(JTA) — A trove of sacred Jewish objects from Greece that was stolen by the Nazis and displaced for decades in Poland is finally heading back home.

Poland returned 91 religious and ceremonial artifacts to the Greek government at a ceremony in Warsaw on Wednesday. Among them were Torah scrolls, a Torah mantle and silver finials that adorned a scroll’s wooden rollers — fragments of a rich Greek Jewish heritage that was nearly wiped out.

This marks the first time Poland has repatriated cultural property held under its care that was illegally taken from another country.

The Nazis stole the objects from synagogues in Thessaloniki, a port city once known as the “Jerusalem of the Balkans.” Jews made up half of Thessaloniki’s residents in 1919. Some 59,000 Greek Jews, over 83% of the country’s Jewish population, were killed in the Holocaust.

These items were seized by the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg, a Nazi agency dedicated to looting Jewish valuables, as it plundered homes, synagogues, cemeteries and cultural institutions across Greece in 1941. The objects were transferred to Nazi depots in southwestern Poland and rediscovered at a castle in Bożków after the war. In 1951, the Polish Ministry of Culture moved them to the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw, where they remained until now.

This return follows years of advocacy and provenance research. The Greek government formally requested the collection’s restitution in 2024, and the World Jewish Restitution Organization coordinated with Greek and Polish authorities to facilitate it. Now, the objects are headed to the Jewish Museum of Greece in Athens.

About 5,000 Jews live in Greece today.

Poland is the only member of the European Union with no comprehensive legislation to address the restitution of property seized by the Nazis and later nationalized by the communist regime. Since the country became a democracy in 1989, several bills have been proposed to return private property to Holocaust survivors and their descendants, but none became law.

In 2021, Poland passed a law that prevented people who sought to claim property from challenging administrative decisions more than 30 years old. This time limit made it virtually impossible for former owners, including Holocaust survivors and their descendants, to recover properties that were appropriated during the communist era.

In a statement, WRJO president Gideon Taylor and COO Mark Weitzman said the return of the Greek Jewish collection represented a milestone in international cooperation for Holocaust-era restitution.

“While Poland has broader restitution issues to address, we hope this historic act marks the beginning of a consistent, systematic approach to historical justice,” they said.

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(JTA) — Two unprecedented developments took place in the U.S.-Israel war against Iran on Wednesday, as fighting entered its fifth day.

First, Israel said its forces had shot down an Iranian plane over Iranian territory, in the first-ever direct combat between the two nations.

Second, Turkey says an Iranian drone headed toward its airspace was shot down by NATO’s missile defense system, marking the first apparent attack on a NATO country other than the United States.

In an apparent effort to ignite Arab and Muslim countries against Israel, Iran has struck even countries that historically have shared elements of its opposition to Israel, including in Qatar, which has housed Hamas leaders, and Turkey, which cut off trade with Israel as it sided with the Palestinians in the war in Gaza. It has also struck Oman, which was brokering negotiations between Iran and the United States until hours before the war began.

“They were actually acting in a way that would have benefited Iran. Despite this, Iran’s bombing of Oman as a mediator, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan — all of these places without making any distinction — is, in my view, an incredibly wrong strategy,” the Turkish foreign minister, Hakan Fidan, said on Tuesday.

The developments come as Israelis continue to experience intermittent sirens warning them of incoming missiles — including, on Wednesday, at the same time from Iran and its proxy in Lebanon, Hezbollah. Two people were injured in a strike in central Israel on Wednesday.

Iran has said it plans to name a successor imminently to its supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, whom Israel assassinated on Saturday. His son is reportedly a top contender, a signal that that hard-line forces that survive in the government are prevailing. President Donald Trump, meanwhile, indicated that airstrikes had killed some of the leaders the United States thought could take over and also pooh-poohed support inside Iran for Reza Pahlavi, the son of the king deposed in the 1979 Islamic Revolution who has sought to return. Many Iranian Jews who fled at the time of the revolution have backed Pahlavi.

Both Israeli and U.S. officials say the war is advancing faster than they expected though that they cannot put a timeline on its completion. But Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth dismissed reports that Iran might be parceling out its missiles judiciously in an effort to ride out the U.S.-Israeli barrage and emerge with an arsenal intact.

“Iran cannot outlast us,” Hegseth during a press briefing on Wednesday morning in Washington, D.C.

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(JTA) — A Toronto synagogue was hit by gunfire late on Monday night, just hours after a Purim celebration was held there.

No injuries were reported in the shooting, according to police, which targeted Reform synagogue Temple Emanu-El at around 10:49 p.m. The event, which was billed as a “sing-along shpiel” and costume contest, had run until 9 p.m.

But Rabbi Debra Landsberg told reporters that she couldn’t sleep much Monday night: She was still inside the building when the shooting occurred, and could hear the gunshots.

“I’m a bit shaken up,” she said. “It is devastating that there are those in this society that want to shatter what we have here.”

Police did not confirm how many shell casings were found outside the building, but the synagogue wrote on Instagram that “20 shots were fired at our synagogue.”

“We are working closely with law enforcement and security partners,” the post read. “We remain united and resilient. Our building is damaged; our congregation is not. Chag sameach, everyone.”

The incident is being investigated by Toronto police’s hate crime unit, as well as the gun and gang task force; the suspect is currently unknown.

Police have upped their presence in Toronto’s Jewish neighborhoods since the war in Iran broke out on Saturday, as well as around houses of worship and other Jewish institutions, deputy chief Robert Johnson said in a press conference on Tuesday. Iranian agents have a record of targeting Jewish sites with gunshots and other disturbances, and Jewish security officials have urged vigilance since the war began.

When asked if there was any connection between the Temple Emanu-El attack and the war in Iran, Johnson said making that connection “would be speculation at this point.”

The shooting is the latest in a string of crimes targeting Jewish institutions and residents in Toronto. A Jewish girls’ elementary school was hit by gunfire three times in 2024 alone. This past December, mezuzahs were ripped from residents’ doorposts in multiple buildings, including a seniors’ residence. A month prior, police said a suspect had “damaged the outer glass windows” of Kehilath Shaarei Torah, a synagogue near Temple Emanu-El. (Police visited that synagogue while investigating the Temple Emanu-El shooting, which prompted false reports that both synagogues were attacked on Monday night.)

“This is the fourth time a Jewish institution has been targeted for gunfire in Toronto over the past two years, in addition to countless threats and acts of vandalism,” said Adam Minsky, president of UJA Federation of Greater Toronto, in a statement. “Every day, families across our community carry deep concerns for the safety of their children. But we are resilient and refuse to be intimidated. We will continue to proudly celebrate Jewish life.”

Noah Shack, CEO of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, said in a statement that incidents like this will “inevitably lead to much worse.”

“As we witnessed in Australia, when incitement goes unchecked and synagogues are threatened, we can expect to see mass violence and tragedies that could have been prevented,” Shack wrote.

So far this year, anti-Jewish hate crimes have made up 63% of all reported hate crimes in Toronto, according to Johnson, continuing a trend of increased antisemitic crimes since Oct. 7, 2023.

“These numbers are not abstract. They represent real people and real harm,” Johnson said. “Our commitment is clear: We are doing everything within our authority to protect Toronto’s Jewish community.”

Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow called the shooting “an unacceptable act of antisemitism and intimidation.”

She also alluded to the timing of the shooting, which came days after war broke out between Israel and the United States and Iran.

“As we have seen repeatedly, incidents increase across our city as international events unfold. I want to be clear: it is never acceptable to target faith communities or cultural groups,” Chow wrote.

Shack said the shooting took place “at a time when Iran’s Islamic regime poses a heightened threat to Jewish and Persian communities worldwide,” and urged authorities to “redouble measures to safeguard our country and all Canadians.”

Just one night before the Temple Emanu-El shooting, another shooting occurred at around 2:30 a.m. in Toronto. Nobody was injured, but police said there was “damage” to businesses in the area, including Old Avenue Restaurant, a restaurant owned by pro-Israel activist Esther Bakinka. The hate crime unit “is aware” of the investigation, according to police, but not leading it. Bakinka wrote on Facebook that the restaurant’s upcoming Purim celebration would be canceled due to “extenuating circumstances.”

Deputy mayor Mike Colle called Bakinka “a courageous fighter for protection of our Jewish Community,” and called for the creation of a joint task force to combat antisemitic violence, “especially now with the Middle East on fire.”

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