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London Jewish Museum to close indefinitely and look for new location
LONDON (JTA) — London’s Jewish Museum is to close indefinitely next month and begin hunting for a new home for its collection of 40,000 objects, one of the largest of its kind in Europe.
The rising costs of maintaining its current premises in northwest London and a difficult fundraising environment exacerbated an already precarious financial situation for the museum, its chairman Nick Viner told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. The Jewish Museum intends to close its doors at the end of June and be out of its current building on Albert Street by the end of the year.
Viner said that the museum had been working on a “vision for the future” that would have seen it move to a building better tailored to the institution’s needs, but that the board had decided that it was no longer possible to make that transition seamlessly.
“We realized that it wasn’t possible to fund the ongoing museum, where the costs were going up significantly, and to focus on a future,” he explained. “We decided that we would pause — move out of the building, sell it, and use the funds to help us over the next period, so that we can continue to operate in a transition mode.”
The Jewish Museum, which had been struggling even prior to COVID-19, was forced into restructuring and layoffs during the pandemic, and it pivoted heavily towards educational programs.
Those programs will continue, and the museum also intends to operate temporary exhibitions in smaller spaces around London, while the rest of the collection is put in storage or loaned temporarily to other institutions.
“There is an opportunity to have parts of the collection that haven’t been seen be accessible to people in different parts of the country, which could be very exciting,” Viner said. “We are just starting to look at how it would work practically, and whether others can house parts of the collection safely.”
Among the rare objects that risk slipping out of view are the oldest Hanukkah menorah made in Britain, which has been displayed since the museum was founded in 1932, and a 17th-century Venetian synagogue ark. The Jewish Museum also houses collections from the Jewish Military Museum, the United Synagogue and the Jewish Historical Society.
But the institution’s small building meant that only 5% of its objects were displayed. It has historically also had a smaller profile than its counterparts on the continent, which operate largely based on public funding and have become more firmly entrenched on both Jewish and non-Jewish tourists trails and local cultural scenes.
“We are very conscious that the U.K. has the second largest Jewish community in Europe and that London’s museum is both very small and a very different kind of space from some of the great Jewish museums around Europe,” said Viner. “We feel that we have so many fantastic stories to tell and so much to show that we ought to have a museum that reflects that, but it will only work if the community is ultimately supportive.”
The museum will have to rely heavily on donors within the Jewish community to ensure its long-term future, as funds from the Arts Council England, a British government-funded body, are insufficient on their own to ensure its sustainability.
Recent records show that in the twelve months up to March 2022, the revenue of the Jewish Museum was hovering at just over a third of pre-COVID levels. The museum was granted National Portfolio status by Arts Council England last year, a label that provides it with a stream of over $280,000 a year until 2026. It had previously received an injection of over $1 million by the Arts Council during the pandemic.
“There is always a risk when you don’t have the fundraising that you cannot continue,” added Viner, who said that it was still uncertain how much the Jewish Museum was looking to raise. “There are different models. It could be a very significant amount, or it can be smaller depending on the scale and the nature of the [future] building. I wouldn’t want to put a future on it.”
While there is currently no specific location in mind for a future site, there is an understanding that an area with more foot traffic is vital. The current site, on a side street, is unlikely to be noticed by many curious tourists or long-time Jewish residents of London. There is also a hope that any future site, whether newly built or purchased, would have outdoor space and permit greater flexibility than the Albert Street building.
The Jewish Museum moved to Camden in 1994. Its current home has been the same since 2010, when it purchased a former piano factory behind the site and remodeled and combined the buildings.
The museum, which had previously put on widely acclaimed exhibitions on Amy Winehouse, Jewish cartoonists and Jewish soccer history in Britain, had also not been able to put on temporary exhibitions since the pandemic because of the cost.
“Exhibitions and work with our collection is a lot more expensive,” said Viner. “We believe that education is really important, but we also have a fantastic collection and lots of stories to tell. We need to find a way to do that too.”
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The post London Jewish Museum to close indefinitely and look for new location appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Trump Says Airspace Above and Around Venezuela Should Be Considered Closed
A drone view shows a fishing boat anchored in the Gulf of Paria, and the coast of Venezuela in the back, in Cedros, Trinidad and Tobago, November 17, 2025. REUTERS/Marco Bello
US President Donald Trump said on Saturday the airspace above and surrounding Venezuela should be considered “closed in its entirety,” but gave no further details as Washington ramps up pressure on President Nicolas Maduro’s government.
“To all Airlines, Pilots, Drug Dealers, and Human Traffickers, please consider THE AIRSPACE ABOVE AND SURROUNDING VENEZUELA TO BE CLOSED IN ITS ENTIRETY,” Trump said in a Truth Social post.
US officials contacted by Reuters were surprised by Trump’s announcement and unaware of any ongoing US military operations to enforce a closure of Venezuelan airspace. The Pentagon did not respond to requests for comment and the White House did not provide any further explanation.
Venezuela‘s communications ministry, which handles all press inquiries for the government, did not immediately reply to a request for comment on Trump’s post.
MASSIVE MILITARY BUILDUP IN CARIBBEAN
David Deptula, a retired lieutenant general who commanded a no-fly zone over northern Iraq in 1998 and 1999, said Trump’s announcement raises more questions than it answers. Imposing a no-fly zone over Venezuela could require significant resources and planning, depending on the goals of the airspace closure, he said.
“The devil’s in the details,” Deptula said.
The Trump administration has been weighing Venezuela-related options to combat what it has portrayed as Maduro’s role in supplying illegal drugs that have killed Americans. The socialist Venezuelan president has denied having any links to the illegal drug trade.
Reuters has reported that options under US consideration included attempting to overthrow Maduro, and that the US military is poised for a new phase of operations after a massive military buildup in the Caribbean and nearly three months of strikes on suspected drug boats off Venezuela‘s coast. Trump has also authorized covert CIA operations in the South American country.
Maduro, in power since 2013, has contended that Trump is seeking to oust him and that Venezuelan citizens and the military will resist any such attempt.
Trump told military service members earlier this week that the US would “very soon” begin land operations to stop suspected Venezuelan drug traffickers.
The streets of Caracas were largely quiet on Saturday morning, though some people braved rain to go shopping.
Maduro and high-ranking officials in his government, some combination of whom appear almost daily on state television, have decried US imperialism in their recent comments, but do not single out Trump by name, as the Venezuelan government may be trying to de-escalate tensions, according to security and diplomatic sources. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio had previously been the focus of Venezuelan government ire, but even references to him have decreased in recent weeks.
The US boat bombings have led to stepped-up surveillance by authorities in the remote northeastern state of Sucre, with increased patrols by security agencies and ruling-party supporters stoking fear among locals, four residents and one recent visitor said.
GPS signals in Venezuela have also been affected in recent weeks amid the US buildup.
Trump’s announcement on Venezuela‘s airspace followed a warning last week from the US Federal Aviation Administration that major airlines faced a “potentially hazardous situation” when flying over Venezuela due to a “worsening security situation and heightened military activity in or around” the country.
Venezuela revoked operating rights for six major international airlines that had suspended flights to the country after the FAA warning.
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How would Jews fleeing Europe have fared under Trump’s anti-immigration policies?
Donald Trump’s vision of foreigners worthy of emigrating to the United States appears to boil down to this: white, Nordic, Christian, politically conservative, not obese, and not a potential drain on public services. It’s a fantasy that’s reminiscent of Nazi values, and one that is being rejected by many Americans.
Trump’s Thanksgiving Day responses to the Washington, D.C. shooting of two National Guard members — one of whom has died — are among the most overtly racist statements he has ever made in public. Trump said he would stop migration from “all Third World Countries” and deport foreign nationals who are “non-compatible with Western Civilization.”
Trump has faced accusations of racism since he was a young real estate developer working with his father. During his first term as president, Trump said America should welcome more immigrants from places like Norway, rather than from Haiti, El Salvador, and African nations — which he dismissed as ‘shithole countries.” Trump, during his second term, has been enacting something like a purity code: Hispanics guilty of nothing more than being in the country illegally get deported; right-wing extremists who tried to carry out a coup in his name get pardons.
About 66,000 migrants are currently locked up under Trump’s immigration crackdown — the largest detention population in U.S. history. Many have no criminal record. Social media is flooded daily with videos of ICE agents smashing car windows, masked men in battle gear dragging immigrants from vehicles, and children left crying as parents are hauled away in handcuffs. Each outrage carries the same message: You are not wanted here.
More than 250 Venezuelan migrants were sent to El Salvador’s notorious CECOT prison, branded by critics as a ‘black hole of humanity.”
Other migrants have been spirited away to South Sudan and countries where they had never set foot — their destinies left unknown.
The Trump administration’s unequal treatment of white South Africans and Palestinian survivors of Gaza is an infuriating display of heartlessness and racism. Even though Afrikaners were the architects and beneficiaries of apartheid’s cruelty, they have been promised the lion’s share of America’s drastically reduced refugee slots. Meanwhile, Gazan Palestinians — whose homes have been destroyed, whose loved ones have been killed by the tens of thousands, and who have endured famine for months — are excluded entirely. In Trump’s America, whiteness and ideological alignment matter more than human suffering.
I can’t help but think of the plight of refugees in postwar Europe after Nazi Germany’s defeat. Up to 60 million people were uprooted across the continent. Some 11 million refugees crowded into Allied‑run displaced persons camps, including hundreds of thousands of Jews, Roma, and other survivors of Nazi camps.
Most of these souls would not pass muster in Trump’s America. His new guidance to embassies and consulates instructs visa officers to screen out applicants who are overweight, elderly, or suffering from chronic conditions — diabetes, heart disease, depression. Applicants must prove financial self‑sufficiency, English proficiency, and the ability to work without reliance on public benefits. Yet multitudes of Europe’s postwar refugees were sick, stripped of education, and dependent on government support just to survive. Compassion has no place in Trump’s transactional brain; these are not the kind of people he would deem worthy of America’s embrace.
What Trump apparently did not see coming was the backlash against his terror campaign against foreigners. In towns and cities across the country, neighbors have rallied as immigrant friends, business owners, and longtime contributors to their communities were hunted down and disappeared. Vigils, marches, and local resolutions have sprung up, with ordinary citizens insisting that their communities will not be defined by terror.
Charlotte offers one example: when ICE launched Operation Charlotte’s Web in November, agents stormed immigrant neighborhoods and even a church, prompting pastors to prepare sanctuaries and residents to organize vigils and rapid‑response patrols. In St. Paul, Minn., rapid‑response networks sprang up to protect immigrant families, alerting neighbors when ICE vans appeared and mobilizing lawyers to defend detainees. During Trump’s first major sweep, in Los Angeles, mass protests turned the city into a showcase of resistance rather than submission.
Community members have demonstrated an incredible fearlessness in their efforts to protect immigrants from federal agents — shouting at them to identify themselves, to show a warrant, and that they’re not welcome in the neighborhood. Sometimes the agents have retreated, getting back into their van or SUV without making an arrest.
ICE agents’ attempts to arrest a 16‑year‑old high school student in Rhode Island this month offers a stirring example of community compassion in action. The teen, interning for Superior Court Judge Joseph J. McBurney in Providence, was misidentified by agents who surrounded the judge’s car and threatened to smash the windows. McBurney stood firm, insisting they had the wrong person. Only after confirming his words did the agents back down, and the boy was freed.
In several communities, high school students, peers and teachers have stepped in to defend migrant classmates against ICE and Border Patrol agents prowling neighborhoods, often accused of racial profiling based on skin color or accents.
In Oregon, nearly 300 students walked out of McMinnville High School to protest the ICE arrest of a classmate during lunch break and demanded school administrators create protocols to alert migrant students whenever ICE agents are spotted nearby.
“Honestly, after what happened to that kid, the 17-year-old, I don’t feel safe going to school,” fellow student Alexis Hernandez Flores told KOIN 6 News.
As depressing and alarming as the past several months have been — as Trump has brought the United States to the abyss of autocracy — I have found reason for hope in ordinary citizens’ bold actions to protect foreigners in their midst from illegal and racist roundups. From Chicago to Charlotte, from Los Angeles to Providence, neighbors, churches, and even judges have refused to be silent. Their defiance recalls what was missing in Nazi Germany: a public willing to stand up, to insist that fear and violence will not define their communities.
If Trump sends federal agents into neighborhoods to arrest and deport foreign nationals who are deemed “non-compatible with Western Civilization,” as he has threatened, the backlash will surely become louder, and the resistance against him stronger.
The post How would Jews fleeing Europe have fared under Trump’s anti-immigration policies? appeared first on The Forward.
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Most American Jews believe Zohran Mamdani will make NYC Jews less safe, Israeli poll finds
(JTA) — More than two-thirds of American Jews believe that New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani will make the city’s Jews less safe, according to a new survey by a nonpartisan Israeli research institute.
The finding came in the Jewish People Policy Institute’s latest Voice of the Jewish People Index, which surveyed 745 American Jews about a range of topics last month, just 10 days after Mamdani was elected. It offers the latest insight into Jewish sentiments about Mamdani, whose staunch criticism of Israel has drawn attention, and at times allegations of antisemitism, from Jews around the world.
The survey found that 67% of respondents believed Mamdani’s election would make New York City’s Jews less safe, while 6% believed they would be more safe and 18% believed he would make them neither more or less safe.
Among Jews identifying as politically conservative, 93% said they believed Mamdani would make New York City Jews less safe. Concerns were lower among liberal-leaning Jews, but still one third of respondents who identified as “strongly liberal” said they believed Mamdani would make Jews less safe.
Over half of respondents said they felt “worried” about the election of Mamdani, while 11% said they were “afraid.” Another 13% said they were “hopeful.”
A different poll in August found that 58% of Jewish New Yorkers believed the city would be less safe for Jews under Mamdani.
The Jewish People Policy Institute conducts regular surveys of Jewish sentiment, drawing on a pool of Jews who have agreed to be part of a survey pool. The institute notes that as a result, “the survey tends to reflect the attitudes of ‘connected’ American Jews, that is, those with a relatively strong attachment to the Jewish community and/or Israel and/or Jewish identity.”
It found that 70% of respondents identified as Zionist, while 12% identified as “not a Zionist, but a supporter of Zionism.” Additionally, 7% identified as “neither a supporter nor an opponent of Zionism,” 5% identified as a post-Zionist and 3% identified as an anti-Zionist.
Among strong liberal respondents, 52% identified as Zionists, while 79% of strong conservatives identified as Zionists.
Asked whether they believed that Zionism is racism, a charge frequently leveled by Israel’s critics, 59% of respondents said they believed that Zionism is “not at all racism.” Among strong liberal respondents, the proportion was 28%, compared to 86% of strong conservatives.
The survey also asked respondents about their perception of antisemitism coming from the political left and right in the United States. In recent months, calls to condemn right-wing antisemitism among Jewish conservatives have revealed growing rifts within the party.
Among the survey’s respondents, 62% said they were worried about antisemitism from both the left and the right, while 20% said they were more worried about antisemitism on the left and 17% were more worried about it on the right. Among strong liberals, just 5% were worried about antisemitism on the left while just 1% of conservatives were worried about antisemitism on the right.
The post Most American Jews believe Zohran Mamdani will make NYC Jews less safe, Israeli poll finds appeared first on The Forward.