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So, there was a swastika at my Airbnb
A few weekends ago I went upstate for a wedding, and briefly lived like a Victorian gentleman with a problematic taste in interior design.
Staying in a historic mansion (h/t Airbnb) in Newburgh, New York, I felt transported into a game of Clue, minus the murder. Was it me in the study with a sandwich? The parlor had a marble bust redolent of antiquity. From my top floor room there were panoramic views of the Hudson hills bursting with fall foliage. And then there was, at the corner of the landing … well, as I told my girlfriend, it’s more of a visual.
“Please do not be alarmed, but there are sauvastikas (more commonly known as swastikas) inlaid in the corners of the floors dating back to 1866, before Hitler was born,” the extensive house instructions said.
I wasn’t alarmed, more amused. (For context, the guests were almost entirely Asian with a couple of Ashkenazi Jews — and a miniature poodle.)
Of course I knew the Eastern origins of the motif. And I noted, as did our hosts, that these swastikas faced the opposite direction of the hooked cross favored by the Third Reich. The owners were right to say in their literature that the symbol “was stolen.”
Nazis really do ruin everything.
The architect, Frederick Withers, could only really be faulted for orientalism, which at the time wasn’t a dirty word. In any case, this was a landmark building registered with the historical society, and as such the swastikas couldn’t be altered. (“On a positive note,” our hosts added, “the original Tiffany stained glass window is well preserved up in the dining room.”)
At the wedding, I made the possible faux pas of mentioning the floors to friends of ours, one of whom grew up in India. It had just been Diwali, and he said kids draw swastikas everywhere during the festival.
“You’re taking it back,” I joked.
On the contrary, he said, they never really let it get taken away. Indians still use the swastika to signify peace and prosperity — its original meaning.
Maybe there’s a lesson there. Not really about ancient Indian symbols, but about what we feel comfortable letting Nazis get away with.
It’s long been a pet peeve of mine that so much of Jewish culture is boiled down to a period of about 12 years in a history that stretches back millennia. That public figures caught saying something antisemitic are immediately dispatched to the nearest Holocaust museum, rather than a Shabbat dinner or a museum of Jewish art.
When people online get defensive about their views on the Jews, they often mention how moved they were by Anne Frank’s diary, as if that was the answer key for understanding our peoplehood, and not just assigned reading. (In most schools in the U.S., the only time students hear anything about Jews is in a unit on the Holocaust.)
Members of the tribe are far from immune to this phenomenon. To be an educated, secular Jew, for many, is to have endured a screening of Schindler’s List — or, if you’re more ambitious, the more than 9 hours of Claude Lanzmann’s Shoah. You don’t see the Talmud in every Jewish home (granted, it takes up a lot of shelf space), but you can probably find a copy of William Shirer’s Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.
Jewish identity has been shaped by our persecution — and remembrance is an important Jewish imperative — but as I’m far from the first to point out, when we take history and memory culture to extremes, we end up ceding our own narrative to those who wanted to erase us.
As scholar Miriam Udel put it in her recent book, “The Holocaust is, in a profound sense, not a Jewish story.” This stopped me when I first read it, but the more I considered it, the more I saw her point. The way the Shoah is typically related, it’s not a story where Jews have a great deal of agency. Jews weren’t passive. Tales of resistance abound — and should be emphasized — but it’s still primarily a story in which something was done to the Jews, and for reasons the Jews had no real control over.
Indians don’t let Nazis have a monopoly on the swastika — why should Jews allow them to define Jewishness?
I am not advocating for the return of parquet-inlaid swastikas in Western homes, whatever their direction. I’m not even for a revival of the Hitler mustache that Michael Jordan once attempted to resuscitate in a Hanes undershirt commercial. But I do think there’s a wisdom in not permitting our enemies to distort our much older tradition.
In Yiddish, we say “mir veln zey iberlebn,” we will outlive them — them being Nazis, antisemites and the various Hamans that rise up in every generation. While today that seems aspirational, we must remember we were here first, and there’s far more to Jewish life than death.
The post So, there was a swastika at my Airbnb appeared first on The Forward.
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Iran Opposes Grossi’s UN Secretary-General Candidacy, Accuses Him of Failing to Uphold International Law
UN nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi holds a press conference on the opening day of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) quarterly Board of Governors meeting in Vienna, Austria, Sept. 8, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Elisabeth Mandl
Iran has publicly opposed International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director-General Rafael Grossi’s potential appointment as UN Secretary-General next year, accusing him of failing to uphold international law by not condemning US and Israeli strikes on Iranian nuclear sites during the 12-day war between Iran and Israel in June.
During a UN Security Council meeting on Monday, Iran’s Ambassador to the UN, Amir Saeid Iravani, sharply criticized Grossi, calling him unfit” to serve as UN Secretary-General next year, Iranian media reported.
“A candidate who has deliberately failed to uphold the UN Charter — or to condemn unlawful military attacks against safeguarded, peaceful nuclear facilities … undermines confidence in his ability to serve as a faithful guardian of the charter and to discharge his duties independently, impartially, and without political bias or fear of powerful states,” the Iranian diplomat said.
With UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ term ending in December next year, member states have already begun nominating candidates to take over the role ahead of the expected 2026 election.
Since the start of the war in Gaza, Israel’s relationship with Guterres has spiraled downward, reaching a low point last year when then-Foreign Minister Israel Katz labeled the UN “antisemitic and anti-Israeli” and declared Guterres persona non grata after the top UN official failed to condemn Tehran for its ballistic missile attack against the Jewish state.
Last week, Argentina officially nominated Grossi to succeed Guterres as the next UN Secretary-General.
To be elected, a nominee must first secure the support of at least nine members of the UN Security Council and avoid a veto from any of its five permanent members — the United States, China, Russia, the United Kingdom, and France.
Afterward, the UN General Assembly votes, with a simple majority needed to confirm the organization’s next leader.
As head of the UN’s nuclear watchdog since 2019, Grossi has consistently urged Iran to provide transparency on its nuclear program and cooperate with the agency, efforts the Islamist regime has repeatedly rejected and obstructed.
Despite Iran’s claims that its nuclear program is solely for civilian purposes rather than weapons development, Western powers have said there is no “credible civilian justification” for the country’s nuclear activity, arguing it “gives Iran the capability to rapidly produce sufficient fissile material for multiple nuclear weapons.”
With prospects for renewed negotiations or nuclear cooperation dwindling, Iran has been intensifying efforts to rebuild its air and defense capabilities decimated during the 12-day war with Israel.
On Monday, Mohammad Eslami, head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI), declared that the IAEA has no authority to inspect sites targeted during the June war, following Grossi’s renewed calls for Tehran to allow inspections of its nuclear sites and expand cooperation with the agency.
Iran has also announced plans to expand its nuclear cooperation with Russia and advance the construction of new nuclear power plants, as both countries continue to deepen their bilateral relations.
According to AEOI spokesperson Behrouz Kamalvandi, one nuclear power plant is currently operational, while other two are under construction, with new contracts signed during a recent high-level meeting in Moscow.
Kamalvandi also said Iran plans to build four nuclear power plants in the country’s southern region as part of its long-term partnership with Russia.
During a joint press conference in Moscow on Tuesday, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi reiterated Iran’s commitment to defending the country’s “legal nuclear rights” under the now-defunct 2015 nuclear deal, noting that Tehran’s nuclear policies have remained within the international legal framework.
Iran’s growing ties with Russia, particularly in nuclear cooperation, have deepened in recent years as both countries face mounting Western sanctions and seek to expand their influence in opposition to Western powers.
Russia has not only helped Iran build its nuclear program but also consistently defended the country’s “nuclear rights” on the global stage, while opposing the imposition of renewed economic sanctions.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has described the reinstatement of UN sanctions against Iran as a “disgrace to diplomacy.”
In an interview with the Islamic Republic of Iran News Network (IRINN), Lavrov accused European powers of attempting to blame Tehran for the collapse of the 2015 nuclear deal, despite what he described as Iran’s compliance with the agreement.
Prior to the 12-day war, the IAEA flagged a series of Iranian violations of the deal.
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Eurovision Host Says It Will Not Drown Out Any Boos During Israel’s Performance
ORF executive producer Michael Kroen attends a press conference about the Eurovision Song Contest in Vienna, Austria, Dec. 16, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Lisa Leutner
The host broadcaster of the next Eurovision Song Contest, Austria’s ORF, will not ban the Palestinian flag from the audience or drown out booing during Israel’s performance as has happened at previous shows, organizers said on Tuesday.
The 70th edition of the contest in May will have just 35 entries, the smallest number of participants since 2003, after five national broadcasters including those of Spain, Ireland, and the Netherlands said they would boycott the show in protest at Israel’s participation.
What is usually a celebration of national diversity, pop music, and high camp has become embroiled in diplomatic strife, with those boycotting saying it would be unconscionable to take part given the number of civilians killed in Gaza during Israel’s military campaign following the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of and massacre across southern Israel.
“We will allow all official flags that exist in the world, if they comply with the law and are in a certain form – size, security risks, etc.,” the show’s executive producer, Michael Kroen, told a news conference organized by ORF.
“We will not sugarcoat anything or avoid showing what is happening, because our task is to show things as they are,” Kroen said.
AUSTRIA SUPPORTED ISRAEL PARTICIPATING
The broadcaster will not drown out the sound of any booing from the crowd, as happened this year during Israel’s performance, ORF’s director of programming Stefanie Groiss-Horowitz said.
“We won’t play artificial applause over it at any point,” she said.
Israel’s 2025 entrant, Yuval Raphael, was at the Nova music festival that was a target of the Hamas-led attack. The CEO of Israeli broadcaster KAN had likened the efforts to exclude Israel in 2026 to a form of “cultural boycott.”
ORF and the Austrian government were among the biggest supporters of Israel participating over the objections of countries including Iceland and Slovenia, which will also boycott the next contest in protest. ORF Director General Roland Weissmann visited Israel in November to show his support.
This year’s show drew around 166 million viewers, according to the European Broadcasting Union, more than the roughly 128 million who Nielsen estimates watched the Super Bowl.
The war in Gaza began after Hamas-led terrorists killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and seized 251 hostages in an attack on southern Israel.
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Antisemitism Allowed to Fester in Australia, Says Daughter of Wounded Holocaust Survivor
Victoria Teplitsky, daughter of a Holocaust survivor who was wounded at the Bondi shootings, stands at a floral memorial in honor of the victims of the mass shooting targeting a Hanukkah celebration on Sunday, at Bondi Beach, in Sydney, Australia, Dec. 16, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Jeremy Piper
Government authorities have not done enough to stamp out hatred of Jews in Australia, which has allowed it to fester in the aftermath of Oct. 7, said the daughter of a Holocaust survivor who was wounded at the Bondi shootings on Sunday.
Victoria Teplitsky, 53, a retired childcare center owner, said that the father and son who allegedly went on a 10-minute shooting spree that killed 15 people had been “taught to hate,” which was a bigger factor in the attack than access to guns.
“It’s not the fact that those two people had a gun. It’s the fact that hatred has been allowed to fester against the Jewish minority in Australia,” she told Reuters in an interview.
“We are angry at our government because it comes from the top, and they should have stood up for our community with strength. And they should have squashed the hatred rather than kind of letting it slide,” she said.
“We’ve been ignored. We feel like, are we not Australian enough? Do we not matter to our government?”
The attackers fired upon hundreds of people at a Jewish festival during a roughly 10-minute killing spree, forcing people to flee and take shelter before both were shot by police.
RISING ANTISEMITIC ATTACKS
Antisemitic incidents have been rising in Australia since the war in Gaza erupted after Palestinian terrorist group Hamas killed 1,200 Israelis in an attack on Oct. 7, 2023.
A rise in such incidents in the past sixteen months prompted the head of the nation’s main intelligence agency to declare that antisemitism was his top priority in terms of threat.
“This was not a surprise to the Jewish community. We warned the government of this many, many times over,” Teplitsky said.
“We’ve had synagogues that have been graffitied, graffiti everywhere, and we’ve had synagogues that have been bombed,” she added, referring to a 2024 arson attack in Melbourne in which no one was killed.
Teplitsky’s father Semyon, 86, bled heavily after being shot in the leg, and now is facing several operations as doctors piece bone back together with cement, then remove the cement from the leg, which he still may lose, she said.
“He’s in good spirits, but he’s also very angry. Angry that this happened, that this was allowed to happen in Australia, the country that he took his children to, to be safe, to be away from antisemitism, to be away from Jew hatred.”
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday that Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese “did nothing” to curb antisemitism.
Albanese repeated on Tuesday Australia‘s support for a two-state solution. Anti-Israel, pro-Hamas protests have been common in Australia since Israel launched its offensive in Gaza.
At a press briefing on Monday, Albanese read through a list of actions his government had taken, including criminalizing hate speech and incitement to violence and a ban on the Nazi salute. He also pledged to extend funding for physical security for Jewish community groups.