Uncategorized
Broadway stars to perform songs written during the Holocaust at Carnegie Hall
(New York Jewish Week) — More than a dozen songs written by Jews imprisoned in concentration camps and ghettos during the Holocaust will be brought to life at Carnegie Hall next week as part of a commemoration of International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
Featuring Broadway bigwigs and performers such as Harvey Fierstein, Chita Rivera, Mikhl Yashinsky and Joel Grey, the one-night-only “We Are Here: Songs from the Holocaust” performance will take place on Thurs., January 26 at 7:30 p.m.
“I know a lot about music — I’ve spent my whole life doing it — and I never knew there were songs that came out of the camps and the ghettos,” said music producer and composer Ira Antelis, who conceived of the concert several years ago. “I knew there was classical music in Theresienstadt, but I was not familiar with what I call the ‘Bruce Springsteen’ or ‘Pete Seeger’ music of the camps.”
As it turns out, however, hundreds of what might be called folk and popular songs were written — mostly in Yiddish — by Jews in concentration camps and ghettos. In the decades following the war, many were published in newspapers, songbook collections and memoirs in Europe, Israel and the United States.
The “We Are Here” concert draws its name from one such songbook, titled ““We Are Here: Songs of the Holocaust,” which was compiled in 1983 by Eleanor Mlotek and Malke Gottlieb, with a foreword by Elie Wiesel. Antelis discovered the book while doing research on Wiesel after his death in 2016.
Shortly after he read the songbook, Antelis, who lives in Chicago, was visiting family in New York when he ran into an old friend, Rabbi Charlie Savenor. A former educational director at Park Avenue Synagogue, Savenor was teaching a class on Holocaust memoirs there at the time.
“Keeping a memoir, hiding it, and making sure that whether or not you live and die your experience would be remembered was an act of deep resistance,” said Savenor, who is now the executive director of Civic Spirit, an organization that advocates for civic education. “Writing this music and these songs was doing the same exact thing.”
It felt like fate that the two had reconnected after 15 years, and they decided to collaborate on the project.
Initially, the pair planned to mount a concert just using songs from the “We Are Here” anthology. But when the pandemic put everything on hold, Antelis used the time to do additional research — which led him to discover a 2014 doctoral dissertation that had compiled research about 14 additional songbooks published between 1945-1949. Each of these volumes was filled with dozens of songs from a particular camp or ghetto — songs from Bialystok, Vilna, Munich and others.
“This is our concert,” Antelis thought.
Newly reinvigorated, the concert he was conceiving would feature one song from each songbook.
“What better way to say ‘We Are Here’ than to carry on somebody’s voice from 1940, who was murdered?” Savenor said. “We have the opportunity to do that.”
The first-ever concert of these songs was produced last year at Chicago’s Temple Sholom. That program was on Yom HaShoah, so it included a yahrzeit candlelighting and several speeches. This year, by contrast, the concert will focus almost entirely on the music and the performers, many of whom are no strangers to drawing crowds.
Though many of the songs featured in “We Are Here” have been translated into English, several will be sung in their original Yiddish, including “Minuten Fon Bitahon” (“Minutes of Faith”) by Mordechai Gebirtig. Sung by Steven Skybell, who is coming off of a seven-week off-Broadway run as Tevye in “Fiddler on the Roof in Yiddish,” the song will open the concert.
“One of the most heartbreaking and amazing things about Yiddish songs, in general, is that they don’t shy away from putting into song every aspect of the Jewish life,” said Skybell, who began seriously learning Yiddish during the pandemic. “It’s really unlike any other type of music I’ve ever seen, in that it does not shy away from ugly reality and sometimes hopeless situations.”
At the same time, however, Savenor said he is surprised at how uplifting many of the songs are, considering the horrible circumstances their writers were enduring. “This is not the Mourner’s Kaddish for an hour and forty five minutes,” he said. “It’s just people talking about love and relationships, and dreams and aspirations. It’s a lot more about life than it is about mourning.”
Each song will be introduced by a presenter who will share a brief personal anecdote relating to the Holocaust. Along with hosts Antelis and Savenor, these presenters include Jack Kliger, the president and CEO of the Museum of Jewish Heritage; Scott Richman, director of the New York and New Jersey branch of the Anti-Defamation League and Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the archbishop of New York.
The diversity of the presenters and performers is intentional, said Antelis and Savenor, emphasizing that part of the purpose of the concert is to showcase a coming together across races, religions and ethnicities. The aim, they said, is to show unity and entrench the message of “never again.”
That’s also why the concert is being presented at historic Carnegie Hall, rather than a synagogue. “To have the sounds of Yiddish reverberating in Carnegie Hall gives me special delight,” said Skybell. “The fact that Yiddish is alive and well and we hear it at Carnegie Hall — it’s just to say that we are here, we’re not going away and we won’t be silenced.”
Proceeds from the performance will be donated to the Museum of Jewish Heritage in Manhattan. Though it will not be recorded for the public or live streamed, Antelis and Savenor said they hope to bring the production around the country and even to Europe to perform the songs at the sites of the ghettos and camps where they were originally composed.
“With everything that’s going on, we cannot be silent — people need to step up. If we don’t stand against antisemitism and hate in every facet, then who are we?” Antelis said. “I think this is the most important concert in many, many years, especially in our culture.”
“We are Here: Songs From the Holocaust” is a one-night event on the Perelman Stage at Carnegie Hall (881 7th Ave.) on Jan. 26 at 7:30 pm. Buy tickets here.
—
The post Broadway stars to perform songs written during the Holocaust at Carnegie Hall appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Uncategorized
Iran Fast-Boat Swarms Add to Hormuz Threats for Shipping
A satellite image shows a fleet of small boats at sea, north of the Strait of Hormuz near the Kargan coast, Iran, April 22, 2026. Photo: European Union/Copernicus Sentinel-2/Handout via REUTERS
Iran‘s use of a swarm of small, fast boats to seize two container ships near the Strait of Hormuz could undermine suggestions US forces have disabled its naval threat and reveals the challenges facing reopening one of the world’s most important oil export routes.
US President Donald Trump on Monday acknowledged that while Iran’s conventional navy had been largely destroyed, its “fast-attack ships” had not been considered much of a threat.
He said any such vessels coming near a US blockade set up outside the strait would be “immediately ELIMINATED” using the “same system of kill” deployed in the Caribbean and Pacific where US air strikes have hit suspected drug boats and killed at least 110 people.
Those boats were not attacking large, unarmed commercial ships, however, nor nearly as heavily armed, with Iran‘s Revolutionary Guards packing heavy machineguns, rocket launchers and, in some cases, anti-ship missiles.
Speedboat attacks now form part of a “layered system of threats,” alongside “shore-based missiles, drones, mines, and electronic interference to create uncertainty and slow decision-making,” Greek maritime security company Diaplous told Reuters.
Iran was estimated to have hundreds, if not thousands, of these boats before the war, often hidden in coastal tunnels, naval bases, or among civilian vessels, according to maritime security specialists.
Some 100 or more may have been destroyed since the Iran war began on Feb. 28, said Corey Ranslem, chief executive of maritime security group Dryad Global.
CHANGE IN TACTICS
Before this week, Iran had relied on missile and drone strikes to hit shipping traffic around the strait, a route which normally handles 20% of the world’s daily oil and liquefied natural gas supply.
Those attacks had stopped with the April 8 ceasefire.
The seizure of the two container ships by Iran followed Washington imposing a blockade on Iran‘s trade by sea and the start of it intercepting Iran-linked oil tankers and other ships.
“The civilian shipping industry is not equipped to prevent Iranian armed forces from seizing vessels,” said Daniel Mueller, a senior analyst at British maritime security company Ambrey.
Typically, about a dozen boats are used in a seizure operation, he added.
Iran‘s fast boats now serve as the “backbone” of Iran’s naval strategy, able to deploy rapidly as part of its “asymmetrical war against the enemy,” a senior Iranian security official told Reuters.
“Because of their very high speeds, these boats can successfully carry out hit-and-run attacks without being detected,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
FAST BOAT LIMITATIONS
Including this week’s seizures, Iran has used small, fast boats at least seven times going back to 2019, Ambrey’s Mueller said.
High winds and swells in the waters off Iran during summer make it hard to conduct such operations, said one Iranian shipping source familiar with the waters.
“When it is very bumpy, they [armed forces onboard] cannot shoot,” the source said.
They are also ill-equipped to go head-to-head with a warship, and would likely suffer “very heavy casualties” in any direct assault on one, said Jeremy Binnie, a Middle East specialist at defense intelligence company Janes.
“Even if they tried to saturate the ship’s defenses by attacking from multiple directions, they would be extremely vulnerable to the air support that would be called in,” he said.
On paper, guided missile strikes would easily destroy these boats, but shoulder-fired missile launchers would pose a threat to low-flying US aircraft, Binnie said.
“It is going to be much harder to eliminate the small boat threat than it was to destroy Iran’s larger naval vessels, which were big targets that were relatively easy to find and track and, at most, only had a limited ability to defend themselves from air attack,” he said.
The reality for the shipping sector is further disruption as well as elevated insurance costs.
After the so-called “tanker war” of the 1980s, Iran increasingly used asymmetric tactics as the Iranian navy was effectively destroyed, much as it has been in the current conflict, said Duncan Potts, a director with consultancy Universal Defense and Security Solutions and a former British Royal Navy vice admiral.
“When the US Navy and the president say, ‘We’ve destroyed the navy, we’ve sunk a frigate off Sri Lanka’ – you’ve done that before, but you’ve forgotten that your opposition here went asymmetric. And they’ve perfected it.”
Uncategorized
UK’s Starmer Worried by Foreign-Backed Proxy Attacks on Jewish Sites in Britain
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and US President Donald Trump (not pictured) hold a bilateral meeting at Trump Turnberry golf course in Turnberry, Scotland, Britain, July 28, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said on Thursday he was “increasingly concerned” about a growing use of proxies by foreign states to carry out attacks in Britain, pledging to bring forward new legislation following recent attacks.
London has seen a string of attacks – mostly arson – on Jewish-linked sites in recent weeks. Some of these are being investigated by counter-terrorism officers, although police say they are not currently being treated as terrorist incidents.
British authorities have increasingly pointed to hostile state activity as part of the backdrop to recent incidents, warning that foreign governments may seek to operate through criminal networks or proxies to maintain deniability.
“I’m increasingly concerned that a number of countries are using proxies for attacks in this country,” he said, speaking after meeting members of the Jewish community at Kenton United Synagogue, which was the target of an arson attack last Sunday.
The fire caused minor smoke damage to an internal room and there were no injuries. A 17-year-old British boy pleaded guilty on Tuesday to arson not endangering life in connection with the incident.
“We have to deal with malign state actors,” Starmer said, adding that it would require legislation by the government.
“I want this country to be a place where everybody feels safe and secure. This is not just a battle for the Jewish community,” Starmer said. “It is our battle. The Britain that I want is a Britain where people can practice their religion, their faith, in safety and security.”
British counter-terrorism police on Wednesday made two further arrests over an alleged plot to carry out an arson attack on a Jewish-linked site in London.
Detectives arrested two men aged 19 and 26 in Watford, northwest of London, on Tuesday, police said. Both remain in custody.
Police did not name a specific location but said the intended target was connected to the Jewish community.
Seven other people arrested earlier in the investigation have since been released on bail, London’s Metropolitan Police said.
British police have been investigating the string of attacks as part of a wider rise in antisemitic threats and criminal activity since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza in October 2023.
Uncategorized
Son of Former Shah of Iran Appeals to Western Countries for Support
Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of Iran’s last shah and an Iranian opposition figure, gestures as he speaks during a press conference at the House of the Bundespressekonferenz in Berlin, Germany, April 23, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Liesa Johannssen
The son of the former Shah appealed to Western countries to join the war against Iran and criticized the decision of the German government not to meet him during his visit to Berlin on Thursday.
Reza Pahlavi, whose father was deposed in the revolution that brought Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to power in 1979, accused Europe of standing by and allowing the Tehran government to continue the bloody repression of protests that killed thousands at the end of last year.
“The question is not whether change will come. Change is on the way,” he told a press conference in Berlin. “The real question is how many Iranians will lose their lives while the community of Western democracies continue to merely watch.”
Demonstrations by both supporters and opponents were held in central Berlin and a person was detained after Pahlavi, who made an appearance, was spattered with some form of red liquid.
POTENTIAL OPPOSITION LEADER
Pahlavi, who has spent most of his life in exile, emerged as a potential opposition leader after anti-government protests erupted in Tehran and other Iranian cities last year.
But Iran‘s opposition movements are deeply divided and many Western governments have been cautious about offering their endorsement because it remains unclear what support he enjoys, almost half a century after his father’s reign was overturned.
European countries, including Germany, have ruled out joining the United States and Israel, which opened the war on Feb. 28 with a wave of airstrikes that killed Iran‘s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Pahlavi’s visit to Germany came as efforts to end the conflict appear to have stalled, with Iran and the United States both maintaining blockades of the vital Strait of Hormuz, the conduit for around a fifth of the world’s oil.
He said it was a shame that Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s government had not offered a meeting during his visit to Germany.
“Exercise your prerogative. As democracies, you’re entitled to talk to whoever you want,” he said.