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Standing on Albania’s Jew Street, I learned firsthand the country’s lifesaving culture of hospitality
BERAT, Albania (JTA) — Stone paths wind through the Ottoman-style houses built into the hillside of Berat, Albania. They lead to an imposing 13th-century castle at the peak — the top priority for most visitors to this 60,000-person town 90 minutes south of the capital, Tirana. I had other plans.
Albanians take pride in their ancient code of “besa,” which translates to “keep the promise” and leads them to prioritize guests and religion in their homes. For Albanian Jews or those who fled there from elsewhere in the Balkan Peninsula as German forces advanced during World War II, it promised safe harbor with Albanian families and even throughout entire towns. Albania is the only country in Europe whose Jewish population grew during the war.
Berat’s Solomoni Museum explains this history and that of earlier Jews in the area. At least, so I hear: Under the stone arches off the plaza, I found only locked doors.
Some people collect souvenir spoons or Starbucks city mugs when they travel, others collect memories. I collect fragments of Jewish identity. Planning this trip to Albania with friends, I insisted on a stop in Berat to see the small museum and wasn’t about to give up.
“I’ll call her,” offered the woman behind the desk at the Ethnographic Museum across the street. “Her” referred to the caretaker, the widow of the Orthodox Christian professor who started the museum — Albania’s only one dedicated to Jewish history — as a passion project funded by his pension. After Simon Vrusho’s death in 2019, the museum closed until a French-Albanian businessman heard the story and donated funds for it to reopen in a larger, permanent location.
But the call ended with bad news: The caretaker was sick, and the museum would remain closed. I grimaced. Seeing my reaction, the Ethnographic Museum docent did what all Albanians do — anything she could to make me feel better, to make sure I enjoyed my stay in her town. In this moment, that meant explaining everything she knew about Jews in Albania.
A view of the exterior of the Solomoni Museum, the country’s only museum about its Jewish history. (Naomi Tomky)
Jews first arrived in the country as Roman captives, almost 2,000 years ago. But the first major wave, especially to Berat, came from Spanish Jews fleeing the Inquisition. The Ottoman Empire, which ruled the area at the time, offered nominal religious freedom.
This month, the country’s prime minister announced plans to open a museum in Tirana dedicated to the stories of Albanian citizens who sheltered Jews during the Holocaust, when the country was occupied by both fascist Italy and later Nazi Germany. Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust remembrance authority, has recognized at least 75 Albanians as Righteous Among the Nations for saving Jews.
“You can see the street where the Jews lived,” the docent noted. I perked up and jotted down her directions.
Six blocks away, I found a simple black plaque with white lettering, barely the size of my forearm and posted high on a white brick wall. It read, “Rruga Hebrentje.” I stared at it. Two millennia of Jewish history in the country, and one closed museum forced me to take heart in a little sign saying “Jew Street.”
A sign in Berat, Albania, reads Rruga Hebrentje, or Jew Street. (Naomi Tomky)
Jews have company in this razing of history: The brutal post-World War II communist regime of dictator Enver Hoxha shuttered all religious institutions in 1967, declaring Albania the world’s first atheist state. His forces destroyed more than 2,000 mosques, churches and other sacred buildings, arresting priests, clerics and imams, many of whom disappeared forever into labor camps and hidden graves. “Religion is the opium of the people,” Hoxha wrote, quoting Karl Marx.
It felt selfish to pout about the lack of Jewish history when so much religion, so many people and huge swaths of Albanian culture had been so recently and violently erased. I joined my friends to explore Berat’s exceptions to the wanton destruction, starting at the Sultan’s Mosque, which dates to the 15th century and boasts an intricately carved wooden ceiling. We expected to admire just the outside, since our guidebook said the doors opened only around Friday prayer.
But as we stared at the somewhat ordinary façade, a friendly gentleman chatted us up. He spoke Albanian, Greek and a bit of Italian, the last of which proved useful at matching up to our Spanish and French. He told us a little about the mosque and the casual styles of observance by most Albanian Muslims, but we only realized he worked there when he invited us inside, retrieving a key when we responded with excitement.
We marveled at the green, red and gold ceiling, illuminated by a round chandelier. He asked if we wanted to climb up the minaret, warning us about the ascent. Narrower than the width of my hips, the tightly coiled spiral of 94 stairs featured a layer of dust and cobwebs that stuck to our bare feet. But at the top, swallowing my fear of heights, confined spaces and bugs, I reaped the reward: a 360-degree view of the “thousand windows” that give the town its nickname, flanking both banks of the Osumi River, and the double eagle of Albania’s red flag flying proudly above it all from the castle.
A view of the ceiling inside the Sultans Mosque in Berat. (Naomi Tomky)
Back on the ground, we thanked the man profusely and dropped donations in the box outside the mosque door as we prepared to say goodbye. Instead, he led us across the square to another building – the Halveti Tekke, or Teqe. Light flowed through the high stained-glass windows onto the walls of the 700-year-old gathering place belonging to the mystic order of Sufi Muslims called Bektashi. Chains hung from the ornate gold-leaf-decorated ceiling over a space where, according to our new friend, the bektashi, or dervishes, used to perform their whirling rituals.
“You want to go up?” he asked my friend’s eight-year-old daughter. She nodded excitedly, and he tossed her a ring of keys, pointing the way to the balcony. As she climbed the stairs, I noticed a pair of six-pointed stars framing the main doorway, a reminder of my original mission, even if they were likely not Stars of David.
But if I felt sad about missing out on the Jewish museum, I was heartened by what I did receive: a first-hand lesson on Albania’s life-saving culture of hospitality.
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The Jewish secret to affordable eyewear that isn’t so secret anymore
The business cards on the counter at Minzer’s Optical proclaim “45 years of 15-minute service.” If your wait drags on for longer than 15 minutes, you can pick up one of the prayer books that line a shelf beneath the counter. But there’s no need to pray that your eyeglasses won’t cost you an arm and a leg. Minzer’s is known for its low prices, so customers who are feeling charitable might slip a few shekels into one of the pushkes, the tin tzedakah boxes, on the counter.
Once known solely within Brooklyn’s ultra-Orthodox Jewish community, today a majority of Minzer’s customers are not Haredi Jews, let alone members of the tribe. According to Mordechai Minzer, who started the business when he was just 19, this is entirely the result of word of mouth. And Minzer’s has held on in an age where Internet competitors such as Zenni have come close to matching its prices but can’t offer its speedy, in-person customer service.
“There’s an old saying that if you want something fast, good, and cheap, pick any two out of the three. Minzer’s amazingly manages to do all three,” Cheryl Krauss, a Brooklyn jewelry maker who has been a customer for close to 20 years, told me.
Up a flight of stairs in a two-story building on a block of attached homes, customers peruse shelves and carousels displaying frames that run the length of the store, amid the drone of computerized edging machines that grind lenses. Customers stand across the counter from employees who peer through a pupilometer, a device which measures the distance from the center of one pupil to the center of the other, a critical measurement needed to make accurate lenses.
Mordechai Minzer, 64, was trained as an optician in Manhattan at the Bramson ORT Institute of Technology, which began in 1942 as a series of workshops for World War II refugees and is part of a global educational network driven by Jewish values. Early in his career, he worked at a Cohen’s Fashion Optical store in the Bay Ridge section of Brooklyn. Minzner said he stopped working for them because they wanted him to work on Shabbos. In 1981, a few years after the country western hit “Take This Job and Shove It” hit the airwaves, Minzer quit his job. It’s unlikely Minzer, the son of a Bobover Hasid, heard the song on the radio, but he sure did know the words to the chorus.
“I worked very hard there at Cohen’s and they schmatte-ed me,” he said, using the Yiddish word for “rag” as a verb.
So, Minzer started his own business by setting up a lab in the basement of his family home in Borough Park, making eyeglasses for wholesale customers. He also made glasses on the side for friends and students at his yeshiva.
“My customers told other people about it and before I knew it, it exploded. I charged a quarter of the price that Cohen’s charged for the same stuff and I did the glasses on the spot,” he said.
Shulem Deen, author of the memoir All Who Go Do Not Return, remembers going to Minzer’s when he was growing up in Borough Park where his family was part of the Krasna Hasidic community. Deen said he was about 11 when word of the new optician spread.
“Suddenly there’s this new place everybody was talking about and the prices for glasses were ridiculous,” he recalled. “I remember that every time I went there to the basement, the place was packed.”
Deen, a keen observer of the Haredi Jewish world he left behind, said that because Jewish boys focus on the tiny text during Talmud study, it’s no wonder that so many of them need spectacles.
Back then, Minzer’s served frum Jews exclusively. But, over the years, Mordechai Minzer said, many of his observant Jewish customers went elsewhere because they had gotten “spoiled.”
“They want certain very expensive frame styles like Lindberg and I don’t want to carry $500 frames here,” he said. “I don’t want to get involved with that. They still come here, but they’re only 30% of my clientele.”
Nevertheless, Minzer’s ties to Haredi Brooklyn remain strong. He owns two sefer torahs, one of which was written to honor his parents. The scrolls are lent to yeshivas in New Jersey that don’t own sefer torahs. Every year he goes to the yeshivas to inspect them.
“Whenever I go to check up on my sefer torahs, polish the silver a bit, this and that, they always ask me to make them glasses,” Minzer said.
This has been a routine for more than 20 years. He goes a few weeks before Purim, and brings a box of inexpensive frames and optical instruments. He then proceeds to make more than a hundred pairs of free glasses for the boys.
“I like to see the kids smiling,” he told me.
Zenni and other online eyewear retailers have taken a toll on his business in recent years, Minzer said, adding that one of the big advantages he has is that customers who come to the store can try on the frames and see how they look before deciding whether to buy them. And in an era when fewer and fewer opticians still have a lab on the premises, Minzer’s can often make customers new glasses while they wait, and even dip them into sunglass tints on the spot.
One Jewish customer told me she felt uncomfortable as a non-Orthodox single woman walking into Minzer’s wearing pants but added, “that may be me projecting.” Another Jewish woman, whose husband advised her to dress modestly before her first visit, scoffed at the advice after seeing other customers wearing tank tops and shorts.
A Manhattan painter who had never been to Minzer’s recently paid less than $300 to have lenses made for her complex progressives prescription. The previous pair she had purchased at another store cost between $700 and $800. Pamela Hecht was reluctant to make the 40-minute subway ride from her loft in Manhattan to Borough Park but decided to make the schlep after learning what her new lenses would cost.
“It’s a long trip out there on the train but I will do it again because my lenses cost so much less than what I have been paying,” she told me. “I was very dubious that the quality was going to be sufficient. How could the price be so low without cutting corners? But the quality is very good. I’m very satisfied.”
The post The Jewish secret to affordable eyewear that isn’t so secret anymore appeared first on The Forward.
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Israel’s First Ambassador to Somaliland Acclaims Deepening Partnership, Broader Strategic Outreach in Africa
Israeli diplomat Michael Lotem in Kenya, July 2025. Photo: Screenshot
The relationship between Israel and Somaliland has rapidly evolved into a strategic partnership spanning security, energy, infrastructure, and economic cooperation, according to the Jewish state’s first ambassador to the self-declared republic, who noted the strengthening of ties was part of a broader outreach effort by Jerusalem across Africa.
“They are looking to deepen cooperation in nearly every field — from energy and infrastructure to technology, education, and communications — and their desire to work with Israel is stronger than ever,” Michael Lotem said of Somaliland in an interview with Israeli news outlet N12 published on Friday.
“Security discussions are naturally part of the relationship, but our political dialogue extends far beyond that into many different areas,” he added.
In December, Israel became the first country to officially recognize the Republic of Somaliland as an independent and sovereign state.
Somaliland, which has claimed independence for decades in East Africa but remains largely unrecognized, is situated on the southern coast of the Gulf of Aden and bordered by Djibouti to the northwest, Ethiopia to the south and west, and Somalia to the south and east. It has sought to break off from Somalia since 1991 and utilized its own passports, currency, military, and law enforcement.
Unlike most states in its region, Somaliland has relative security, regular elections, and a degree of political stability.
Last month, Israel appointed Lotem as its first ambassador to Somaliland, after the two governments formally established full diplomatic relations.
Lotem, who was serving as a non-resident economic ambassador to Africa at the time of his appointment, will now shift to work as a non-resident ambassador to Somaliland. He previously served as Israel’s ambassador to Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Malawi, and Seychelles, a position he concluded in August.
In his interview, Lotem described the growing bilateral relationship as part of Israel’s broader diplomatic and strategic push across Africa, saying the partnership also sends a wider message of legitimacy and engagement to Muslim-majority countries throughout the region.
“Over the past several years, Israel has invested significant diplomatic effort in strengthening its presence across Africa, an initiative that Foreign Minister Gideon Saar has strongly prioritized, and the results are already becoming visible very quickly,” the diplomat said.
He also pointed to what he described as major untapped potential for economic cooperation, particularly regarding Somaliland’s vast natural resources and minerals sector — including oil, gas, coal, iron, and gold.
“They are extremely interested in partnering with Israel across the entire minerals industry supply chain,” Lotem said, adding that there are also strong prospects for cooperation in energy, medicine, agriculture, education, water management, and communications.
“We hope more countries will come to recognize the strategic value and importance of this relationship,” he continued.
Although no other UN-recognized country has formally recognized Somaliland (Taiwan did so in 2020), several — including the United Kingdom, Ethiopia, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, Denmark, and Kenya — have maintained liaison offices, allowing them to engage diplomatically and conduct trade and consular activities without full formal recognition.
According to experts, the growing Israel-Somaliland partnership could be a “game changer” for the Jewish state, boosting the country’s ability to counter the Iran-backed, Yemen-based Houthi terrorist group while offering strategic and geographic advantages amid shifting regional power dynamics.
“Somaliland’s significance lies in its geostrategic location and in its willingness — as a stable, moderate, and reliable state in a volatile region — to work closely with Western countries,” argued a report by the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), a prominent Israeli think tank.
“Somaliland’s territory could serve as a forward base for multiple missions: intelligence monitoring of the Houthis and their armament efforts; logistical support for Yemen’s legitimate government in its war against them; and a platform for direct operations against the Houthis,” it continued.
Somaliland President Abdirahman Mohamed Abdullahi has previously said that the republic would join the Abraham Accords, calling it a step toward regional and global peace and affirming his government’s commitment to building partnerships, boosting mutual prosperity, and promoting stability across the Middle East and Africa.
The strategic partnership comes at a time when Israeli and US officials have warned of rising Islamist terrorist threats across Sub-Saharan Africa, placing the region at the forefront of global concern over jihadist activity.
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‘We Are One Community’: New York University Condemns Swastika Flag Raised Near Campus
Swastika flag raised over New York University this week. Photo: Screenshot
New York University (NYU) on Thursday condemned the raising of a flag containing the swastika near its campus in the Greenwich Village section of New York City, an incident which comes amid a spate of antisemitic hate crimes across the municipality.
“Campus safety responded immediately to remove it, and we are working closely with the NYPD to identify whoever is responsible,” NYU said in a statement after news of the act went viral on social media. “We are one community. We protect each other. And we will not let hate and division find a foothold on our campus.”
Designed to counterfeit NYU’s official purple and white standard, the offensive display featured two swastikas flanking the Star of David in a blue and white color palette representing the state of Israel. Historically, similar illustrations and symbols signal belief in antisemitic conspiracies of Jewish power and control, and in recent years anti-Zionists at NYU have castigated the university’s academic partnerships with Israel, as well as its efforts to combat antisemitism.
Anti-Zionists active in the Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) organization have alluded to antisemitic conspiracies to criticize Israel’s alliances before. Just last month, SJP’s Duke University chapter posted on social media a political cartoon in which “Zionism” is personified as pig hoisting a Star of David while its arm interlocks with another pig, labeled “US Imperialism,” hoisting the Torch of Liberty.
Historically, depicting Jews as pigs has been done to reduce them to the status of animals and mock the fact that dietary restrictions forbid Jews to eat pork.
The perpetrators of the NYU incident remain at large. The incident comes amid a surge in antisemitic hate crimes across New York City.
Jews have been targeted in the majority of all hate crimes committed in New York City this year, continuing a troubling trend of rising antisemitism following Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel.
Over the past couple weeks, there have been multiple incidents of rampant swastika graffiti across the borough of Queens, highlighting the extent of the antisemitism crisis in the city home to the world’s largest Jewish population outside of Israel.
Meanwhile, mobs of anti-Zionist activists have descended on multiple synagogues over the same period to protest Israeli real estate events.
In addressing the swastika flag incident on Thursday, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who has been accused of doing too little to combat the rise in antisemitism, appeared to acknowledge the Jewish community’s concerns about the intentions of his administration.
“This hateful antisemitic act was meant to spread fear among and intimidate Jewish New Yorkers. It has no place in our city,” he said. “Our administration is committed to fighting antisemitism in all its forms and protecting the safety of Jewish New Yorkers. The NYPD Hate Crime Task Force is investigating this despicable act, and I am confident those responsible will be held accountable.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.