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Germany agrees to record $1.4 billion in annual Holocaust reparations as survivors age
(JTA) – Conditions didn’t seem favorable in early May as Stuart Eizenstat entered annual negotiations with the German government over reparations for the estimated 240,000 remaining Holocaust survivors around the world.
Eizenstat had served as the special negotiator for the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany since 2009, and had analyzed the country’s economic and political landscape: high inflation, spiraling fuel costs and unprecedented government spending on defense to support Ukraine in its war with Russia. Add to that a German finance minister, Christian Lindner, who was elected less than two years on a platform of budget cuts, fiscal restraint and smaller government.
“We’re dealing with German taxpayer money. That has to be accounted for. And we’ve been in an era in the last couple of years and particularly this year with negative factors that would seem to have an inauspicious impact,” Eizenstat said in an interview.
Yet the compensation package Eizenstat helped secure for the Claims Conference — more than $1.4 billion — was the largest monetary figure agreed to for a single year since German reparations began more than seven decades ago. The figure reflected a recognition that, even as the number of Holocaust survivors dwindles with each passing year, the needs of the remaining survivors are increasing as they age.
Some of the $1.4 billion that Germany agreed to spend will be paid directly to survivors; the bulk will fund social welfare services such as home care and food packages, administered through about 300 agencies across 83 countries. Germany also agreed to boost funding for Holocaust education programs.
“This is perhaps the most productive session we’ve ever had,” Eizenstat said. “And the fact that it has occurred almost 80 years after the war is a testimony to the Claims Conference’s relentless pursuit of justice and the partnership that we’ve had with the German government.”
Total direct compensation to survivors is expected to reach $535 million next year, mostly paid out in pensions to survivors. In addition, negotiations resulted in four more years of hardship payments — direct allocations to survivors who have not qualified for pensions —which were introduced following the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. More than 128,000 survivors can expect to receive 1,250 euros each, or about $1,360, in 2024, an amount that will go up by 50 euros each year through 2027.
The hardship payments were negotiated on top of the regular Holocaust survivor pensions, and they primarily benefit Jews from the former Soviet Union who were not interned in camps or placed into ghettos and were therefore not included in the pension program. These Jews survived Nazi mobile killing units that murdered more than 1 million Jews, including entire communities, and today are more likely to experience poverty.
Another category of aid has skyrocketed over the past two decades: social services. German spending in this category will reach about $890 million in 2024, an increase of $105 million over last year. Fifteen years ago, the total was less than $50 million.
In 2023, 120,000 survivors received home care, medical transportation and other forms of support through Jewish social service agencies.
“Survivors are getting more frail, and they are needing more hours of care, and more assistance,” said Reuben Rotman, president and CEO of the Network of Jewish Human Service Agencies.
The agencies represented by Rotman’s group keep track not only of the services they have provided to survivors but also of unmet needs. So if a survivor needed 20 hours of care but received only 12 due to funding constraints, the gap would register in data collected by the Claims Conference.
“The Claims Conference goes back to Germany each year and aggregates all the unmet needs for all the organizations that are funding and makes the case for increases. And generally, they’ve been successful in those negotiations,” Rotman said.
Germany also agreed to continue increasing funding for Holocaust education around the world, providing the Claims Conference with about $150 million for educational programs over the next four years. The money is meant to counter findings from recent surveys showing that the public is growing less knowledgeable about the Holocaust as it recedes further into the past.
According to a 2018 survey commissioned by the Claims Conference, nearly half of American adults could not name a single concentration camp and almost a third were under the impression that the number of Jewish victims was far lower than the 6 million who were murdered.
The Claims Conference’s education budget helped pay, for example, for the production of “Son of Saul,” a 2015 Hungarian film set in the Auschwitz concentration camp that won an Oscar for best foreign film.
Exposure to survivors and education about the Holocaust deserve credit for the successful outcome of this year’s negotiations, according to Eizenstat. He noted that in the leadup to the formal meetings, chief German negotiator Luise Hölscher was taken on a tour of the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum in Jerusalem; Polin, a Jewish history museum in Warsaw; and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.
“I took Luise for three hours before the negotiation and introduced her to three of our survivors who are docents at the Holocaust Memorial Museum,” Eizenstat said. “It really gave her a historical sense of the Holocaust, but also how much these funds mean to the dignity of survivors.”
Later this year, the Claims Conference will release what it says is the most comprehensive demographic report on survivors ever, detailing where they live, broken down by country and city.
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Iran Hands Over New Proposal for Talks With US to End War
An Iranian flag lies amidst the rubble of a building of the Sharif University of Technology, which was damaged in a strike, amid the US-Israeli conflict with Iran, in Tehran, Iran, April 7, 2026. Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
Tehran has submitted its latest proposal for negotiations with the United States, Iranian state media and a Pakistani official said on Friday, a move that could break a deadlock in efforts to end the Iran war.
The official, involved in Pakistani mediation over the war, said Pakistan had received the proposal late on Thursday and had forwarded it to the US.
Neither the official nor Iranian state news agency IRNA gave details, and the White House declined to comment, while saying negotiations continued. Global oil prices, which remain well above $100 a barrel, eased following news of the proposal.
The closure of the Strait of Hormuz has caused unprecedented disruption to energy markets, choking off 20% of the world’s oil and gas supplies and causing a record rally in oil prices.
The blockade of the vital sea channel has also increased concerns that there will be an economic downturn. The US Navy is blocking exports of Iranian crude oil, and on Friday the US Treasury warned shippers that they risked sanctions if they paid tolls to Iran to pass through the strait.
A ceasefire has been in place since April 8 but reports that US President Donald Trump was to be briefed on plans for new military strikes to compel Iran to negotiate had pushed global oil prices up to a four-year high at one point on Thursday.
Iran has activated air defenses and plans a wide response if attacked, having assessed that there will be a short, intensive US strike, possibly followed by an Israeli attack, two senior Iranian sources told Reuters on condition of anonymity.
‘TREACHEROUS AGGRESSION’
Washington has not said what its next steps are. Trump said on Tuesday he was unhappy with the previous proposal from Iran, and Pakistan has not set a date for new talks on ending a war that has killed thousands, mainly in Iran and Lebanon.
After US and Israeli airstrikes on Feb. 28, Iran fired at US bases, infrastructure, and US-linked companies in Gulf states, while the Iran-backed Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah launched missiles at Israel, which responded with strikes on Lebanon.
Underlining the concerns of the Gulf states, UAE presidential adviser Anwar Gargash said the “collective international will and provisions of international law” were the primary guarantors of freedom of navigation through the strait.
“And, of course, no unilateral Iranian arrangements can be trusted or relied upon following its treacherous aggression against all its neighbors,” Gargash wrote.
Trump faces a formal US deadline on Friday to end the war or make the case to Congress for extending it under the 1973 War Powers Resolution.
The date looks set to pass without altering the course of the conflict after a senior administration official said that, for the purposes of the resolution, hostilities had terminated due to the April ceasefire between Tehran and Washington.
Financial and energy markets remained on edge because of concerns about the impasse over negotiations and worries that there could be a prolonged closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
IRAN SAYS NOT TO EXPECT QUICK RESULTS FROM TALKS
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei cautioned on Thursday against expecting quick results from talks.
A senior official of Iran‘s Revolutionary Guards said any new US attack on Iran, even if limited, would usher in “long and painful strikes” on US regional positions, while Aerospace Force Commander Majid Mousavi was quoted by Iranian media as saying: “We’ve seen what happened to your regional bases; we will see the same thing happen to your warships.”
Trump repeated on Thursday that Iran would not be allowed to have a nuclear weapon, and said the price of gasoline – an important concern for his Republican Party before midterm elections in November – would “drop like a rock” as soon as the war ended.
Iran says its nuclear program is solely for civilian purposes.
The conflict has aggravated Iran‘s economic plight, which could head toward total collapse. However, the regime looks able to survive a standoff for now, despite the US blockade that has curtailed its energy exports.
Axios news site reported that one plan to be shared with Trump during a briefing by top US military leaders that was scheduled for Thursday involved using ground forces to take over part of the strait to reopen it to commercial shipping. Trump is also considering extending the US blockade or declaring a unilateral victory, officials have said.
Washington did not immediately announce any details of its plans.
In a sign that the US was also envisaging a scenario where hostilities cease, a State Department cable due to be delivered orally to partner nations by May 1 invited them to join a new coalition, called the Maritime Freedom Construct, to enable ships to navigate the strait.
France, Britain, and others have held talks on contributing to such a coalition but said they would help to open the strait only when the conflict ends.
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When Jews Are Attacked, the Media Won’t Say ‘Jew’
Orthodox Jews stand by a police cordon, after a man was arrested following a stabbing incident in the Golders Green area, which is home to a large Jewish population, in London, Britain, April 29, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Hannah McKay
As soon as the words “attack in Golders Green” were uttered, everyone in Britain — Jewish or not — understood what that likely meant: another antisemitic attack.
Golders Green is one of the most recognizably Jewish areas in the UK, with around half its population identifying as Jewish. When violence erupts there, the context is not ambiguous.
Witness accounts quickly confirmed what seemed obvious. Two visibly Jewish men, in a well-known Jewish neighborhood, were stabbed. The suspect — a 45-year-old Somali national — was arrested at the scene.
Video footage showed police tasering the attacker and using force to disarm him as he refused to drop his weapon. Yet as news of the attack spread, something else became clear: major British media outlets were struggling to name who had been targeted.
The BBC reported that “two people” had been stabbed, attributing key details to a “Jewish security group,” as though the identity of the victims was uncertain or subjective. Sky News similarly opted for “two people,” stripping the attack of its clear antisemitic context in the headline. Later, Sky went further, running a headline emphasizing the attacker’s “history of mental health issues” — a framing that deflects from the antisemitic motive. The Independent, while calling it a terror attack in its headline, still avoided explicitly stating that Jews were targeted.
You mean two Jews, @SkyNews. https://t.co/OdU8YWw7CT
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) April 29, 2026
This is not a minor omission. It is a pattern that repeats with disturbing consistency. When Jews are the victims, the language shifts. Attacks are softened, anonymized, universalized. Victims become “people.” Targeted violence becomes generic crime. The specificity disappears.
But antisemitism is not generic. It is not abstract. And it is not universal.
Jews are being targeted as Jews.
The data makes that impossible to ignore. According to the Community Security Trust (CST), 3,700 antisemitic incidents were recorded in the UK in 2025 – the second-highest total on record and a 4 percent increase from 2024. That followed 4,298 incidents in 2023, itself a historic peak. The trajectory is clear: antisemitic violence is escalating.
And it is visible beyond statistics. In recent weeks alone, Hatzola ambulances were firebombed, synagogues in Finchley and Kenton were targeted in arson attacks, and a building that formerly hosted a Jewish charity in Hendon was targeted. Now, Jews have been stabbed in one of Britain’s most prominent Jewish communities.
Yet even as this reality intensifies, large parts of the media still struggle — or refuse — to name it plainly.
Why?
Part of the answer lies in a broader narrative environment. For months, British audiences have been exposed to coverage that portrays the Jewish state as uniquely malevolent, often with little context or balance. Mass protests openly invoking “intifada” have been downplayed or sanitized. Extremism, when directed at Jews, has too often been reframed as legitimate grievance.
Within that climate, the reluctance to say “Jew” is not accidental. It reflects a deeper discomfort with acknowledging Jews as a distinct and targeted group.
But language matters. When the media erases victims’ identities, it erases the nature of the crime. And when the nature of the crime is blurred, so too is the urgency to confront it.
This is how normalization happens – not through a single headline, but through repetition. Through omission. Through the quiet reshaping of reality.
If the trend continues, the consequences will not remain confined to headlines. Britain’s Jewish community is already questioning its future in a country where anti-Jewish violence is rising — and where even that violence is not always named for what it is.
Two men were not simply stabbed in Golders Green. Jews were attacked for being Jews. And the media should be able to say so.
The author is a contributor to HonestReporting, a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias — where a version of this article first appeared.
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Say ‘Palestine Was Stolen’ and Win Cash From the Palestinian Authority
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas holds a leadership meeting in Ramallah, in the West Bank, April 23, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mohammed Torokman
In a separate episode of official Palestinian Authority TV’s quiz program for the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, participants received cash prizes from PA Chairman Abbas for denying Israel’s existence. Lebanese “refugees from Palestine” were also given money for lengthier answers to questions such as “how significant is Palestine for you?” and “why do we not consider any other homeland outside of Palestine as our homeland?”
This episode and the cash rewards were also sponsored by PA Chairman Abbas, the PLO Department of Refugee Affairs, and official PA TV. The following are excerpts of the questions put to residents of the Al-Badawi and Nahr Al-Bared refugee camps in Lebanon and their answers that all presented Israel as “Palestine.” The envelopes with the cash given to the participants bore the PA’s logo:
Woman 1: “[I’m] from Al-Tira [near] Haifa, in Palestine (sic., Israel).”
Official PA TV host: “How significant is Palestine for you?”
Woman 1: “Palestine is in our hearts, and we educate our children and future generations that we have the right of return to Palestine.”
Host: “Why do our people in the diaspora keep the names of their villages and cities?
Woman 2: “We have not forgotten Palestine nor any of its regions… Allah willing we will return soon, each to his area. The right of return is legitimate…”
Host: “Why is it important that we pass on this message, the names of the cities, the names of the villages, and the story that happened in 1948… to the younger generation?” …
Woman 2: “We educate our children on the principle that we have a land that was stolen and is occupied by the Zionist enemy.” …
Host: “Your answer was correct. You receive from us a [cash] prize, a presidential grant given to you on behalf of President Abbas…”
Host: “Why do we not consider any other homeland outside of Palestine as our homeland?” …
Woman 3: “No! This is our land. Palestine is our land and our homeland! Allah willing, Palestine will be liberated, and we will return to our lands. We are sitting here [in Lebanon] as guests… Generation after generation, we teach [our children] that we have a land and a homeland, which must be liberated.”
Host: “Your answer fills the heart with pride and joy, because as a Palestinian people, we have the right to return to our homeland. You have won a presidential grant…”
Host: “How important is the right of return for our people?”
Man 1: “Important. We hope to return already today! The right of return is a right! And there is no substitute for our homeland!” …
Host: “You have won a presidential grant…”
Host: “How important is it that we teach our children about the holy sites of Islam and Christianity that belong to us, about our Palestinian villages and cities from which our people were expelled?”
Man 2: “It is very important… We must teach the younger generation so that the memory will be preserved in their hearts, and of course so that we will return to Palestine, Allah willing!” …
Host: “You have won a presidential grant…”
Host: “Why have our Palestinian people insisted on keeping the names of their villages and towns from which they were expelled?”
Woman 4: “To preserve our homeland, Palestine… Because Palestine is our land, our homeland, our soil, and our right!” …
Host: “Allah willing, we will return to the homeland’s soil!”
Host: “You have won a presidential grant…”
Man 3: “[I’m from] the subdistrict of Safed in Palestine (sic., Israel).”
Host: “Why do our people not consider any country they live in as their homeland, instead of Palestine?”
Man 3: “We cannot leave our land, our cause, our soil, and our land! … We are the children of Palestine, and we do not want any other land to be a substitute for Palestine! … In Lebanon we are guests…”
Host: “You have won a presidential grant…”
Man 4: “[I’m from] the subdistrict of Safed in Palestine (sic., Israel).”
Host: “Why do our Palestinian people insist on keeping the names of their villages from which they were expelled in 1948?”
Man 4: “We want to return because everyone [wants to return] to his village, to his area, and to his land – Palestine… We cannot give up Palestine, it has no substitute.”
“How important is it that you pass on the name of the village… to your children… so that they too know… that they have a right?”
Man 4: “We always continue to tell [our children] there is nothing like our land and borders! … Allah willing, all the refugee camps in Lebanon will return to the land of Palestine, to their land…”
Host: “You have won a presidential grant…”
Host: “What does Palestine mean to you?”
Woman 5: “This is my land.”
Host: “You receive from us a prize, which is a presidential [cash] grant given on behalf of the honorable President Abbas, the Department of Refugee Affairs [in the PLO], and Palestinian Television. Here you go!”
[Official PA TV, Discourse of Memory, March 17, 2026]
Palestinian Media Watch has exposed how the PA along the same lines instruct Palestinian “refugees” that the countries they live in are only “waiting stations.”
This is yet another example of how the PA does everything it can to cement the ideology among Palestinians that there is no Israel and that “Palestine” will be liberated.
The author is the Founder and Director of Palestinian Media Watch, where a version of this article first appeared.