Uncategorized
Jews in Iran and in the diaspora find respite in celebrating Nowruz amid war
Anna Hakakian, a resident of Great Neck, New York, grew up in Iran during the Iran-Iraq war. At that time, Nowruz, the secular Persian New Year, offered a rare moment of respite from a conflict that claimed hundreds of thousands of lives.
That war came in the aftermath of the 1979 Islamic Revolution, when Iran’s new leaders tried to ban Nowruz, seeing it as un-Islamic. But Iranians of all religions refused to let it go.
This week, Hakakian is celebrating Nowruz in the shadow of another war. For her, the holiday carries the legacy of Iranians fighting to preserve thousand-year-old traditions despite efforts to suppress them.
“They really tried to erase this from our culture these past 47 years, but it didn’t work,” she said. “It had nothing to do with religion, and all the religions celebrated it, and that’s why it really lasted, because they all fought to keep it.”
How Jews celebrate a Zoroastrian holiday
Nowruz is a 3,000-year-old celebration rooted in ancient Persian tradition, predating the religious divisions that later shaped the region. Its name, meaning “New Day,” marks the arrival of spring.
Though rooted in Zoroastrianism, one of the world’s oldest monotheistic religions, Nowruz is celebrated by Iranians of all faiths. Even observant Jews mark the holiday. “You don’t get the sense that Iranian Jews took Nowruz any less seriously than non-Jewish Iranians,” said Lior Sternfeld, an expert on Iranian Jews and author of Between Iran and Zion.
The holiday lasts 13 days and begins at the exact moment of the spring equinox. Every year, the start time varies, so Iranians often stay awake until the early hours of the morning to welcome the new year. This year, Iranians brought in the holiday on March 20, around 6 p.m. in Tehran. The celebrations will continue until April 2.
Iranians mark the event by setting up a haft-seen table — a vibrant display of symbolic objects that represent themes of spring and renewal. The table traditionally includes seven items beginning with the Persian letter “S,” like sprouts (sabze), the Iranian spice sumac, and hyacinth flowers (sombol). Iranians also visit one another’s homes, hold neighborhood parties and — during the final days of the holiday — gather for picnics.
According to an Iranian Jewish woman living in the U.S., who asked to remain anonymous because her family remains in Iran, some Jewish Iranians are going to great lengths to celebrate the holiday even amid the war. During her biweekly, one-minute phone calls with her parents — kept short to avoid state surveillance and the exorbitant cost of roughly $50 per minute — they told her they had celebrated Nowruz at home, the last thing they did before fleeing to a safer part of the country to avoid bombardment.
“We only talk for one or two minutes. Usually, they just call to tell me they’re alive. But this time because of Nowruz, the call was a little bit longer,” she said. “It was three minutes! Now three minutes is long.”
Videos and photos circulating on social media show the bazaar in Tehran, which had been closed since the war began, alive once more with patrons shopping for Nowruz essentials like fresh flowers and greens.
Most Nowruz traditions are shared across religions, but Jews have adapted certain customs to reflect their heritage.
Many Muslim families include a Quran on their haft-seen table, but “We Jews … put a little Torah in there,” Hakakian said. “We just adjust a little bit to include our history, but everything else is the same.” Some Jewish families elect instead to include a book of Hafez poetry, a secular symbol of Iranian culture and literary tradition.
The holiday typically falls a week or two before Passover, which shares similar themes of renewal and rebirth. While Nowruz is traditionally marked by spring cleaning, Sternfeld said many Jewish Iranians connect the two for practical reasons.
“If Pesach is a few days away, you want to use this occasion to get rid of chametz while you’re cleaning for Nowruz.”
The only holiday celebrated in public
In Iran, Jewish holidays are kept quiet, confined to private homes, and sometimes even basements or secret locations to maintain discretion. But Nowruz is the one holiday Jews are able to celebrate outwardly.
“Holidays were stressful. They were very stressful. I associate holidays with having to watch myself. I thought there was no such thing as a carefree holiday,” said the anonymous Iranian Jewish woman.
Cindy Chaouli, an Iranian Jew who left the country in 1978 and now lives in Los Angeles, recalled how “subdued” it felt celebrating holidays like Purim and Passover during her childhood. “It was celebratory, but it was still quiet from the outside world.”
Nowruz, by contrast, spilled into the streets.
“It was totally different,” said Chaouli. “This was the one holiday that was universal. It had nothing to do with religion. You felt it as much outside as you did inside yourself.”
She recalled visiting the homes of non-Jewish neighbors during the holiday.
“I remember going to our neighbor’s house downstairs and having sweets … they’d make a drink called sharbat with cherries, sugar and water. You would just eat and play. It was just extremely celebratory.”
Nowruz in exile
After the 1979 Iranian Revolution, much of Iran’s Jewish community dispersed — many settling in Los Angeles and Long Island, New York, now home to two of the largest Iranian diasporas in the U.S., where Iranians continue to celebrate Nowruz with fervor.
“Here … everyone has parties, all the families get together, we have Nowruz billboards everywhere,” Chaouli said, referring to advertisements across the city publicizing Nowruz events, which this year, honor the plight of Iranians in Iran.
In the days leading up to the holiday, Persian grocery stores become scenes of near chaos. At Elat Market, a kosher Persian grocery store in Los Angeles, the crowds are notoriously intense when Nowruz and Passover coincide.
“There was a woman and her mother — one was standing at this container, filling bags and throwing them over people’s heads,” Chaouli recalled.
This year, many of the Persian stores are adorning their windows with the pre-revolutionary Iranian flag, a symbol of protest against the Islamic Regime.
Out on the streets, the celebratory mood is unmistakable. “Everyone I say hello to, it’s ‘Happy Nowruz,’” she said. “It’s a very celebratory time here.”
The sense of shared celebration has been tested in recent years. Chaouli said she has felt tensions between Jewish and Muslim Iranians in the diaspora grow in the wake of the Hamas attack on Israel and the Gaza war that followed.
“After October 7, there was definitely a rift and a lot of friendships were lost,” she said.
But with the new war dredging up shared feelings of grief and cautious hope for the country’s future, Chaouli feels Iranians of all religions are celebrating the holiday together more intensely than before.
“I’ve heard multiple people say that it doesn’t feel the same this year,” said Hakakian. “There’s a feeling of guilt to celebrate and to be happy when all this is going on. But at the same time, we say, Nowruz is here. It’s giving us hope.”
In Hakakian’s Persian calligraphy class, which she takes alongside Iranians of different faiths, the holiday became a moment of shared mourning.
“We sat together, and first we said, ‘Happy Nowruz,’ and then we all sat together in a moment of silence for the Iranian people,” she said. “It didn’t matter who’s Jewish, who’s not. We were all grieving for Iranians. And that, to me, was a moment — like, yes, we do need a moment of silence together.”
The post Jews in Iran and in the diaspora find respite in celebrating Nowruz amid war appeared first on The Forward.
Uncategorized
London Police Set Up Specialist Jewish Protection Team
A police officer stands at the scene, 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
British police are setting up a new team of 100 officers including counter terrorism specialists to help protect Jewish communities across London after a series of antisemitic attacks including the stabbing of two men.
The plan announced on Wednesday for a dedicated protection team comes as officers announced more arrests for antisemitism, including detaining a 35-year-old man on Saturday after rocks were thrown at an ambulance belonging to the Jewish community.
London‘s top police boss Mark Rowley said Jewish communities were facing “sustained threats” from hostile state actors as well as extreme right-wing groups, elements of the extreme left, and Islamist terrorists.
Detectives are examining whether the arson incidents have possible Iranian links, after British security officials warned that Iran was using criminal proxies to carry out hostile activity.
Since late March, there have been a number of high-profile arson attacks with four Jewish ambulances burned and synagogues targeted. Last week, two Jewish men were also stabbed. Both victims survived the attack.
Over the past four weeks, police said they had arrested around 50 people for antisemitic hate crimes and charged eight individuals. On top of that, 28 arrests have been made as part of investigations alongside counter terrorism policing for arson and other serious incidents.
“This new team will be primarily focused on protecting the Jewish community, which faces some of the highest levels of hate crime alongside significant terrorist and hostile state threats,” said a statement from London‘s Metropolitan Police force.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer convened a meeting on Monday with business, health and cultural leaders aimed at trying to tackle antisemitism.
Uncategorized
Iran Reviewing US Proposal to End War, Though Key Demands Remain Unaddressed
People walk on a street near a mural featuring an image of the late Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in Tehran, Iran, May 6, 2026. Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
Iran said on Wednesday it was reviewing a US peace proposal that sources said would formally end the war while leaving unresolved the key US demands that Iran suspend its nuclear program and reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
An Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson cited by Iran‘s ISNA news agency said Tehran would convey its response. US President Donald Trump said he believed Iran wanted an agreement.
“They want to make a deal. We’ve had very good talks over the last 24 hours, and it’s very possible that we’ll make a deal,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Wednesday.
Earlier in the day, Trump had sounded more pessimistic about the chances of a deal. In a Truth Social post, he threatened to restart the US bombing campaign in Iran, calling the possibility of Tehran agreeing to the latest US proposal a “big assumption.”
Trump has repeatedly played up the prospect of an agreement that would end the war that started Feb. 28, so far without success. The two sides remain at odds over a variety of difficult issues, such as Iran‘s nuclear ambitions and its control of the Strait of Hormuz, which before the war handled one-fifth of the world’s oil and gas supply.
A Pakistani source and another source briefed on the mediation said an agreement was close on a one-page memorandum that would formally end the conflict. That would kick off discussions to unblock shipping through the strait, lift US sanctions on Iran, and set curbs on Iran‘s nuclear program, the sources said.
It was unclear how the memorandum differs from a 14-point plan proposed by Iran last week, and Iran has yet to respond to the latest US proposal.
Iran‘s semi-official Tasnim news agency, citing an unnamed source, said the US proposal contained some unacceptable provisions, without specifying which ones.
Iranian lawmaker Ebrahim Rezaei, a spokesperson for parliament’s powerful foreign policy and national security committee, described the text as “more of an American wish-list than a reality.”
“The Americans will not gain anything in a war they are losing that they have not gained in face-to-face negotiations,” he wrote on social media.
OIL PRICES TUMBLE
Reports of a possible agreement caused global oil prices to tumble to two-week lows, with benchmark Brent crude futures falling around 11% to around $98 a barrel at one point before rising back above the $100 mark.
Global share prices also leapt and bond yields fell on optimism about an end to a war that has disrupted energy supplies.
Trump on Tuesday paused a two-day-old naval mission to reopen the blockaded strait, citing progress in peace talks.
The US military has kept up its own blockade on Iranian ships in the region. US Central Command said forces fired at an unladen Iranian-flagged tanker on Wednesday, disabling the vessel as it attempted to sail toward an Iranian port in violation of the blockade.
NO MENTION OF KEY US DEMANDS
The source briefed on the mediation said the US negotiations were being led by Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner. If both sides agreed on the preliminary deal, that would start the clock on 30 days of detailed negotiations to reach a full agreement.
The full agreement would end the competing US and Iranian blockades on the strait, lift US sanctions, and release frozen Iranian funds. It would also include some curbs on Iran‘s nuclear program, with the aim of a pause or moratorium on Iranian enrichment of uranium.
While the sources said the memorandum would not initially require concessions from either side, they did not mention several key demands Washington has made in the past, which Iran has rejected, such as curbs on Iran‘s missile program and an end to its support for proxy militias in the Middle East.
The sources also made no mention of Iran‘s existing stockpile of more than 400 kg (900 pounds) of near-weapons-grade uranium.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump’s ally against Iran, said on Wednesday the two leaders agreed that all enriched uranium must be removed from Iran to prevent it from developing a nuclear bomb.
Tehran denies wanting to acquire a nuclear weapon.
Uncategorized
Brussels cathedral installs plaques apologizing for medieval antisemitic persecution depicted in stained glass
(JTA) — More than 650 years after Jews in Brussels were executed and expelled following false antisemitic accusations, church officials at the Cathedral of St. Michael and St. Gudula have installed a plaque apologizing for the persecution commemorated in its stained glass windows.
At a ceremony on April 27, Archbishop Luc Terlinden of Mechelen-Brussels and Rabbi Albert Guigui, the chief rabbi of Brussels, unveiled four plaques, written in Dutch, French, English and Hebrew, providing historical context for the windows and an apology for the antisemitic persecution tied to the events they depict.
The plaques, which Terlinden signed, state that “baseless accusations of the desecration of the Eucharistic host were made against Jewish communities” in medieval Europe and that the accusations “led to persecution, massacres, and unjustifiable expulsions.” The windows show Jews being executed at the stake in response to their alleged attacks on the Eucharist, bread that Catholic doctrine considers a literal representation of Jesus’ body.
“Theological and social anti-Judaism is in direct contradiction with the Gospel of Christ, which calls for truth, justice, and brotherhood,” the plaques say. “We ask forgiveness from the Jewish people for the suffering these accusations have caused.”
The stained glass windows in the cathedral depict the “Brussels Host Desecration,” an antisemitic accusation in 1370 that Jews had desecrated communion wafers, leading to the execution of Jews in Brussels and the expulsion of the city’s Jewish community.
The windows have drawn scrutiny for decades, particularly as the Catholic Church sought to reckon with its history of antisemitism. In 1969, shortly after the landmark Nostra Aetate declaration rejecting longstanding anti-Jewish Catholic doctrine, the Archbishop of Brussels ordered that several paintings be removed and a plaque be mounted to offer context about the remaining depictions.
Several years later, the European Jewish Congress noted last week, Catholic leaders did install a plaque that drew readers’ attention to “the biased nature of the accusations [against the Jews accused of the desecration] and to the legendary presentation of the ‘miracle.’”
But Flora Cassen, the director of the Brandeis Center for Jewish Studies and a scholar of European antisemitism, said the existing plaque was “very ambiguous about the responsibility and what happened” and installed in an easy-to-miss location. The new plaques, she said, contain a clear and “very moving” apology and cannot be missed by anyone who comes to see the windows.
“The significance is enormous of the church finally putting a plaque there that tells the story, that acknowledges the antisemitism behind it, that acknowledges that it was a slander and that it resulted in persecution and in the execution of Jews in Brussels and their expulsion,” Cassen said.
The new plaques cite Nostra Aetate and the Catholic Church’s subsequent effort under Pope John Paul II to reckon with historical antisemitism in 2000. They affirm the church’s “commitment to combat all forms of antisemitism, to deepen dialogue between Jews and Christians, and to pass on to future generations a clear remembrance, based on the acknowledgement of truth and mutual respect.”
While some have called for the historic windows to be removed, Guigui said in a statement that the plaques represented an appropriate way to address relics of historical antisemitism.
“What matters today is how we look at these images,” the rabbi said. “They must not be erased, because they are part of history, but they must be accompanied by explanation and moral insight in order to understand the context and avoid repeating past mistakes.”
The post Brussels cathedral installs plaques apologizing for medieval antisemitic persecution depicted in stained glass appeared first on The Forward.