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Bulgarian Jews skipped an official ceremony marking 80 years since their rescue from the Nazis. Why?
(JTA) — Bulgaria’s president was on hand on Friday for a ceremony marking the 80th anniversary of the country’s dramatic decision to save its 48,000 Jews from the Nazis.
So were representatives of the Bulgarian Orthodox church whose predecessors instigated the rescue, as well as a prominent Bulgarian-born Israeli historian and politician, Michael Bar Zohar, who published an early history of the episode, which was barely known until after the fall of communism.
Together they marched from Bulgaria’s national library — where an exhibition about Bulgaria’s World War II-era king, Tsar Boris III, is being held — to Sofia’s oldest church, where they lay flowers on a memorial to Boris and his wife, Tsarina Joanna.
But conspicuously absent from the ceremony with President Rumen Radev were any representatives of Bulgaria’s contemporary Jewish community,
Community leaders were invited only at the last possible minute, on Thursday afternoon, according to Alexander Oscar, president of Shalom The Organization of Bulgarian Jews. His group had already planned its own observance of March 10, known by Bulgarian Jews as “Day of Salvation.”
But Oscar said he would not have attended even if he’d been invited earlier — and he thought no one else from the local Jewish community would have either.
“Nobody from the community would have taken part in an event honoring the imaginary role of King Boris in rescuing the Bulgarian Jews and presenting a distorted history of the Holocaust,” Oscar told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Oscar’s comments point to a longstanding and increasingly potent dispute over how Tsar Boris III should factor into Bulgaria’s Holocaust memory. Though Boris did sign off on the order to halt the deportation of the country’s Jews, he was also the leader of a fascist government that allied with Nazi Germany, imposed oppressive racial laws on its Jews and facilitated the murder of more than 11,000 Jews in territory it occupied. Boris died under mysterious circumstances shortly after returning from Germany where he met with Hitler in 1943.
Bulgarian troops deported more than 11,000 Jews living in Western Thrace, Vardar, Macedonia and the town of Pirot in today’s Serbia to Nazi death camps, where almost all were murdered.
St. Sophia Church, where the president’s ceremony took place, is home to plaques honoring Tsar Boris III and his wife that briefly stood in Jerusalem’s Bulgarian Forest. The plaques were removed in 2000 after protests by Bulgarian Jews and their descendants who were uncomfortable with lionizing someone who oversaw the murder of Jews during the Holocaust.
Past “Day of Salvation” commemorations have not specifically exalted Boris. But the wartime leader is a favorite of Bulgaria’s far right and those who admire the country’s pre-communist governments, and his profile has only risen in recent years as Bulgaria, like many other countries, has experienced a strengthening of its right wing.
“What we choose to remember and what we choose to omit when telling our own story is a mark of wisdom, courage and dignity,” wrote Bulgarian Jewish journalist Emmy Barouh in an open letter to Radev before the commemoration event.
“There is no morality to be found in the sinister arithmetic that the lives of 50,000 were ‘paid for’ by the lives of 11,343,” Barouh wrote. “Skipping half of this sad ‘equation’ turns ‘80th anniversary of the rescue’ into another episode of political use of Bulgarian Jews.”
Immediately after the war, the Jewish population of Bulgaria was still about 50,000, its prewar level, according to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. But unlike in most communist countries, the government allowed Jews to emigrate in large numbers and in fact encouraged them to do so; the vast majority departed for Israel in the late 1940s. Today, the World Jewish Congress estimates the country’s Jewish population at between 2,000 and 6,000; the country recently saw the creation of a Jewish school in Sofia and a cultural center in the remains of a crumbling synagogue in the coastal city of Vidin.
The former sanctuary of the central synagogue in Vidin, Bulgaria, built in 1894, is today crumbling and missing a roof. (Jonah Goldman Kay)
Local Jewish leaders marked the anniversary in other ways. Earlier in the week, some traveled to Kavala, Greece, for a ceremony at the site where Bulgarian soldiers deported thousands of Jews to Treblinka in 1943. On Friday, they also held their own ceremony at a different monument in Sofia commemorating both the rescue and the murder of the Jews in Bulgarian-occupied regions. They were joined by public figures including Sofia’s mayor and Bulgaria’s foreign minister, Nikolay Milkov, and its prosecutor general.
Some Bulgarians had openly called for their country to pay greater homage to Tsar Boris III at this year’s March 10 commemorations. Daniela Gortcheva, a Dutch-Bulgarian right-wing media figure, circulated a petition calling for him to be recognized.
The petition asserted that leaving Boris out of the commemoration would be akin to what happened in the Macedonian city of Ohrid last year, when a Bulgarian cultural club named after Boris drew protests from those who noted that Boris’s government was responsible for the murder of thousands of Macedonian Jews.
That incident, the latest in a long-running conflict between the two Balkan nations over World War II history, rocketed Tsar Boris back into the national spotlight in Bulgaria and made his rehabilitation a focus of Bulgarian nationalists.
After Jewish groups rebuffed the petition, Gortcheva attacked her critics on Facebook as ungrateful “heirs of Communists,” “a fifth column of Moscow” and traitors — claims that Jewish leaders say echo antisemitic smears made against Jews in the past.
Shalom, Bulgarian Jewry’s leading organization, has filed a complaint against Gortcheva with Bulgaria’s prosecutor general — the same official who last month ruled that Bulgaria could bar a neo-Nazi march honoring a Nazi collaborator.
“Gortcheva — a great supporter of the Lukov march — has been persistently involved in the spread of Holocaust denial and distortion,” World Jewish Congress Executive Vice President Maram Stern said in a letter to Milkov. “She combines such statements with slanderous claims that the Organization of the Jews in Bulgaria SHALOM and the Organization of the Bulgarian Jews in Israel are disloyal to Bulgaria.”
Following last week’s ceremonies, a group of Bulgarian scholars have circulated their own appeal this week, calling on Bulgarian leaders to acknowledge the deportations of Jews under the country’s rule during the Holocaust.
“Our state never tried to find the appropriate language to mark two inseparable and yet antipodal historical facts: the preserved life of the Jews from the prewar territories of Bulgaria and the deportation to Treblinka (4-29 March 1943) of those from the lands occupied in April 1941,” the appeal reads. “The Bulgarian state should acknowledge publicly, sincerely and unconditionally its responsibility by apologizing for the persecutions and deportations of Jews during World War II.”
“It is a matter of basic decency and tactfulness that emphasizing the salvation should be done by those who were saved and not by the savior,” the petition added. “Here, exactly the opposite occurs: Bulgarians are engaging in self-glorification and inviting the Jewish community to pay them eternal gratitude.”
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50 years after the Dirty War, Argentinians remember the Jews who ‘disappeared’
(JTA) — BUENOS AIRES — As Argentina marks the 50th anniversary of the 1976 military coup, a lesser-known aspect of the dictatorship is gaining attention: the disproportionate number of Jews among the disappeared.
Estimates suggest that as many as 1,900 Jews were abducted, tortured and murdered by the military junta during the six-year Dirty War, when many sources say 30,000 people were disappeared. Depending on the source, Jews represented 5% to 8% of the total, even though Jews made up less than 1% of Argentina’s population at the time.
That grim history is being explored in educational initiatives by Argentina’s Jewish community, aimed at younger generations and focused on understanding how the dictatorship operated and the disproportionate suffering it inflicted on Jews.
“The Jews were subjected to a particular form of treatment that resulted in greater brutality on the part of the repressive forces,” according to a new curriculum released by the education department of AMIA, the Jewish community center in Buenos Aires. “The experience of Jewish Argentines who were victims of state terrorism was marked by a strong antisemitic imprint among many members of the task forces.”
The AMIA project includes meetings between Jewish youth and relatives of the Jewish “disappeared,” as well as visits to memorial sites. Some 1,000 students are expected to take part this month.
A parallel digital project, Eduiot (“Testimonies”), documents the stories of Jewish victims of the military dictatorship and includes meetings between relatives of the disappeared and high school students.
The materials rely on personal testimonies to explain the human impact of the dictatorship and to put individual stories in the broader historical context.
Eduiot includes the story of Fernando Ruben Brodsky, a 22-year-old student who disappeared in 1979, including accounts from relatives who continue to seek answers. His mother, Sarah Brodsky, shares accounts of her son, a psychology student and kindergarten teacher who was abducted from his home on Aug. 8 and never seen again.
The testimonials relate how security forces subjected Jews to antisemitic abuse when they were kidnapped or detained, including Nazi language and symbols and “special” interrogations reserved for Jews.
The anniversary comes amid renewed debate over how Argentina interprets the dictatorship. President Javier Milei’s government has called for a broader account that also includes victims of left-wing guerrilla violence, which some suggest is a way to minimize the crimes of the dictatorship. Milei and other voices close to the government have also questioned the 30,000-victim figure, promoting a lower number (often 9,000).
Under the junta, the military and state security forces targeted suspected left-wing sympathizers, including students, unionists, journalists and activists.
In 1979, Jewish advocacy groups such as the Anti‑Defamation League expressed grave concern over the disappearances, focusing on the Jewish victims, and Jewish families in Argentina and abroad helped compile lists of the missing. According to an ADL official at the time, “Jews are not specifically targeted as Jews. However, the security agents tend to be suspicious of Jews.”
The best-known Jewish target of the state was journalist Jacobo Timerman, who published a left-leaning newspaper, La Opinion. In 1977, the generals who ruled Argentina shut down the paper and imprisoned Timerman. Among other things, Timerman was accused of masterminding a plot to establish a Jewish homeland in the remote Patagonia region of southern Argentina.
He survived, and in his 1981 memoir, “Prisoner Without a Name, Cell Without a Number,” he recounted how he was subjected to torture during his 2 1/2 years in confinement.
According to Eduiot, Jewish advocacy for the disappeared “proved effective in bringing early attention to human rights violations.” The U.S. Congress launched investigations, and in a 1978 article in Le Monde, novelist and Holocaust survivor Marek Halter compared the persecution of Argentine Jews to Nazi-era atrocities.
The Eduiot site includes photographs and audiovisual material, and features the accounts of parents, siblings, cousins, nephews and nieces of Jews persecuted and disappeared under the dictatorship.
“Because every testimony matters and holds great value,” according to its website. “Because these dark episodes of our history must never be repeated, and because we want each of the disappeared to have a space of remembrance on this site, helping families sustain their memory and uphold the call for justice.”
The post 50 years after the Dirty War, Argentinians remember the Jews who ‘disappeared’ appeared first on The Forward.
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Fortnite tops ADL’s new ‘leaderboard’ ranking video games on antisemitism safeguards
(JTA) — The online video game Fortnite tops the Anti-Defamation League’s “leaderboard” ranking online video game companies on their efforts to curb antisemitism and extremism on their platforms.
The Online Gaming Leaderboard, which the antisemitism watchdog billed as the “first comprehensive public evaluation” of how online multiplayer games address antisemitism, ranked 10 popular online games based on safety features, moderation, player protections and written policies meant to address antisemitism and hate.
Fortnite was followed at the top of the rankings by Grand Theft Auto Online, Call of Duty and Minecraft. Games labeled as having “limited protection” by the ADL included Counter-Strike 2 and PUBG: Battlegrounds.
Madden NFL, Valorant, Clash Royale and Roblox, a collaborative computer gaming platform for children as young as 7, were ranked as having “moderate protection.”
“Without strong safeguards, these platforms can become breeding grounds for harassment and hateful activity that harms players directly, normalizes hateful ideologies and damages trust,” Jonathan Greenblatt, the CEO of the ADL, said in a statement Wednesday. “This leaderboard provides the transparency that parents, gamers and the industry need to understand where companies are succeeding and where urgent improvements are necessary.”
The leaderboard’s release coincided with a landmark Los Angeles jury verdict finding Meta and YouTube liable for harming a young user through addictive design features.
In the virtual worlds of online gaming, players have posted abusive messages in chats, created antisemitic imagery and even given themselves bigoted usernames.
While Fortnite ranked first, the popular online game has also previously faced scrutiny over allegations that it enabled antisemitic content. Last September, it disabled a character dance feature after users said its gestures resembled a swastika.
Roblox, which has long faced criticism over content moderation, has also been the subject of controversy, including in 2022 when it removed a user-created simulation of a Nazi gas chamber. In the wake of the Oct. 7 attacks in 2023, the Israeli government also urged users to report pro-Palestinian activity in the game that it said included antisemitic content.
The post Fortnite tops ADL’s new ‘leaderboard’ ranking video games on antisemitism safeguards appeared first on The Forward.
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Iran Posts AI Video Showing Missile Striking Statue of Liberty
An Israeli air defense system intercepts a ballistic missile barrage launched from Iran to central Israel during the missile attack, February 27, 2026. Photo: Eli Basri / SOPA Images via Reuters Connect
Iran on Tuesday released an AI-generated video depicting a missile striking the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor, a global symbol of American freedom and democracy, in one of the regime’s latest propaganda efforts to influence public perception abroad.
Shared by Iranian state broadcaster IRIB as well as a Telegram channel affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the minute-long video ends with the slogan “One vengeance for all.”
IRGC Official Telegram Channel Releases AI Video Depicting Iranian Ballistic Missile Strike on United States, Hitting New York City and Toppling Statue of Liberty Shown as Idol of Baal Holding Babylonian Talmud pic.twitter.com/JhgNgHW2Zz
— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) March 25, 2026
The video was also circulated by Russian state outlet RT, in what appears to be a stark and symbolic threat against the United States.
‘ONE VENGEANCE FOR ALL’ — Iran ‘bombs’ the Statue of Liberty WITH THE HEAD OF BAAL pic.twitter.com/6tPH15fqkZ
— RT (@RT_com) March 25, 2026
Since the start of the US-Israel war with Iran, which began on Feb. 28, Iranian officials have ramped up their propaganda and disinformation efforts, trying to portray Washington and Jerusalem as responsible for decades of regional conflict while seeking to influence left-leaning Americans to mobilize domestic opposition to the war.
This latest widely circulated video presents a striking sequence portraying the United States as the world’s enemy, drawing on imagery from the dispossession of Native Americans and the atomic bombings of Japan to the Vietnam War and more recent Middle Eastern conflicts to craft a sweeping narrative of American aggression.
The clip also features footage alluding to a child on Jeffrey Epstein’s private island — a recurring theme in Iran’s messaging used to suggest that US President Donald Trump launched the current war to distract the public from the Epstein scandal, in which the late financier was convicted of running a sex-trafficking ring involving underage girls and, allegedly, various influential figures.
Later in the video, AI-generated figures of Iran’s former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the late Iranian Major General Qassem Soleimani are shown gazing skyward. Khamenei was killed in an Israeli airstrike on Feb. 28, and Soleimani was killed in a US drone strike in 2020.
The final sequence of the video depicts a missile in Iranian colors striking the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor, whose head has been replaced with that of Baal, a false god from the Bible, while the statue holds the Talmud, a key collection of Jewish religious teachings and laws.
This video is the latest example of AI-generated propaganda released since the start of the war with Iran.
Last week, Chinese state television CCTV released a separate AI-generated clip illustrating Beijing’s perspective on the Strait of Hormuz crisis, featuring Persian cats in martial arts combat and an eagle-headed human representing the United States.
Experts note that Russian dissemination of Tehran’s video reflects a broader coordinated effort to use visual propaganda to challenge US foreign policy and influence global perceptions amid rising regional tensions.
The latest video came as the US and Iran began engaging in diplomacy over a possible resolution to the war, although Tehran has reportedly responded negatively to Washington’s proposal.