is currently promoting a forthcoming book edited by Susan Abulhawa that it describes as documenting “the holocaust of our time.” The editor’s note accompanying the copy that reviewers have received is signed “From the river to the sea.”
According to the United States Holocaust Museum, “approximately 9.5 million Jews lived in Europe in 1933, the year Hitler came to power. This number represented 1.7% of Europe’s total population and more than 60 percent of the world’s Jewish population. By 1945, most European Jews — 2 out of every 3 — had been killed.”
The world Jewish population still hasn’t recovered its 1933 levels.
Even in this moment where words and numbers increasingly do not matter, there is no account — not even from the Hamas-run Health Ministry itself—-that suggests that 2/3 of Gazans have been killed in this conflict.
This is not to minimize the tremendous suffering of both Israelis and Palestinians in a war that began with a Hamas-led attack on Israel, in which some Gazan civilians participated. It was a horrible and harrowing two years.
Returned Israeli hostages have described being held in the homes of ordinary Gazans. CNN reported that three hostages were held in the home of a physician whose son was a freelance journalist for the US-based Palestine Chronicle. The son filed dispatches about the war in Gaza while his family held hostages.
Fact-check: A military attack and hostage-taking were not features of the Jewish community’s experience during the Holocaust.
What is real? What is fake?
Who’s a journalist? Who’s a hostage-holder?
What’s “news”? What’s “experience”?
What’s the difference between the Holocaust and the holocaust?
,
In this world where facts can be fake and nothing is taboo, anything seems possible. You can make the Holocaust into a lower-case “holocaust.” You can make Raphael Lemkin, the columnist for Zionist World, into an anti-Zionist, which was what Lemkin’s family asserted that the Lemkin Institute was doing, as it used their relative’s name while attacking Israel. And you can put up a sticker in a Jewish neighborhood claiming that the “Holocaust is fake.”
Holding on to disgust
I wrote to various family members with a photo of the sign in my neighborhood. None reacted too strongly; “I hate to say it, but I’m numb to this already,” one wrote.
I’m glad I’m still disgusted. I’m writing this to encourage you to be disgusted, too. Resist the guests on podcast “experience” forums who claim that antisemitism is being exaggerated, and that the Holocaust wasn’t that bad.
Because once holocaust is just a word, marketing copy from a publisher, devoid of Jewish content, and cleansed of historical accuracy, all words can be redefined to serve this kingdom of lies we increasingly seem to be living in.
The post A sign in my neighborhood says ‘The Holocaust is fake’ — I wish I felt surprised appeared first on The Forward.
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Israel, Australia Probe Iran’s Suspected Role in Sydney Attack as Tehran Issues Conflicting Statements
Police officers stand guard following the attack on a Jewish holiday celebration at Sydney’s Bondi Beach, in Sydney, Australia, Dec. 15, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Flavio Brancaleone
Israeli and Australian authorities have launched an investigation into whether Iran was behind the deadly attack on a Hanukkah celebration at Sydney’s Bondi Beach on Sunday that killed 15 people who attended the Jewish gathering and wounded at least 40 others.
As Australian authorities continued their probe into the weekend massacre at Bondi Beach in southeastern New South Wales, new evidence revealed that the deadly shooting was planned to include explosive devices that were successfully defused.
According to the British outlet The Telegraph, Israeli officials believe Iran orchestrated the attack, probing potential links to the regime’s terrorist proxies.
“We believe Iran is behind the attack. We are also investigating a connection with Hezbollah, Hamas, and a Pakistani terrorist organization,” an Israeli official told the paper, listing some of the Islamist groups backed by Tehran.
Israel had previously warned Australia about Iranian plots amid rising threats against Jews and Israelis abroad, and Israeli officials are now investigating whether Iran was the mastermind behind the mass shooting targeting Sydney’s Jewish community, Israeli media reported.
“In recent months, Iran has increased its activity to orchestrate attacks against Israeli and Jewish targets around the world,” a senior Israeli security official told Israel Hayom.
“There is no doubt that the direction and infrastructure for the [Bondi Beach] attack originated in Tehran,” he continued.
Israeli officials have accused the Australian government of ignoring earlier warnings and intelligence from this year that flagged potential terrorist attacks and rising threats, saying authorities failed to take sufficient action to protect the local Jewish community and prevent a massacre before what transpired in Sydney over the weekend.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese of pouring “fuel on the antisemitic fire” and ignoring Israeli warnings, as tensions rise over Canberra’s anti-Israel stance and its failure to address a sharp rise in antisemitic attacks.
The Australian government’s policies, particularly its recognition of a Palestinian state in September, “pour fuel on the antisemitic fire, reward Hamas terror, embolden those who menace Australian Jews, and encourage the Jew hatred now stalking your streets,” the Israeli leader said.
“Antisemitism is a cancer. It spreads when leaders stay silent. You must replace weakness with action,” he continued.
Albanese rejected such accusations, saying his priority was to unite the nation and prevent terrorists from sowing division or turning Australians against each other.
“Now more than ever, we must support the Jewish community during this incredibly difficult time — not just those grieving the loss of loved ones and friends, but all members of the Jewish community throughout Australia,” Albanese said.
According to Australian news outlet ABC, Naveed Akram, one of the terrorists allegedly behind the Sydney attack, was previously on the radar of the Australian Security Intelligence Organization (ASIO), which had been monitoring him for six years due to his links with an Islamic State (ISIS) cell in the country.
Amid already tense relations with Iran, Australia has not dismissed the possibility of Iranian involvement in the attack, with authorities reportedly working alongside Israeli intelligence agencies in their investigation.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei publicly condemned the “violent attack” in Syndey, though his statement was vague and made no mention of antisemitism, the local Jewish community, or any specific target.
“Terror violence and mass killing shall be condemned, wherever they’re committed,” he said in a post on X.
However, Iranian state and semi-official media pushed a starkly different narrative, spreading conspiracy theories that framed the attack as a plot orchestrated by Israel. Other outlets expressed support for the attack, even praising it, claiming that the rabbi who was killed during the massacre, Eli Shlanger, was a “staunch advocate of genocide in Gaza.”
The Iranian news agency Mehr openly called “the Zionist regime” as the main suspect, portraying the attack as a “false flag” operation allegedly designed to serve Israeli interests.
Tensions between Australia and Iran have escalated sharply this year, after Canberra severed diplomatic relations with Tehran and expelled the Iranian ambassador in August, citing the regime’s role in threats and terrorist attacks against the local Jewish community.
The government identified the Islamist regime in Tehran as the mastermind behind at least two major antisemitic arson attacks in Australia, saying it was likely responsible for additional incidents.
In November, Australia officially designated Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a state-sponsored terrorist organization.
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Israel Slams ICC decision to Continue Gaza War Investigation as ‘Politics in the Guise of International Law’
A general view of the International Criminal Court, in The Hague, Netherlands, March 12, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Wolfgang Rattay
Israel lambasted a decision by appeals judges at the International Criminal Court on Monday to reject one in a series of legal challenges brought by Jerusalem against the court’s probe into its conduct of the Gaza war.
On appeal, judges refused to overturn a lower court decision that the prosecution’s investigation into alleged crimes under its jurisdiction could include events following the deadly attack on Israel by Palestinian terrorist group Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023.
The ruling means the investigation continues and the arrest warrants issued last year for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense chief Yoav Gallant remain in place.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry called the ruling an example of the ICC‘s disregard for the sovereign rights of countries who are not members of the court, in a post on social media platform X.
“Israel rejects the ICC Appeals Chamber’s decision, by a narrow majority, to deny Israel’s right to receive advance notice, as demanded by the principle of complementarity particularly with regard to a democratic state with an independent and robust judicial system,” the ministry posted.
“This is yet another example of the ongoing politicization of the ICC and its blatant disregard for the sovereign rights of non-party states, as well as its own obligations under the Rome Statute,” it continued, adding: “This is what politics in the guise of ‘international law’ looks like.”
The ICC was founded in 2002 under a treaty giving it jurisdiction to prosecute genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes that were either committed by a citizen of a member state or had taken place on a member state’s territory.
The ICC has no jurisdiction over Israel as it is not a signatory to the Rome Statute, which established the court. Other countries including the US have similarly not signed the ICC charter. However, the ICC has asserted jurisdiction by accepting “Palestine” as a signatory in 2015, despite no such state being recognized under international law.
Israel has adamantly denied war crimes in Gaza, where it has waged a military campaign to eliminate Hamas following the terrorist group’s Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of and massacre across southern Israel.
A ceasefire agreement in the conflict took effect on Oct. 10, but the war destroyed much of Gaza’s infrastructure.
This ruling focuses on only one of several Israeli legal challenges against the ICC investigations and the arrest warrants for its officials. There is no timeline for the court to rule on the various other challenges to its jurisdiction in this case.
Last November, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu, Gallant, and now-deceased Hamas terror leader Ibrahim al-Masri (better known as Mohammed Deif) for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza conflict.
Khan initially made his surprise demand for arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant on the same day in May that he suddenly canceled a long-planned visit to both Gaza and Israel to collect evidence of alleged war crimes. The last-second cancellation reportedly infuriated US and British leaders, as the trip would have offered Israeli leaders a first opportunity to present their position and outline any action they were taking to respond to the allegations.
However, the ICC said there were reasonable grounds to believe Netanyahu and Gallant were criminally responsible for starvation in Gaza and the persecution of Palestinians — charges vehemently denied by Israel, which has provided significant humanitarian aid into the enclave during the war.
Israel also says it has gone to unprecedented lengths to try and avoid civilian casualties, despite Hamas’s widely acknowledged military strategy of embedding its terrorists within Gaza’s civilian population and commandeering civilian facilities like hospitals, schools, and mosques to run operations and direct attacks.
US and Israeli officials have issued blistering condemnations of the ICC move, decrying the court for drawing a moral equivalence between Israel’s democratically elected leaders and the heads of Hamas, which launched the war in Gaza with its Oct. 7 atrocities.
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Israeli Tech Sector Annual Deals, Listings Jump to $59 Billion, PwC Says
Yoni Assia, CEO of eToro, speaks before ringing the opening bell to celebrate the company’s IPO on Nasdaq, in New York City, US, May 15, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Brendan McDermid
Appetite for Israeli technology innovation has remained undiminished this year, with a surge in acquisitions and IPOs led by Alphabet’s $32 billion purchase of Israeli cybersecurity company Wiz, PwC Israel said on Monday.
The consultancy said in a report that such deals jumped by 340% to nearly $59 billion, from $13.4 billion in 2024. Excluding the Wiz deal, the value of transactions doubled to $32 billion.
There were seven IPOs with a combined valuation of $14.6 billion, up from the $781 million total achieved with six listings in 2024, demonstrating strong investor demand despite Israel’s two-year war against Palestinian terrorist group Hamas.
PwC noted a decline in medium-sized deals between $100 million and $500 million, but more small and larger deals.
There were six acquisitions above $1 billion this year, including fintech firms Next Insurance (bought for $2.6 billion) and Melio ($2.5 billion), with Nasdaq listings for Navan and eToro at valuations of $6.2 billion and $4.4 billion respectively.
Yaron Weizenbluth, a partner and head of audit in PwC Israel, said that while more tech entrepreneurs and managers have relocated operations overseas, many companies still rely on the “unique talent in Israel.”
“The Israeli market has demonstrated an incredible ability to adapt and close gaps in the past; the potential for value creation is immense,” he said.