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Hidden in Central Park, a modest installation of Holocaust art — but what was it doing there?
I’m a big walker. It’s how I stay sane, if one could call what I am, sane. I listen to books, podcasts and music. The lake I live on upstate has a road straight around it, so it is a perfect and beautiful four-mile walk. I walk around it once or twice every day.
Not long ago, I went walking in Central Park, which is down the block from my apartment in Manhattan. About a quarter of a mile of the way in, I saw out of the corner of my eye something interesting on the curb. Oddly, it looked like art.
When I went over to see what it was, it turned out to be a beautifully, albeit austerely, painted brick, with what I thought were three viewpoints of a prisoner in black and white. On the side was a piece of masking tape with a series of numbers, which made it seem like it was an installation, and this was the edition number. Maybe it was some new Banksy installation, I thought, and greedily picked it up. Had I found some secret treasure? It was heavy enough to be an encumbrance, but already, in my assessment, too valuable to leave.
By the time I got halfway around the park, I collected three more and was trying to do my seven-mile walk carrying four heavy bricks in a plastic bag I picked out of the trash. I knew I’d never make it all the way around. I decided to hide them under a bush at 74th and Fifth and come back later to collect them.
I had lunch with my friend Christine who afterwards walked with me to the secret hiding place and helped me carry them through the park. She was equally astonished by them. When I got home, I showed my spouse, Kevin, a talented writer and editor, who knew at once what they were. They were Jewish prisoners from the concentration camps and the numbers hastily taped to the sides were some kind of identification numbers. I wondered if they were the ones tattooed on their arms.
Kevin looked on the web and found something called the Arolsen Archives where you could look up the numbers like the ones on the bricks and find out who the prisoners were, so they were more like the filing numbers, the tally of the murdered. It seemed logical, though I couldn’t find any of the four on the bricks.
Why hadn’t I immediately known what the images were? I am a Jew. I have always been obsessed with the Holocaust. I saw Claude Lanzmann’s monumental nine-hour documentary, Shoah, twice. I spent eight harrowing hours at Theresienstadt two years ago. I created an opera out of Giorgio Bassani’s Holocaust novel, The Garden of the Finzi-Continis. My grandmother flooded us when we were children with photos of everyone who was murdered in the little Polish village she mercifully escaped the day it was wiped off the map. But it took Kevin, a Catholic, to identify them.
I suddenly felt very strange. Had I disturbed some kind of Holocaust memorial someone was in the process of installing all over the park? But they seemed so delicate and randomly placed — one good rain might destroy them. The masking tape was already falling off. Maybe someone has an explanation, or knows what I should do with them, I thought. They should be protected. They are disturbing and moving, and chillingly beautiful. They should be seen.
Taken by their aesthetic beauty, but curiously oblivious to their power, I arranged them on the shelves in our bedroom. But as soon as Kevin entered the room, he said, “Those cannot stay in here.” It never occurred to me that sleeping in a bed where these faces were staring down at you might be upsetting.
I posted my story and images of the bricks on Facebook seeking to find answers, and received all kinds of responses, including, especially from my writer and artist friends, an almost haughty and judgmental, “Put them back!” I felt guilty, ashamed, and thought about it, but it didn’t feel right.
This is what I wanted to happen: People would see what I had posted, understand how extraordinary my discovery was, and answer the questions that I had: Why would someone do this? The pieces were oddly located — one on the curb, one on a wall, on a bench, but all out in the open for anyone to find — was anyone checking on them? Why was I the only one that saw them? Was I, in fact, the only one? Were they a memorial? An installation? Were they Banksy? Was I holding a treasure and finally about to get rich? Of course I couldn’t sell them, but I thought about it.
No one had any answers, though, and none of my 5,000 Facebook friends raised their hand to say, “I made them, and this is why.”
I am a composer, and sensitive to the gesture — an artist’s quiet activist act, the element of chance, the small revolution, the poetry of it. Perhaps I should have left them undisturbed, let the artist have his/her/their way. But I didn’t, I couldn’t, and here we are.
Now what?
The world feels so precarious right now — violent and unpredictable. This looked like it might be some profound political statement, some cry from the artist’s studio, some shriek in the dark in these bricks. But I don’t know what it was, and I’m dying to find out.
I still question my obliviousness to what the images were when I first saw them. It rattles me. Could I be inured to such horrors?
Last night, when I went to sleep, I dreamt I was in a building with three other men. We were wiring a building to blow it up. When the blast was imminent, and the building started collapsing, they got out and I didn’t. I woke up startled, shaking, sweating and wondering: What do these bricks signify?
And why was it me that found them?
Can anyone tell me?
Anyone?
The post Hidden in Central Park, a modest installation of Holocaust art — but what was it doing there? appeared first on The Forward.
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Iran appoints AMIA bombing suspect to National Security Council
(JTA) —
For the second time this year, Iran has named a wanted suspect in the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish community center in Buenos Aires to a top security role.
A spokesman for the Islamic Republic’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, said Monday that Mohsen Rezaei had resigned as an adviser to the supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, and would assume the role of secretary of Iran’s powerful Supreme National Security Council. Rezaei is a former commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.
Rezaei is wanted by Argentina and is subject to an Interpol Red Notice issued at Argentina’s request over his alleged role in the 1994 attack, which killed 85 people and remains the deadliest terrorist attack in Argentina’s history.
Earlier this year, Ahmad Vahidi, another suspect in the AMIA case and also the subject of an Interpol Red Notice, was appointed IRGC commander.
In a landmark ruling in 2024, an Argentine court held Iran and its proxy in Lebanon, Hezbollah, responsible for the bombing, setting the stage for international legal action.
In June 2025, Argentina’s federal judiciary ordered that 10 Iranian and Lebanese suspects accused in connection with the deadly 1994 AMIA bombing be tried in absentia. Rezaei and Vahidi are among them.
The eight other suspects accused by the late AMIA special prosecutor, Alberto Nisman, are: former Iranian Intelligence Minister Ali Fallahijan, former Iranian foreign minister Ali Akbar Velayati, former Iranian ambassador Hadi Soleimanpour, former Iranian cultural attache in Buenos Aires Mohsen Rabbani and former Iranian diplomat Ahmad Reza Asghari, as well as suspected Hezbollah operatives Salman Raouf Salman, Abdallah Salman and Hussein Mounir Mouzannar.
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Israel and AIPAC on the ballot in the Minnesota Senate and U.S. House races
(JTA) — A pair of Democratic primaries in Minnesota on Tuesday are among a string of high-profile battles between progressive and moderate candidates, where Israel and the pro-Israel lobby serve as key wedge issues.
The state’s highest-profile race is the U.S. Senate primary between Rep. Angie Craig, who has been endorsed by the pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC, and Lieutenant Gov. Peggy Flanagan, who says she would reject AIPAC’s money and accuses Israel of committing a genocide.
The most recent data gathered in late July through early August has Craig with a 2-percentage point lead, within the 5.3% margin of error. Another poll, conducted in late July by a group supporting Flanagan, shows her with a 14-point lead. The Democratic nominee, whether it be Flanagan or Craig, is expected to win the general election in November.
The race, and the candidates’ sparring over AIPAC, comes as the lobby and Israel under the leadership of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have become increasingly unpopular among Democratic voters. Israel is also an issue in the Democratic gubernatorial primary in neighboring Wisconsin taking place on Tuesday.
Flanagan has referred to Craig as “AIPAC’s candidate” in the Senate race, which prompted Craig to distance herself from the group’s spending during a TV debate in June.
“AIPAC has not contributed at all, the PAC, to my Senate campaign,” said Craig, whose wife, Cheryl Greene, is Jewish. “Not one penny.”
Flanagan countered that, while AIPAC itself has not donated to Craig’s campaign, it has held fundraisers for the four-term congresswoman. AIPAC did not respond to a request for comment.
Just last week in Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary, progressive Abdul El-Sayed defeated the moderate Rep. Haley Stevens, whose AIPAC endorsement was the frequent target of opposition attacks.
Flanagan has drawn the support of American Priorities, a pro-Palestinian super PAC that aims to counter AIPAC. The group spent about $54,000 on ads boosting her candidacy, according to FEC filings.
Flanagan’s platform includes blocking offensive weapons sales to Israel — a position that all but seven Senate Democrats voted for in April — and advancing a two-state solution that “allows for a secure Israel and Palestinian self-determination.”
Craig, who also backs a two-state outcome, voted against the recent amendment proposed by Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie that would have halted $3.3 billion in military aid to Israel.
In a statement explaining her vote, Craig panned Netanyahu and the war in Iran, but wrote that the amendment would endanger Israelis and American troops and allies in the region. After the vote, Flanagan wrote, “A vote to send $3.3 billion of taxpayer money to fund additional weapons of war to Benjamin Netanyahu is unconscionable. Enough.”
Craig has the endorsement of a number of Democrats in Congress and the Senate, including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. She is also endorsed by lobbying group Democratic Majority for Israel, former Democratic presidential contender Pete Buttigieg, and Minneapolis’ Jewish mayor, Jacob Frey, who rose to national prominence for his response to the deadly results of the deployment of immigrant enforcement officials in his city.
Flanagan has drawn endorsements from a swath of major progressive figures including Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, and outspoken pro-Palestinian Reps. Ro Khanna of California and Ilhan Omar of Minnesota. Flanagan is also endorsed by the state’s Democratic Party affiliate, the Democratic Farmer Labor Party.
On Sunday Sanders posted on X,”There is a reason why the super PACs and billionaires are flooding Minnesota with $20 million to defeat Peggy Flanagan. Same thing as Michigan. They do not want somebody in the Senate who will stand up for the working class.”
Spending by political action committees affiliated with AIPAC has also come to the fore in the Democratic primary race for the House seat that Craig is vacating.
The most moderate of the three leading candidates is State Sen. Matt Klein, who has expressed support for the U.S.-Israel relationship and is endorsed by DMFI. Last-minute spending by outside groups has sparked accusations that AIPAC is indirectly involved.
“AIPAC is coming after me,” said former Lakeville mayor Matt Little, one of Klein’s opponents, in a video.
Klein’s two opponents — Little and state Rep. Kaela Berg — both accuse Israel of committing a genocide, and have both speculated that AIPAC is behind some of the Klein spending.
Berg supports placing conditions on U.S. aid to Israel and halting weapons sales, and Little says the U.S. must end all military aid and weapons sales to the country. On the policy page of his campaign website, Little refers to Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack as “an act of wanton slaughter against innocent civilians” and says that people should condemn “the anti-Semitism that followed.”
Berg is listed as “primary approved” by the liberal Jewish Middle East advocacy group J Street, while Little has been boosted by American Priorities, which has spent about $64,000 in his favor. He is also endorsed by the DFL and Congressional Progressive Caucus leader Rep. Pramila Jayapal.
The latest polling in the district — conducted at the end of May by a group that favors Klein — found Little leading Klein with a 7-percentage point lead, and Berg trailing by another 3 points. 39 percent of voters were undecided, and Little and Klein were about even after voters received more information about the three candidates.
Craig has declined to endorse any of the candidates to replace her.
The post Israel and AIPAC on the ballot in the Minnesota Senate and U.S. House races appeared first on The Forward.
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Sister of pro-Israel stalwart Lindsey Graham wins runoff slot
(JTA) — South Carolina Sen. Darline Graham and a second Republican candidate will advance to a special primary runoff in two weeks, when voters will decide which GOP candidate might take the vacant seat of her late brother Lindsey Graham.
Just over an hour after polls closed, at about 8:15 pm, the Associated Press declared that Darline Graham would advance to a runoff election, noting that “one additional candidate will also advance.” At that point Graham had secured 32.6% of the vote, with 39% of ballots counted.
Graham was up against nine fellow Republicans, with her biggest competition including U.S. House Reps. Ralph Norman and Russell Fry, who were closely vying for the second spot in the runoff at the time of the AP’s call. In South Carolina, the top contender would have needed to win a majority of votes in order to avoid the two-candidate runoff, scheduled for August 25.
In the November general election, the winner will face Democrat Annie Andrews, a pediatrician who is unlikely to prevail in this solidly Republican state.
Tuesday’s race marked the second time in two months that GOP voters came to the polls to select a Senate candidate, and now they will need to do so a third time. Longstanding Sen. Lindsey Graham, a top ally of Israel in the U.S. Senate and supporter of military action against Iran. won the original primary in June but died suddenly from an aortic dissection on July 11.
Graham, who was 71 years old, served 23 years in the Senate and eight in the U.S. House. He was a member of the Senate’s Armed Services and Budget committees and had traveled to Israel about a dozen times since Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel.
Heading into Tuesday’s primary, analysts expressed no doubt that the winner would be pro-Israel. They stressed, however, that matching Graham’s level of foreign policy experience and focus on Israel, a place he often visited, would be a formidable task.
“Whoever wins this is going to be an ally of Israel,” Christopher Cooper, a political science professor at Western Carolina University, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in the lead-up to the race. “The question is whether they will be the champion for Israel that Lindsey Graham was.”
A few days after Graham’s death, South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster, a Republican, appointed Darline Graham to complete the late senator’s term. Despite having minimal policy experience, such as a past role on the South Carolina Commission for the Blind, she earned President Trump’s support and soon declared her candidacy in the full race.
While 10 candidates were running in the Tuesday primary, only about two others were considered serious competition for Graham, Norman and Fry: businessman Mark Lynch and Mark Sanford, whose governorship was plagued with scandals and who briefly ran against Trump in the 2020 presidential primaries.
The post Sister of pro-Israel stalwart Lindsey Graham wins runoff slot appeared first on The Forward.
