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Event in Berlin marks one of Germany’s largest-ever gatherings for its ex-Soviet Jewish community
BERLIN — It was hard to overlook the symbolism: the city that once was the epicenter of Nazi Germany hosting a massive celebration by Jews with roots in the Communist Soviet Union, which for decades tried to stamp out any hint of Jewish practice or identity.
Over three days, some 750 Jews with ties to the former Soviet Union gathered in Berlin to celebrate Jewish culture, play Yiddish music, take part in conversations about everything from current events to Jewish and Israeli history, and eat, sing and learn together.
The March 31-April 2 conference in Berlin organized by Limmud FSU marked the organization’s first-ever event held in Germany — and its first pan-European conference since a February 2020 event in Vienna held on the eve of the global coronavirus pandemic.
For this weekend, participants from 24 countries converged on a hotel in the German capital, including 50 or so who made the difficult trip from war-ravaged Ukraine. Among them was Olena Kolpakova, 41, who had traveled nearly 48 hours by bus and train to Berlin with her 9-year-old daughter, Anastasia, from Dnipro in eastern Ukraine.
“Our house isn’t destroyed, and our city isn’t occupied. But we still have 10 to 12 air-raid sirens a day,” said Kolpakova, a lawyer and Limmud FSU Ukraine volunteer since 2009. “These people are more than friends for me. I love Limmud and I know everyone.”
The packed program was held mostly in Russian with a smattering of sessions in English.
“This first-ever Limmud FSU conference in Germany is an opportunity to celebrate our rich cultural heritage, learn from one another and strengthen our connections across borders,” said Limmud FSU Founder Chaim Chesler.
Since its creation in 2005 to bolster Jewish connections and identity among Jews from the former Soviet Union, Limmud FSU has held dozens of conferences around the globe that collectively have drawn over 80,000 participants.
Holding a Jewish festival in Berlin was particularly significant, organizers noted. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, over 170,000 Soviet Jews emigrated to Germany. That wave of immigration more than doubled the size of the country’s Jewish community, which is now comprised mostly of Jews with roots in the Soviet Union.
Germany is the only country in Europe that has seen such significant Jewish population growth in the last half-century.
Volunteers in Berlin made up a big part of the organizers of the Limmud FSU conference in Germany on March 31-April 2, 2023. (Alex Khanin)
The conference in Berlin was a mixture of celebration, study and culture. Fo Sho, a hip-hop band comprised of three Jewish-Ethiopian-Ukrainian sisters, delivered a rousing performance. Israeli celebrity chef Gil Hovav talked about his famous great-grandfather, Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, the Yiddish-speaking yeshiva student who became the father of modern Hebrew. World Jewish Congress official Lena Bakman spoke of the 400-strong WJC Jewish Diplomatic Corps as the “unofficial foreign affairs ministry for the Jewish people.”
For some participants, such as Dora Haina of Riga, Latvia, the weekend in Berlin marked their first exposure ever to Limmud FSU.
“It’s an unbelievable feeling that everything here is in my language, and that all these people are Jews,” said Haina, 24, who speaks Russian. “I came to socialize and meet new people.”
That’s the point, said Limmud FSU’s longtime chairman, Matthew Bronfman.
“Our inaugural conference in Berlin is a momentous occasion for our organization and the entire community of FSU Jews in Europe,” Bronfman said. “It serves as a symbol of our continued dedication to preserving and celebrating Jewish culture and heritage, while also promoting a sense of unity and connection among our community members across borders and generations.”
Key supporters of Limmud FSU Europe include the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany (the Claims Conference), Genesis Philanthropy Group, the World Zionist Organization, Nativ-Israeli Prime Minister’s Office, the Jewish National Fund-Keren Kayemet LeIsrael, the Dutch Jewish Humanitarian Fund, the Jewish Agency for Israel, philanthropist Diane Wohl, Bill Hess and others.
“It was a major, successful and very important event for FSU Jews in Europe in general and in particular for the hundreds of refugees from Ukraine,” Alex Mershon, director of Nativ’s Department of Culture and Education, said of the conference in Berlin.
“The resilience and vitality of Jewish heritage were on full display, reminding us that when we come together with open minds and open hearts, there is much we can achieve,” said Marina Yudborovsky, CEO of the Genesis Philanthropy Group. “Let the spirit of this event inspire us to continue to overcome challenges and create positive change in the world together.”
One of the highlights of the Berlin conference was a lecture by Nazi hunter Efraim Zuroff, director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s office in Jerusalem. He spoke about his work catching Nazi war criminals in countries where locals often collaborated with their German occupiers and noted that even today nationalism and antisemitism impedes justice for the Holocaust’s victims and their descendants.
“Without political will, there will never be any justice,” Zuroff said.
There was also a lot of talk at the conference about the turmoil in Israel, where a government plan to overhaul the judiciary has prompted protests by hundreds of thousands, including many leading national figures.
“I can’t believe I’m demonstrating against my own government,” said Justice Elyakim Rubinstein, a former Israeli attorney general and vice president of the Supreme Court. “It’s very unusual and heartbreaking in a way, having been a public servant all these years.”
Over three days on March 31-April 2, 2023, some 750 Jews with ties to the former Soviet Union gathered in Berlin to celebrate Jewish culture, play music and take part in conversations about everything from current events to Jewish and Israeli history. Children were among the attendees. (Alex Khanin)
One of the weekend’s most riveting testimonies came from Sonia Tartakovskaya, an 84-year-old Holocaust survivor who last year witnessed the Russian bombardment of Irpin, on the outskirts of Kyiv.
“I don’t remember the war, because I was born in 1939. And in 1941, I was sent to Tajikistan. But this war of 2022 I remember, because I saw the burning houses and I was completely alone,” Tartakovskaya said through a translator.
“On March 17, my neighbor took me to her relatives in western Ukraine, and on March 31, I came to Berlin,” she said. “Today marks one year I’m here, and I deeply appreciate everything the Jewish Agency, the Claims Conference and all other Jewish organizations have done for me.”
Tartakovskaya is among 94 Holocaust survivors who were spirited out of Ukraine and brought to Germany via Poland since Russia launched its war 13 months ago, said Ruediger Mahlo, who heads the German office of the Claims Conference. Before the war Ukraine was home to some 10,000 Holocaust survivors; today, barely 6,500 remain, according to Mahlo.
“Imagine the paradox,” Mahlo said. “Survivors who at a young age had to flee, and now at the end of their lives they have to flee again, from Russia — a country that liberated them — to a country that over 75 years ago wanted to annihilate them.”
Limmud FSU’s co-founder, Sandra F. Cahn, said the participation in the conference of Jews from Ukraine was inspiring.
“Despite the ongoing war in Ukraine, we are heartened to see so many participants from that country joining us for this historic event,” Cahn said. “This conference serves as a powerful reminder of the importance of building bridges between communities and promoting cultural exchange, even in the face of hardships.”
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Mamdani Hedges in Response to Mob Targeting New York City Synagogue
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani holds a press conference at the New York City Office of Emergency Management, as a major winter storm spreads across a large swath of the United States, in Brooklyn, New York City, US, Jan. 25, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Bing Guan
Protests targeting an Israeli real estate event at a New York City synagogue have put Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s leadership under renewed scrutiny after demonstrators returned to the Upper East Side location on Tuesday night.
The demonstration prompted a significant police response and raised concerns about rising antisemitic rhetoric in the city home to the world’s largest Jewish population outside of Israel.
Protesters gathered outside Park East Synagogue in Manhattan during a showcase called “The Great Israeli Real Estate Event 2026,” which included the marketing of properties in Israel proper as well as West Bank settlements. At the demonstration, activists held signs and chanted slogans that went beyond criticism of Israel, seemingly calling for the death and expulsion of Jews and, in some cases, support for US-designated terrorist groups.
“Death, death to the IDF [Israel Defense Forces],” “Rapists,” and “Settlers, settlers go back home, Palestine is ours alone” were among the insults screamed by the protesters, some of whom also waved flags belonging to the Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah.
The scene marked a return to the same synagogue that was the site of a contentious protest in November, which drew widespread condemnation and sparked debate over the boundaries between political expression and hate speech. At that gathering, demonstrators chanted “We don’t want no Zionists here” and “Resistance, you make us proud, take another settler out,” among others. One speaker claimed, “It is our duty to make them think twice before holding these events! We need to make them scared.”
Both protests were organized by the anti-Zionist activist organization Pal-Awda.
This time, however, the New York City Police Department (NYPD) appeared better prepared. Officers established barricades and maintained distance between demonstrators and synagogue attendees, preventing the kind of close confrontations seen in the earlier protest. While tensions remained high, authorities largely kept the situation contained, avoiding major physical clashes.
Still, video circulating on social media appeared to show hordes of protesters storming and attempting to penetrate the barricades erected by the NYPD to separate the synagogue from the demonstrations. According to multiple reports, police had to deploy pepper-spray and at least one officer was hospitalized during the chaos.
Ronen Levy, a Queens-based pro-Israel counterprotester, repudiated the demonstrations as a threat to the local Jewish community.
“You want to protest? You want to assemble on the street, you want to assemble in a park, you want to assemble in a center or Columbus Circle? You’re more than welcome,” Levy told AMNY. “But to protest in a shul or a mosque or a church, that’s unethical, that’s un-American.”
“It came to where they do it in the shul, because it’s a lot easier to get Jewish people to come down, because it’s a Jewish congregation,” Levy continued. “Most people in synagogues, they want to go live in Israel.”
The incident came amid an ongoing surge in antisemitic hate crimes in New York City. According to police data, Jews this year have been targeted in the majority of all hate crimes committed in the city, continuing a troubling trend of rising antisemitism following Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel. Mamdani took office on Jan. 1.
Jewish community leaders have increasingly voiced concern about demonstrations occurring near religious institutions, warning that such actions blur the line between protest and intimidation.
Mamdani, who faced criticism over his response to the November protest outside the same Manhattan synagogue, on Wednesday expressed support for the police’s response but also condemned the Israeli real estate event.
“I think that I’ve made it clear time and time again that we in this city believe in the sacrosanct nature of the right to protest, and also are committed to ensuring that any New Yorker can safely enter or exit from a house of worship, and that access never be in question, while we also protect the First Amendment,” Mamdani said during a press conference. “And I do believe that the police ensured that yesterday evening.”
However, the mayor went on to defend the protesters’ cause.
“There is no tolerance for hatred of Jewish New Yorkers,” he said. “I’ve also been clear to New Yorkers, my honest opinions about the fact that when we have a real estate expo that is promoting the sale of land, which includes the sale of land in occupied West Bank in settlements that are a violation of international law, that that is something that I firmly disagree with.”
“I also believe that many New Yorkers firmly disagree with it, because it has been at the heart of an ongoing effort to displace Palestinians from their homes,” Mamdani added.
Mamdani’s office issued a similar statement on Tuesday in the hours leading up to the protest.
“He further inflamed tensions on an already volatile situation,” the Anti-Defamation League’s New York/New Jersey branch said of Mamdani’s comments. “The mayor had a responsibility to de-escalate. He did the opposite.”
Mamadani faced intense criticism from Jewish leaders and pro-Israel advocates after issuing a similar statement in November that appeared to legitimize the gathering of demonstrators who called for violence against Jews outside Park East Synagogue.
Julie Menin, the speaker of City Council, defended the protesters’ first Amendment Rights while admonishing efforts to intimidate synagogue attendees.
“The right to peaceful protest must be protected, and so must the ability of individuals to safely access a house of worship without fear or intimidation,” Menin said.
Mamdani has come under immense scrutiny over his record of anti-Israel statements, repeatedly accusing Israel of committing “genocide” in Gaza and claiming that Israel does not grant “equal rights” to all of its inhabitants. Given his track record of anti-Israel sentiment, which according to critics has fueled hostility toward Jews, Mamdani’s handling of antisemitism has come under the spotlight.
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AI-Generated ‘Rabbis’ on TikTok Push Antisemitism, Generate Over 10 Million Likes, Report Reveals
TikTok app logo is seen in this illustration taken, Aug. 22, 2022. Photo: REUTERS/Dado Ruvic
The Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM) released a report on Tuesday exposing 49 TikTok accounts which have amassed large followings pushing bigoted stereotypes with phony rabbi videos created using generative artificial intelligence programs.
Analysts at CAM’s Antisemitism Research Center found that the accounts — which use handles such as @rabbirothstein @rabingoldmaan @rabbistirberg, and @rabbi_silverstein — had collected 950,000 users and provoked over 10 million likes.
Across accounts, researchers found similar narratives and linguistic patterns in service of a common modus operandi: recasting conventional antisemitic stereotypes by having rabbis promote them as obvious truths.
The first “rabbi” introduced in the report is “RabbiSilverman.” One video features the rabbi figure holding a bottle of Coca-Cola with the caption “$4 at the airport and $7 on a flight.” Another shows the rabbi sitting inside of a limo while he holds a gold bar and a stack of $100 bills alongside the description “when the dollar and gold go up together.” Three more images show the rabbi sitting and studying the Torah at a table while a red sports car sits in a showroom behind him.
The rabbi in one video sports a giant nose and says, “As Jews, never sign a contract without reading every single line.”
Another fake “rabbi” presented is “Rabbi StirBerg.” Sitting in front of a bookshelf in what resembles a synagogue’s office, videos include such instructions as “never give your kids an allowance” and “Jews are wealthy because we don’t feel guilty for wanting more money.” Another taunts, “by 8 our kids know why yours stay poor.”
Examples of AI-generated rabbi videos pushing antisemitism on TikTok. Photo: Screenshot
CAM noted that the antisemitism on TikTok would especially impact youth.
“The danger is clear. By masquerading as authentic Jewish voices, these ‘rabbis’ erode trust, normalize hatred, and incite real-world violence targeting Jews,” CAM said. “By amplifying this content to young, impressionable audiences, TikTok is complicit in accelerating radicalization in an era when AI is making disinformation increasingly difficult to detect.”
CAM called on TikTok to “immediately invest in AI detection tools specifically trained to identify synthetic religious impersonation, implement guidelines to ensure traffic is not actively directed to such accounts, and launch a public awareness campaign highlighting how to spot AI-generated propaganda.”
Jewish creators on TikTok have long objected to antisemitism on the platform. In November 2023, a group of more than 40 content creators and public figures raised the alarm about the antisemitism they had experienced on the platform, calling for more robust safety features and content moderation. TikTok responded at the time saying, “We’ve taken important steps to protect our community and prevent the spread of hate, and we appreciate ongoing, honest dialogue, and feedback as we continually work to strengthen these protections.”
The research into TikTok follows similar findings from CAM in a March report that revealed a proliferation of fake AI rabbis on Meta’s Instagram platform. One “Rabbi Goldman” account identified in the report had reached 1.4 million followers. Combined with 11 other imposters, the following reached 2.1 million. CAM noted how the variety of rabbis each presented with different voices and persona, but all promoted the same money-obsessed stereotypes.
Following the Instagram report, CAM reported that Meta had removed more than 60 Instagram accounts, including those in other languages like French, Italian, German, and Spanish. The watchdog group praised the technology company founded and led by CEO Mark Zuckerberg, saying that “Meta has been highly responsive in working with CAM to better understand this activity and identify ways to reduce its reach and minimize its exposure to users.”
CAM vowed to remain vigilant to the threat, warning that “these identities are easily recreated and quickly reappear. CAM will continue to cooperate with Meta to address this expanding network … without sustained monitoring and rapid response, these false identities will continue to shape online discourse, reinforcing hostility toward Jewish communities that translates into real-world violence.”
In March, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman announced his decision to shut down the AI video-generating app Sora, a platform which hosted videos showing Jews chasing after coins, cheating poor people out of money, and being run over by a car. Research released by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) in October found that in at least 40 percent of cases, programs would still generate responses when given antisemitic, extremists, or other hateful prompts.
CAM warned of the real-world consequences from the TikTok videos.
The report stated that antisemitic tropes “have historically instigated violence — from pogroms to the Holocaust to contemporary attacks on Jews. In the digital age, this content contributes to a documented global rise in antisemitic incidents by providing ‘evidence’ that justifies hostility. The visual caricatures (large noses, ostentatious wealth) further dehumanize Jews, erasing a psychological barrier to violence.”
In February, police in the Netherlands arrested 15 people, charging them with using TikTok to promote propaganda for the Islamic State. Some videos reached as high as 100,000 views. They urged views to join the terrorist group and glorified the “martyrs” who had died in service of the group’s mission of creating a global caliphate empowered to impose strict, Salafi-interpretations of Shariah law across the entire planet.
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Artists, Cultural Workers Plan Strike for Venice Biennale in Protest of Israel’s Participation
Signage for the 61st Venice Biennale running from May 9 to November 22. Photo: IMAGO/Frank Ossenbrink via Reuters Connect
An anti-Israel collective announced a 24-hour strike for artists and cultural workers on Friday, the day before the 61st Venice Biennale opens to the public, in protest of Israel’s inclusion in the event.
The Art Not Genocide Alliance (ANGA) is organizing the strike on the city’s Viale Garibaldi, and a number of groups, unions, and art spaces have already vowed to participate including Biennaleocene, a coalition of cultural workers in Venice that formed in 2023. The strike was announced right before ANGA hosted a massive protest at the Biennale.
The international art exhibition opened for previews on Wednesday and ANGA disrupted the opening, assembling a protest outside of Israel’s temporary pavilion in the Biennale’s Arsenal complex. ANGA said “hundreds” participated in the protest and claimed the decision to include Israel in this year’s Biennale “constitutes active institutional support for a state committing genocide in Gaza against the Palestinian people.”
“Protestors marched through the Arsenale with large banners, Palestinian flags, placards, and distributed flyers calling for the shut down [sic] of the Genocide Pavilion,” ANGA wrote in an Instagram post that featured pictures from the protest. “ISRAEL YOU CAN’T HIDE, WE CHARGE YOU WITH GENOCIDE! The demand is clear: Boycott the Israeli pavilion and SHUT IT DOWN.”
ANGA previously published an open letter, signed by hundreds of event participants, that called for Israel to be boycotted from this year’s Venice Biennale. Last week, the jury for the 2026 Venice Biennale resigned mere days after saying it would not consider awarding the event’s top prizes to countries whose leaders are facing charges of crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court, meaning Israel and Russia.
After the jury’s resignation, organizers of the Biennale announced new “Visitor’s Lion” awards. The public will vote for the winners, and Russia and Israel are both eligible to take home those awards. The award ceremony for the 2026 Venice Biennale has also been pushed from May 9 to Nov. 22, which is the last day of the show.
Romanian artist Belu-Simion Fainaru is representing Israel in this year’s event with his installation “Rose of Nothingness,” which will highlight Jewish mysticism, memory, and poetry.
At the 2024 Venice Biennale, artist Ruth Patir closed Israel’s official pavilion to the public until a ceasefire and hostage release agreement could be agreed upon. That same year ANGA supporters protested outside of the American and Israeli pavilions during previews for the Biennale, in condemnation of US support for Israel. The group of anti-Israel activists also protested outside the French, British, and German pavilions, because of each country’s relations with Israel.