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Michael Shafir, who played a key role in Holocaust memory in his native Romania, dies at 78
BUCHAREST (JTA) — When Michael Shafir moved to Israel from his native Romania as a teenager in the 1960s, it wasn’t because the Jewish teen was burning with Zionist fervor. Instead, it was the first country that agreed to take him.
“I would have left for wherever there was no communism, because I could no longer live with the feeling that you say one thing outside the house and another at home,” Shafir once said in an interview with Romanian media.
More than four decades later, Shafir would return to the country where he was born, as a professor of international relations. From his post at Babes-Bolyai University, in northwestern Romania, Shafir studied and published extensively on how post-communist right-wing nationalists distorted the past and trivialized or denied the Holocaust in Eastern Europe.
Shafir, who died Nov. 9 at 78, was known in his work and in his personal life for his straightforward and often humorous presentation of difficult truths.
“He was among the first to see the early emergence of nationalism in the [Romanian] communist regime’s politics,” his friend and colleague Liviu Rotman, an Israeli historian of Romanian Jewry, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Rotman said Shafir’s 2004 book “Between denial and trivialization. Holocaust denial in post-communist countries in Central and Eastern Europe” represented a “real encyclopedia” of Holocaust denial, as it outlined three forms that Shafir observed in post-communist states — outright, deflective (which “minimizes own-nation participation”) and selective (a combination of the other two). Shafir also took aim at what he called “comparative trivialization” of the Holocaust, or denying its uniqueness by equating it with communist crimes.
“I used to joke with Michael and told him that he produced a Mendeleev Table of Holocaust denial,” Rotman wrote on Facebook after his friend’s death, referring to the formal name for the periodic table that organizes elements according to their characteristics.
Known in Romania for his irreverent sense of humor and his chain smoking, Shafir’s massive figure wearing a trench coat — and occasionally a hat — could often be seen in the threshold of the conferences and events he attended.
“He was a person with an exceptional sense of humor, who always sent his friends jokes, who always found things to laugh about,” Jewish studies scholar Felicia Waldman told JTA.
“He liked to share everything he discovered, everything he thought,” added Waldman, who also recalled Shafir’s “undiplomatic” vehemence. “Sometimes that created problems for him.”
Shafir promoted his ideas in books and scholarly writing and conferences, but also in the Romanian press, where he proved to be a redoubtable polemicist. As a member of the International Commission for the Holocaust in Romania, he worked to make sure that people in his country understood the truth about the Holocaust and Romanian authorities’ collaboration with the Nazi regime. That history was obscured during the communist era and contested after it.
The commission was established by Romanian president Ion Iliescu in 2003 and headed by Romanian-born Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel. Shafir and his fellow commission members concluded that between 280,000 and 380,000 Jews were murdered in territories under Romanian control during World War II.
In 2004, their report was officially adopted by the Romanian state, which for the first time acknowledged its participation in the destruction of the European Jews.
“Today’s negationism can no longer have the excuse ‘I’ve not read, I’ve haven’t access to information,’” Shafir said in a podcast by the Wiesel Institute in 2021, in which he warns about the crafty and convoluted nature of most contemporary Holocaust denial.
Shafir was still working with the Elie Wiesel National Institute for the Study of the Holocaust in Romania at the time of his death, which the institute and his family members confirmed.
Born in Bucharest in 1944, Shafir managed to move to Israel as a teenager in 1961, during one of the periods when Romania relaxed emigration rules for its Jews. He had run afoul of the Communist regime and sought to escape it.
In Israel, Shafir served in the army before moving to Munich, to work as a researcher on audiences at Radio Free Europe, the U.S.-funded radio station for communist Europe. From then on he balanced journalism with academic work: He then returned to Israel, earning a bachelor’s degree in political science and English literature at Hebrew University while directing foreign news at the Kol Israel radio station, a position he held until 1982. He had just earned a political science PhD at Hebrew University after writing a thesis on the Romanian intelligentsia under communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu.
Shafir rejoined Radio Free Europe in the mid 1980s and held positions there until well after the fall of the Iron Curtain. His return to Romania and reclamation of his Romanian citizenship in 2005 inspired the country’s progressive left.
“Shafir meant a lot to me; he’s been a reference for his honesty and intellectual courage, and someone capable, like not many others, to review his positions when new data or historical sources asked for it,” Romanian-American software engineer-turned-historian Andrei Ursu told JTA.
Ursu was recently appointed scientific director of the Institute of the Romanian 1989 Revolution, an organization whose mission is to study that year’s Romanian anticommunist revolution. Two of his great-grandparents and a grandfather were killed during the Holocaust.
Ursu — whose father Gheorghe died after being savagely beaten while in politically motivated detention by Romania’s Communist secret police, the infamous Securitate — has been fighting for decades to combat the whitewashing of the Securitate in the country’s public discourse.
He described Shafir as “a person with an endless humor” and “without the exaggerated vanity common to many Romanian intellectuals.” Despite his frail health, Ursu said, Shafir agreed to review part of Ursu’s latest editorial project on the 1989 Romanian anti-communist revolution, “The Fall of a Dictator.”
Like other specialists who collaborated with Shafir, Ursu praised his work ethics and the precision of his sourcing and investigative work.
His media comments and public appearances were frequently peppered with jokes and anecdotes. In 2019, while speaking in an interview about the tens of thousands of Jews whom Ceausescu let emigrate in exchange for cash payments from Israel, Shafir told an old Romanian joke that starts with the Romanian dictator visiting a cooperative producing corn.
“How much do you get for a ton of maize?” Ceausescu asked the apparatchik in charge of the cooperative. “Just that? I get more if I sell 10 Jews.” To which the apparatchik retorts: “Then it’d be good if we start sowing Jews.”
In the interview, Shafir also recalled that the Jewish community headquarters in Bucharest used to display a sign warning gentiles desperate to get a visa to Israel and escape communism that “no conversions are accepted.”
“In the end, a conversion is much less dangerous than crossing the Danube swimming,” Shafir observed.
Although Shafir left Israel, he remained close to his family there and invested in the country’s politics. An activist with Peace Now who defined himself as a “critical Zionist,” Shafir rejected characterizations of Israel as an apartheid state but saw the Israeli continued military presence in the Palestinian territories as incompatible with democracy in the long term.
“He was very much worried about our future here in a country that is drifting to the right,” his daughter, Maurit Beeri, wrote on Facebook after her father’s death. She said he had recently spent time in Israel with his family, including his grandchildren.
Shafir’s body lay in state Nov. 13 at one of his university’s buildings in Cluj, Romania, where he lived with his wife, Aneta Feldman-Shafir.
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Israel Says US Gaza Executive Board Composition Against Its Policy
FILE PHOTO: Displaced Palestinians shelter at a tent camp in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, January 14, 2026. REUTERS/Haseeb Alwazeer/File Photo
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said on Saturday that this week’s Trump administration announcement on the composition of a Gaza executive board was not coordinated with Israel and ran counter to government policy.
It said Foreign Minister Gideon Saar would raise the issue with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
The statement did not specify what part of the board’s composition contradicted Israeli policy. An Israeli government spokesperson declined to comment.
The board, unveiled by the White House on Friday, includes Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan. Israel has repeatedly opposed any Turkish role in Gaza.
Other members of the executive board include Sigrid Kaag, the U.N. special coordinator for the Middle East peace process; an Israeli‑Cypriot billionaire; and a minister from the United Arab Emirates, which established relations with Israel in 2020.
Washington this week also announced the start of the second phase of President Donald Trump’s plan, announced in September, to end the war in Gaza. This includes creating a transitional technocratic Palestinian administration in the enclave.
The first members of the so-called Board of Peace – to be chaired by Trump and tasked with supervising Gaza’s temporary governance – were also named. Members include Rubio, billionaire developer Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner.
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Iran’s Leader Khamenei Accuses Trump of Inciting Deadly Protests
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei speaks during a meeting in Tehran, Iran, January 17, 2026. Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Saturday blamed President Donald Trump for weeks of demonstrations that rights groups said have led to more than 3,000 deaths.
“We consider the US president criminal for the casualties, damages and slander he inflicted on the Iranian nation,” Khamenei said, according to Iranian state media.
The protests erupted on December 28 over economic hardship and swelled into widespread demonstrations calling for the end of clerical rule in the Islamic Republic.
Trump has repeatedly threatened to intervene, including by threatening “very strong action” if Iran executed protesters.
But on Friday, in a social media post, he thanked Tehran’s leaders, saying they had called off mass hangings. Iran said there was “no plan to hang people.”
In comments that appeared to respond to Trump, Khamenei said: “We will not drag the country into war, but we will not let domestic or international criminals go unpunished,” state media reported.
IRAN’S WORST UNREST IN YEARS
Iran’s ultimate authority Khamenei said “several thousand deaths” had happened during the nationwide protests, which are Iran’s worst unrest in years. He accused Iran’s longtime enemies the US and Israel of organizing the violence.
“Those linked to Israel and the US caused massive damage and killed several thousand,” he said, adding that they started fires, destroyed public property and incited chaos. They “committed crimes and a grave slander,” he said.
The US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency, or HRANA, said it had verified 3,090 deaths, including 2,885 protesters, and over 22,000 arrests.
Last week, Iran’s prosecutor general said detainees would face severe punishment. Those held included people who “aided rioters and terrorists attacking security forces and public property” and “mercenaries who took up arms and spread fear among citizens,” he said.
“All perpetrators are mohareb,” state media quoted Mohammad Movahedi Azad as saying, adding that investigations would be conducted “without leniency, mercy or tolerance”.
Mohareb, an Islamic legal term meaning to wage war against God, is punishable by death under Iranian law.
INTERNET SERVICES ARE RESTORED IN PART
Reuters has not been able to independently verify the numbers of casualties or details of disturbances reported by Iranian media and rights groups.
Getting information has been complicated by internet blackouts, which were in part lifted on Saturday.
Iran’s crackdown appears to have broadly quelled protests, according to residents and state media, and the semi-official Mehr News Agency reported on Saturday that internet service had been restored for some users.
The ISNA news website said SMS service had also been reactivated.
“Metrics show a very slight rise in internet connectivity in #Iran this morning” after 200 hours of shutdown, the internet monitoring group NetBlocks posted on X. Connectivity remained around 2% of ordinary levels, it said.
A resident of Karaj, west of Tehran, reached by phone via WhatsApp, said he noticed the internet was back at 4 a.m. (0000 GMT) on Saturday. Karaj experienced some of the most severe violence during the protests. The resident, who asked not to be identified, said Thursday was the peak of the unrest there.
A few Iranians overseas said on social media that they had also been able to message users in Iran early on Saturday.
ARRESTS HAVE FOLLOWED INTELLIGENCE OPERATIONS, MEDIA SAY
State media has reported the arrest of thousands of “rioters and terrorists” across the country, including people linked to opposition groups abroad that advocate the overthrow of the Islamic Republic.
The arrests included several people Iranian state media described as “ringleaders,” including a woman named as Nazanin Baradaran, who was taken into custody following “complex intelligence operations.”
The reports said that Baradaran operated under the pseudonym Raha Parham on behalf of Reza Pahlavi – the exiled son of Iran’s last shah – and had played a leading role in organizing the unrest. Reuters could not verify the report or her identity.
Pahlavi, a longtime opposition figure, has positioned himself as a potential leader in the event of regime collapse and has said he would seek to re-establish diplomatic ties between Iran and Israel if he were to assume a leadership role in the country.
Israeli officials have expressed support for Pahlavi. In a rare public disclosure this month, Israeli Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu said in an interview with Israel’s Army Radio that Israel had operatives “on the ground” in Iran.
He said they aimed to weaken Iran’s capabilities, though he denied they were directly working to topple the leadership.
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Protesters Rally in Denmark and Greenland Against Trump Annexation Threat
A protester takes part in a demonstration to show support for Greenland in Copenhagen, Denmark January 17, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Tom Little
Protesters in Denmark and Greenland demonstrated on Saturday against President Donald Trump’s demand that the Arctic island be ceded to the US and called for it to be left to determine its own future.
Trump says Greenland is vital to US security because of its strategic location and large mineral deposits, and has not ruled out using force to take it. European nations this week sent military personnel to the island at Denmark’s request.
MARCHING IN COPENHAGEN AND NUUK
In Copenhagen, demonstrators chanted “Greenland is not for sale” and held up slogans such as “No means No” and “Hands off Greenland” alongside the territory’s red-and-white flag as they marched to the US embassy.
Some wore red baseball caps resembling the “Make America Great Again” caps of Trump supporters, but with the slogan “Make America Go Away.”
In Greenland’s capital Nuuk, thousands led by Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen carried flags and similar banners as they headed for the US consulate chanting “Kalaallit Nunaat” – the island’s name in Greenlandic.
“I’ve come here today because I think it’s important to show that Greenland is not for sale. It is not a toy. This is our home,” said Naja Holm, a civil servant.
By the consulate, Nielsen addressed the crowd, drawing loud cheers.
Organizers estimated over 20,000 people attended the protest in Copenhagen – akin to the entire population of Nuuk. Police did not provide an official figure. Other protests were held across Denmark.
“I am very grateful for the huge support we as Greenlanders receive … we are also sending a message to the world that you all must wake up,” said Julie Rademacher, chair of Uagut, an organization for Greenlanders in Denmark.
TRUMP TRIGGERS DIPLOMATIC RIFT
Trump’s repeated statements about the island have triggered a diplomatic crisis between the US and Denmark, both founding members of the NATO military alliance, and have been widely condemned in Europe.
The territory of 57,000 people, governed for centuries from Copenhagen, has carved out significant autonomy since 1979 but remains part of Denmark, which controls defense and foreign policy, and funds much of the administration.
Some 17,000 Greenlanders live in Denmark, according to Danish authorities.
All parties in Greenland’s parliament ultimately favor independence, but they disagree on the timing and have recently said they would rather remain part of Denmark than join the US.
Only 17 percent of Americans approve of Trump’s efforts to acquire Greenland, and large majorities of Democrats and Republicans oppose using military force to annex it, a Reuters/Ipsos poll found. Trump called the poll “fake.”