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German government pledges record $1B in funding for Holocaust survivor home care
The German government has agreed to allocate $1.08 billion in funds for home care for survivors for 2026, marking the largest budget for home care in its history of Holocaust reparations, reflecting the growing needs of an aging survivor population.
The funding, which was secured following negotiations with the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, or Claims Conference, will now enable all Holocaust survivors currently on waitlists for home care to receive it, according to Stuart E. Eizenstat, who leads negotiations on behalf of the Claims Conference.
“We really believe now that, with the largest home care budget in the history of the Claims Conference’s negotiations with Germany, which go back to 1952, that we will be able to cover all those on waiting lists,” Eizenstat said in an interview.
Last year, Germany also set a record for Holocaust reparations, spending $1.5 billion overall. But as the survivor population ages, with the median age now at 87, the need for home care has become the dominant expense.
Nearly all of the Holocaust survivors who are alive today will be dead within 15 years and half will die by 2031, according to a demographic analysis published by the Claims Conference in April.
“As we’re in the last phase now of survivors — in 10 years, half of the survivors, and there’s about 200,000 now, will be gone — so we’re dealing with people in the very last stages of their life and and it’s very rewarding to provide a measure of dignity, both through these payments, but again, through home care,” Eizenstat said.
One difficulty during the negotiations, according to Eizenstat, came from explaining to German officials that although the survivor population has dramatically decreased over the years, the needs among the remaining population are much greater and require additional funding.
“Yes, there are fewer survivors, but those who live into their 80s and into their 90s are by definition in greater need of care,” said Eizenstat. “So even though the numbers are down, the needs are up, and that was a very difficult concept to get across.”
Eizenstat said that of the remaining estimated 200,000 survivors, over 80% of the population in countries that made up the Soviet Union are living below or near the poverty line. In the United States and Israel, around a third are living in or near the poverty line.
“I’m hoping that this can prompt local federations to supplement what we’ve done and to make sure that survivors in their last years don’t live impoverished, that they have a dignity that was denied them when they’re young,” said Eizenstat.
He added that this year’s negotiations had been the “most satisfying” since he began helming the organization’s Negotiations Delegation in 2009 given the distance of current-day Germans from the atrocities and the challenge posed by Germany’s economic crisis.
“These are people who literally weren’t born during the war, or if they were, they were young children, and yet they still feel a moral responsibility,” Eizenstat said. “It belies the notion that there’s Holocaust fatigue in Germany because it’s coming at a time of crushing financial burdens from Ukraine, from the need to stimulate their economy because of slow growth. This really is a combination of what Germany deserves great credit for under difficult circumstances.”
The negotiation also secured funding for a group the Claims Conference referred to as “Righteous Rescuers,” or non-Jewish people who risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust.
“It demonstrates that we care deeply about making sure they get all the benefits of the Jewish survivors that they helped save,” said Eizenstat.
The German government also extended its support for Holocaust education programs through 2029, totalling $205 million over the next four years. The Claims Conference first negotiated support for Holocaust education from Germany in 2022.
“The survivors, the eye-witnesses, won’t be here, and we need Holocaust education desperately at a time of rising antisemitism, Holocaust distortion, denial and sheer ignorance,” Eizenstat said.
Eizenstat said he hopes the expanded funding for survivor care and Holocaust education will also carry a broader message about tolerance and empathy.
“I hope that these are the two major things that will draw as lessons and they remind us, at a time of traumatic intolerance in the United States and over the world, against minorities and others, that the real lesson of the Holocaust is to be tolerant of people who are different, to work out your differences and not to stigmatize,” Eizenstat said. “We need to be tolerant. We need to be humane. We need to all work together to solve our problems and not view each other as enemies.”
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The post German government pledges record $1B in funding for Holocaust survivor home care appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Rep. Ilhan Omar says Stephen Miller’s comments on immigrants sound like how ‘Nazis described Jewish people’
Rep Ilhan Omar, Democrat of Minnesota, on Sunday likened the Trump administration’s immigration rhetoric to Nazi depictions of Jews.
“It reminds me of the way the Nazis described Jewish people in Germany,” Omar said in an interview on CBS’s Face the Nation, commenting on a social media post by Stephen Miller, President Donald Trump’s senior adviser, in which he suggested that “migrants and their descendants recreate the conditions, and terrors, of their broken homelands.” Miller, who is Jewish, is the architect of the Trump administration’s immigration policy.
Omar called Miller’s comments “white supremist rhetoric” and also drew parallels between his characterization of migrants seeking refuge in the U.S. to how Jews were demonized and treated when they fled Nazi-era Germany. “As we know, there have been many immigrants who have tried to come to the United States who have turned back, you know, one of them being Jewish immigrants,” she said.
Now serving as Trump’s deputy chief of staff for policy, Miller is central to the White House’s plans for mass deportations and expanded barriers to asylum. During Trump’s first term, Miller led the implementation of the so-called Muslim travel ban in 2017, which barred entry to the U.S. for individuals from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen, and pushed to further reduce a longtime refugee program.
Rep. Ilhan Omar: “When I think about Stephen Miller and his white supremacist rhetoric, it reminds me of the way the Nazis described Jewish people in Germany.” pic.twitter.com/GAjIMqFq26
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) December 7, 2025
Miller’s comments echoed similar rhetoric by Trump after an Afghan refugee was accused of shooting two National Guard members near the White House last month, killing one.
Trump told reporters at a cabinet meeting last week that Somali immigrants are “garbage” and that he wanted them to be sent “back to where they came from.” The president also singled out Omar, a Somali native who represents Minnesota’s large Somali-American community. “She should be thrown the hell out of our country,” Trump said.
In the Sunday interview, Omar called Trump’s remarks “completely disgusting” and accused him of having “an unhealthy obsession” with her and the Somali community. “This kind of hateful rhetoric and this level of dehumanizing can lead to dangerous actions by people who listen to the president,” she said.
The post Rep. Ilhan Omar says Stephen Miller’s comments on immigrants sound like how ‘Nazis described Jewish people’ appeared first on The Forward.
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Nigeria Seeks French Help to Combat Insecurity, Macron Says
French President Emmanuel Macron at the Elysee Palace in Paris, France, Sept. 15, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Benoit Tessier/Pool
Nigerian President Bola Tinubu has sought more help from France to fight widespread violence in the north of the country, French President Emmanuel Macron said on Sunday, weeks after the United States threatened to intervene to protect Nigeria’s Christians.
Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, has witnessed an upsurge in attacks in volatile northern areas in the past month, including mass kidnappings from schools and a church.
US President Donald Trump has raised the prospect of possible military action in Nigeria, accusing it of mistreating Christians. The government says the allegations misrepresent a complex security situation in which armed groups target both faith groups.
Macron said he had a phone call with Tinubu on Sunday, where he conveyed France’s support to Nigeria as it grapples with several security challenges, “particularly the terrorist threat in the North.”
“At his request, we will strengthen our partnership with the authorities and our support for the affected populations. We call on all our partners to step up their engagement,” Macron said in a post on X.
Macron did not say what help would be offered by France, which has withdrawn its troops from West and Central Africa and plans to focus on training, intelligence sharing and responding to requests from countries for assistance.
Nigeria is grappling with a long-running Islamist insurgency in the northeast, armed kidnapping gangs in the northwest and deadly clashes between largely Muslim cattle herders and mostly Christian farmers in the central parts of the country, stretching its security forces.
Washington said last month that it was considering actions such as sanctions and Pentagon engagement on counterterrorism as part of a plan to compel Nigeria to better protect its Christian communities.
The Nigerian government has said it welcomes help to fight insecurity as long as its sovereignty is respected. France has previously supported efforts to curtail the actions of armed groups, the US has shared intelligence and sold arms, including fighter jets, and Britain has trained Nigerian troops.
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Netanyahu Says He Will Not Quit Politics if He Receives a Pardon
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu participates in the state memorial ceremony for the fallen of the Iron Swords War on Mount Herzl, Jerusalem on Oct. 16, 2025. Photo: Alex Kolomoisky/POOL/Pool via REUTERS
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that he would not retire from politics if he receives a pardon from the country’s president in his years-long corruption trial.
Asked by a reporter if planned on retiring from political life if he receives a pardon, Netanyahu replied: “no”.
Netanyahu last month asked President Isaac Herzog for a pardon, with lawyers for the prime minister arguing that frequent court appearances were hindering Netanyahu’s ability to govern and that a pardon would be good for the country.
Pardons in Israel have typically been granted only after legal proceedings have concluded and the accused has been convicted. There is no precedent for issuing a pardon mid-trial.
Netanyahu has repeatedly denied wrongdoing in response to the charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust, and his lawyers have said that the prime minister still believes the legal proceedings, if concluded, would result in a complete acquittal.
US President Donald Trump wrote to Herzog, before Netanyahu made his request, urging the Israeli president to consider granting the prime minister a pardon.
Some Israeli opposition politicians have argued that any pardon should be conditional on Netanyahu retiring from politics and admitting guilt. Others have said the prime minister must first call national elections, which are due by October 2026.