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Sophie is 85 and survived the Holocaust. Caroline is 29 and new to NYC. Here’s how they became fast friends.
(New York Jewish Week) – It’s a sunny Wednesday afternoon, and Sophie Turner Zaretsky has laid out a tray of fruit and cookies, eagerly awaiting her friend Caroline Crandell. When Crandell arrives at Zaretsky’s Upper West Side apartment, just a few minutes after their scheduled meeting time of 3 p.m., the two break into smiles and embrace.
The two women have been meeting every few weeks since the fall of 2022. Like any pair of friends, they discuss everything that’s going on in their lives and families, as well as current events and their favorite spots in the city. But unlike most friendships, there’s a 56-year age gap between the two: Zaretsky, a Holocaust survivor and retired radiation oncologist, is 85, while Crandell, a software engineer, is 29.
“We just talk,” Zaretsky told the New York Jewish Week as she poured tea for Crandell and a reporter. “Whatever comes into our head.”
“She knows all about my dating life,” Crandell added. “I get a lot of advice, which is helpful.”
The pair were matched through the “Caring Calls” initiative, a flagship program of the Wechsler Center for Modern Aging at the Marlene Meyerson JCC Manhattan on the Upper West Side. The program was created during the pandemic to help seniors combat isolation. It enlists some 130 volunteers to reach out to everyone over 70 who has attended any type of program or event at the JCC in recent years. Most of the check-ins happen over the phone: Volunteers call a few times a year to say hello and offer everything from tech support to grocery shopping assistance.
“We want to be there for our community as folks age,” Susan Lechter, the director of the Wechsler Center, told the New York Jewish Week. “No one should be lonely in this world. If we can make a difference in any way, we want to be there for our community.”
And some of these relationship blossom into something deeper. Seniors can request a “buddy” for regular phone calls; according to the Wechsler Center, there have been 140 “buddy” matches so far.
When Zaretsky first heard from Caring Calls last fall, she had a specific request: She wanted to be matched with a young person as a buddy. “I talk to old people and I’m tired of hearing about all the issues and problems with aging,” Zaretsky quipped. “I have my own issues; I don’t want to hear anybody else’s.”
Given that most of the Caring Calls volunteers are middle-aged or older adults, Lechter knew exactly whom to tap: Crandell, who was living by herself in a fifth-floor walkup on the Upper East Side, having arrived in New York via California during the Omicron wave of January 2022. In order to meet new friends, Crandell had enrolled in intramural soccer at the JCC, and she also had inquired about volunteer opportunities there.
“My family is very far away and I haven’t had any living grandparents for a long time. I didn’t know anyone when I moved here,” Crandell said, explaining her interest in the Caring Calls program. “I think it’s good to have different generations and different perspectives come together.”
Matched by Lechter, the pair first spoke in October of last year and they hit it off immediately. “I think we spoke for like an hour,” Crandell said, recalling how they bonded over their dislike of cooking and exercise. “By the end of the call we said to each other, ‘Let’s not do the call thing. Let’s meet up.’ I came over a few days later and we’ve been getting together every few weeks ever since.”
Turner Zaretsky and Crandell get together every few weeks at Turner Zaretsky’s Upper West Side apartment, pictured here on May 10, 2023. (Julia Gergely)
The particular afternoon of the New York Jewish Week’s visit, Crandell had brought over a new blend of tea to try. Over their beverages, the two women share lipstick and book recommendations, and swap stories about their childhoods — which were, not surprisingly, vastly different from one another’s.
Zaretsky, born Selma Schwarzwald in 1937, had grown up in hiding in Lvov, Poland; she and her mother posed as Catholics in order to avoid deportation to the Belzec killing center. She moved to England with her mother in 1948, when she was 10, and wasn’t told she was Jewish until she was a teenager.
“It was terrible,” she said of moving from Poland to England. “It’s very hard to be a refugee when you don’t know the language. You feel stupid. You don’t have the narrative. I didn’t have the narrative for England and I didn’t have the narrative for being Jewish.”
After attending medical school in England, Zaretsky moved to New York in 1963 for her medical residency at Montefiore Hospital in the Bronx, and found herself alone in a brand new city. In 1970, she married David Zaretsky.
Though the JCC initiative is the first time either Zaretsky or Crandell have participated in a formal matching program, Zaretsky has a history of “adopting” people who look like they might need it. A number of years ago at a dinner at the United Nations, which she attended in place of her son who often worked with the organization, Zaretsky was seated next to the ambassador from Malta. “He didn’t know people in New York, so being the Jewish mother that I am, I had to introduce him to everyone to make sure he could live a good life here,” she said. They’re still friends to this day, Zaretsky said, and she has been known to advise him on certain geopolitical issues when the General Assembly meets.
“I have found that young people nowadays are so educated and so aware, but they still need a little bit of TLC — at least this one does,” Zaretsky said, nodding towards Crandell. “But I do, too.”
Indeed, former U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy has described a “loneliness epidemic” that peaked, not surprisingly, at the height of the pandemic. Older adults, disproportionately women, have been especially vulnerable, although a Harvard studying 2021 found that older teens and young adults were the hardest hit by the social isolation brought on by the pandemic.
“I feel like in the society we live in right now, isolation and disjointed community is common,” Crandell said. “Everything’s online, every single person has been affected by technology and feeling pretty isolated, no matter what age. Any opportunity to meet people in person or just connect with someone goes a long way.”
This type of relationship is exactly what the program aims to achieve, said Lechter. “We were determined to create more intergenerational opportunities,” she said. “We’re hoping that it becomes more frequent.”
By the time Crandell needs to head to her soccer game, several hours have passed. “I come thinking I’m just stopping by, but it turns out we have hours of things we need to discuss,” Crandell told the New York Jewish Week. “I always lose track of time.”
Like any good Jewish mother, Zaretsky sends her off with a care package of snacks to take home and a plan for when they’ll meet up again — this coming Friday, for Shabbat dinner.
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NATO Alliance Considers End to Annual Summits
US President Donald Trump holds a bilateral meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, Jan. 21, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
NATO is considering ending its recent practice of holding annual summits, six sources told Reuters, a move that could avoid a potentially tense encounter with US President Donald Trump in his final year in office.
Trump‘s administration has engaged repeatedly in scathing criticism of many of the US-led defense alliance‘s 31 other members, most recently berating some for not providing more assistance to US military operations against Iran.
The frequency of NATO summits has varied over the alliance‘s 77-year history but its leaders have met every summer since 2021 and will gather this year in the Turkish capital Ankara on July 7 and 8.
But some members are pushing to slow the tempo, a senior European official and five diplomats, all from NATO member countries, told Reuters.
NATO MEMBERS LOOKING FOR LESS DRAMA AND BETTER DECISIONS
One diplomat said the 2027 summit, to be held in Albania, would likely take place that autumn and NATO was considering not holding one at all in 2028 – the year of the US presidential election and Trump’s final full calendar year in office.
Another said some countries were pushing to hold summits every two years, adding that no decision had been taken and Secretary General Mark Rutte would have the final say.
The sources spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal NATO deliberations.
In response to a query from Reuters, a NATO official said: “NATO will continue to hold regular meetings of Heads of State and Government, and between summits NATO Allies will continue to consult, plan, and take decisions about our shared security.”
Two of the sources mentioned Trump as a factor but several said broader considerations were at play.
Some diplomats and analysts have long argued that annual summits create pressure for eye-catching results that distracts from longer-term planning.
“Better to have fewer summits than bad summits,” said one diplomat. “We have our work cut out for us anyway, we know what we have to do.”
Another said the quality of discussions and decisions was the true measure of alliance strength.
TRUMP CASTS LONG SHADOW OVER NATO MEETINGS
Phyllis Berry, nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, wrote: “Reducing high-profile summitry would allow NATO to get on with its business and dial down the drama that has marked many recent transatlantic encounters.”
In an article published on the think tank’s website last week, she noted that NATO held only eight summits during the decades of the Cold War. She described Trump’s first three NATO summits in his first term as “contentious events, dominated by his complaints about low allied defense spending.”
Last year’s summit in The Hague was also largely shaped by Trump’s demand that NATO members boost defense spending sharply to 5% of GDP – a target they accepted by agreeing to spend 3.5% on core defence and 1.5% on broader security-related investment. The mere fact that it ended without major drama was considered a success.
This year’s gathering also looks set to be tense.
After NATO allies refused to give him the support he was demanding in the Iran war, which he had begun without consulting or informing them, Trump openly questioned whether the US should stand by NATO’s mutual defense pact and said he was considering leaving the alliance. Months earlier, he had laid claim to Greenland, an autonomous territory belonging to fellow NATO member Denmark.
At the 2018 summit, Trump threatened to walk out in protest at other NATO allies’ low defense spending.
“Had he made good on his threat to leave in protest, we would have been left to pick up the pieces of a shattered NATO,” Jens Stoltenberg, NATO’s secretary general at the time, wrote in a memoir published last year.
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When a Jewish Icon Moves to Israel for Her Safety: A Warning Sign for the Netherlands
A view of the Concertgebouw building in Amsterdam, Netherlands on Aug. 26, 2024. Photo: Jakub Porzycki via Reuters Connect
The reported decision of Dutch singer Lenny Kuhr, a beloved cultural figure and winner of the 1969 Eurovision Song Contest, to relocate to Israel should prompt serious reflection across the Netherlands.
When a Jewish public figure feels compelled to leave because of hostility, intimidation, or fear, it is not merely a personal decision. It is a warning sign about the health of Dutch society.
For generations, the Netherlands has cultivated an international reputation for tolerance, openness, and civic decency. It is a nation admired for democratic values, free speech, and social stability. Yet no society is immune to the resurgence of antisemitism, and recent years have shown that the Dutch exception is not guaranteed.
Across Europe, Jews are reporting increased harassment, threats, vandalism, and social isolation. The Netherlands is one place where this is happening. What often begins as political hostility toward Israel can quickly spill over into open hostility toward Jews. Online abuse becomes street intimidation. Campus activism becomes exclusion. Political rhetoric becomes a license for prejudice.
This is especially dangerous because it often hides behind respectable language of “anti-Zionism,” “human rights,” or opposition to Israel. But usually, this goes much deeper and becomes (or reveals itself as) a hatred of Jews.
Dutch directness is often celebrated as a cultural virtue. But there is a profound difference between candor and cruelty. When “speaking plainly” becomes an excuse for abuse, society loses an essential moral boundary. Free expression must never become a shield for threats or dehumanization.
The same is true in politics. Consensus culture has many strengths, but it can also create hesitation in moments that require clarity. When antisemitism rises, leaders cannot afford ambiguity. They must name it, confront it, prosecute it, and isolate those who spread it.
Jewish citizens should never have to wonder whether their future is safer elsewhere. They should never need to hide symbols of identity, avoid public spaces, or explain away hatred as the cost of living in a pluralistic democracy.
The departure of a well-known Jewish Dutch figure should therefore be seen not as an isolated story, but as a national test. If even prominent, admired Jews feel unsafe, what message does that send to ordinary Jewish families, students, and elders?
The Netherlands still has time to choose a different path. It can reaffirm that antisemitism has no place in Dutch life. It can protect Jewish institutions, enforce existing laws, educate younger generations, and draw a bright line between legitimate political disagreement and hatred toward Jews.
If it fails, more Jews may conclude that their future lies elsewhere. And that would not only be a tragedy for Dutch Jewry. It would be a tragedy for the Netherlands itself.
Sabine Sterk is the CEO of the NGO Time To Stand Up For Israel.
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India and Israel Have the Same Response to Terrorism: Why Is Only One Treated Differently?
India’s prime minister, Shri Narendra Modi, addresses the gathering at the Indian Community Reception Event at the Singapore Expo in Singapore on November 24, 2015.
As Israel recently celebrated its Memorial and Independence days back to back, we were reminded that statehood comes at a cost, both on the battlefield and in ordinary moments shattered by terror.
One year ago in Pahalgam, India was confronted with that same reality — yet again.
Terrorists from across the border in Pakistan infiltrated Indian territory and killed 26 men in front of their wives and children. It was not an isolated act of violence, but a deliberate strike on civilians, designed to fracture trust and deepen fear.
I remember sitting in a café in Jerusalem when the news broke. My Israeli friends immediately understood what had happened. Their reaction was not just sympathy, but recognition. They knew instinctively why India would have to respond decisively. Israel understands India’s need for a zero-tolerance policy toward terrorism — because Israel has lived it for decades.
India’s response through Operation Sindoor reflected this shared reality. Addressing the nation, Prime Minister Narendra Modi framed it not merely as a military action, but as a national commitment to fighting terror. He made clear that every terrorist attack would be met with a decisive response, with no distinction between terrorists and their sponsors. His words captured the shift with unmistakable clarity: “Terror and talks cannot go together … water and blood cannot flow together.”
India’s response also reflected deepening defense cooperation with Israel, including the integration of Israeli-origin precision systems and air-defense technologies developed through years of strategic partnership.
One of the most consequential shifts triggered by Operation Sindoor was India’s suspension of key aspects of the Indus Waters Treaty after the Pahalgam attacks. India had previously shared hydrological data with Pakistan on river flows and water levels vital to its agriculture. Following the 2025 attacks, this cooperation was suspended.
This also aligns with Article 62 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, which allows suspension under a “fundamental change in circumstances,” including sustained terrorism that undermines the basis of trust.
A parallel exists in Israel. Even amid conflict, it continues supplying water to Gaza. This mirrors India’s dilemma: how long can humanitarian resources remain separate from persistent security threats?
Beyond optics, the India–Israel partnership is most importantly an operational cooperation that saves lives and enables the dismantling of terror networks. Greater awareness of this reality is essential, as it is often overshadowed by simplified narratives that go unchallenged in global discourse. Terms such as “genocide,” “occupation,” or the casual labeling of democratically elected leaders like Narendra Modi or Benjamin Netanyahu as “terrorists” reflect this distortion.
What we have witnessed in the last 2.5 years is an information war, which is just as important as what happens on the battlefield.
Despite clear similarities between India and Israel in terms of threats and responses, global reactions differ sharply. Israel faces sustained criticism over the “Palestinian” issue, while India’s actions against Pakistan-based terrorism have drawn comparatively less sustained outrage.
As the prominent Muslim voice against antisemitism Soraya Deen has argued, the Palestinian cause has, in some contexts, taken on the role of a “sixth pillar of Islam,” capable of mobilizing mass sentiment across the world.
But another factor may also be at play: India has been effective in the information domain, communicating the operational success of Operation Sindoor with a focus on strategic outcomes rather than sensationalism, while simultaneously exposing Pakistan-based disinformation networks and strengthening public resilience through media literacy initiatives that help citizens identify and resist fake news. This is where Israel may need to look next. Intelligence and defense technology are no longer enough if they are not accompanied by clarity in communication.
India and Israel today stand on similar paths. Both face adversaries that exploit civilians, use human shields, and operate across borders. Both have security and response principles that emphasize surgical strikes, deterrence, and minimizing civilian harm. And both understand that this is not a battle they can fight alone. Greater intelligence sharing with allies in Europe and the United States, and a unified approach to countering terrorism — both physically and in the information domain — will be essential.
Because in the end, Modi’s words are not just a statement of policy, but a reflection of reality: water and blood cannot flow together. The real question is whether the world is willing to confront why those who fight it are judged by different standards.
Paushali Lass is an Indian-German intercultural and geopolitical consultant, who focuses on building bridges between Israel, India, and Germany.