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Toronto’s first Holocaust museum looks to the post-survivor era
(JTA) — Toronto is home to one of the world’s largest Jewish communities, nearly half of the 335,000 Jews in Canada. But until last week, the city did not have a dedicated Holocaust museum.
The Toronto Holocaust Museum opened its doors on Friday, with a ribbon-cutting ceremony attended by an array of dignitaries and Holocaust survivors. Aimed at young learners who will inherit a post-survivor world, the space centers around 11 kiosks where large-as-life survivors share their testimonies through interactive videos. Its four galleries explore Jewish and minority persecution in both Europe and Canada, World War II atrocities and the beginnings of new life in Canada for thousands of refugees.
“What we set out to do from the very beginning was to ensure that this was a place to hear from survivors long after they’re gone,” the museum’s Executive Director Dara Solomon told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “Bringing the Holocaust survivors in to see how we’ve done that, and having them really happy and fulfilled, has been one of the most meaningful experiences of my personal and professional life.”
While the center tells human stories from a genocide, it de-emphasizes the panoply of horror that some have come to expect from a Holocaust museum. In its gallery dedicated to the atrocities, some materials — such as images of mass killings in pits on the outskirts of towns — are stored in drawers that must be pulled out by willing viewers.
“We made some very conscious decisions to not use the incredibly graphic imagery I grew up with, because we know that students don’t learn as well as people have thought they did when they’re sad,” said Solomon. “If you’re making them sad and scaring them, the learning actually shuts down.”
The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum has advised Holocaust educators to use graphic material “judiciously” and “only to the extent necessary” to achieve learning objectives. Graphic images and texts can exploit students’ emotional vulnerability instead of encouraging them to think critically in a safe environment, according to USHMM guidelines.
Created by the United Jewish Appeal (UJA) Federation of Greater Toronto, the 9,500-square-foot museum opened on the federation’s Sherman Campus, a Jewish community center that also hosts a theater, a daycare and other communal buildings. Solomon hopes this location will help facilitate connections between the historical exhibits and daily Jewish life in Toronto.
The Toronto Holocaust Museum replaces the city’s Holocaust Education and Memorial Centre, founded in 1985 by local survivors who wanted to share their stories with students. The previous space had only a small number of exhibits and was half the size of the new museum.
Along with recorded testimonies, visitors at the new museum can now see artifacts that have never been shared with the public. Those items range from a striped prisoner uniform, standard in the Nazi concentration camps, to a gift sent from a mother in the Ravensbrück camp to her children in 1942.
Marketa Brady made three heart-shaped charms at the camp from a chewed-up bread ration painted with toothpaste for her son George and daughter Hana, who were still not captured in Czechoslovakia. Marketa, her husband Karel and 13-year-old Hana Brady were eventually killed at Auschwitz, but George survived and kept the charms. His sister’s life inspired the 2002 nonfiction book “Hana’s Suitcase,” by Karen Levine, which is widely studied by children in Canada. The charms are available on view at the new museum.
Also housed in the museum is a Torah that survived Kristallnacht, the night when the Nazis destroyed Jewish homes, businesses and synagogues throughout Germany and Austria in November 1938. A Catholic priest rescued the Torah from a burning synagogue in the town of Brand. At the end of the war, he handed it to young U.S. army chaplain Gunther Plaut, who brought it home in a bazooka case.
Plaut eventually became a rabbi in Toronto and entrusted the scroll to the future Toronto Holocaust Museum before he died in 2012. The creation of this space has been delayed several times, said Solomon, and many Canadian survivors have hoped for decades to see it become a reality.
“We haven’t really had a museum in the city to collect these artifacts, so a lot of families have been holding onto them — just waiting for this museum to be built,” said Solomon.
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The post Toronto’s first Holocaust museum looks to the post-survivor era appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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U.S. Senate candidate from Michigan calls Israeli government ‘evil’ like Hamas
Abdul El-Sayed, a U.S. Senate candidate from Michigan, said in an interview aired Sunday that the Israeli government is as “evil” as Hamas, sharpening his criticism of Israel in the closely-watched Democratic primary.
“Killing tens of thousands of people makes you pretty damn evil,” El-Sayed told CNN congressional reporter Manu Raja on the network’s Inside Politics program. “It’s not how evil is this one versus that one — Hamas: Evil, Israeli government: Evil. We can say both.”
El-Sayed, 41, is a physician and the son of Egyptian immigrants. He is seeking to channel the energy of the 2024 Uncommitted movement, which protested the Biden administration’s support for Israel in the war against Hamas in Gaza. He is also hoping to build on the surprise success of the New York City mayoral campaign of Zohran Mamdani in taking on the Democratic establishment.
He is locked in a dead heat with state Sen. Mallory McMorrow and Rep. Haley Stevens. The primary is set for Aug. 4.
Earlier this month, El-Sayed faced backlash for appearing alongside streamer Hasan Piker, who has been accused of antisemitic rhetoric — including saying that Hamas “is a thousand times better” than Israel. McMorrow, who is married to a Jewish man, and Stevens, who is closely aligned with AIPAC, have both criticized El-Sayed.
In the CNN interview, El-Sayed defended his decision to campaign with Piker, framing it as an effort to reach voters who feel alienated from traditional politics. “My understanding of America is, it’s a place where we have freedom of speech,” he said.
#MISen Abdul El-Sayed on CNN Inside Politics: @mkraju: You said Israeli government is evil. Do you think they’re just as evil as Hamas?
El-Sayed: “Yes, killing tens of thousands of people makes you pretty damn evil. It’s not about how evil one is versus the other. Hamas —… pic.twitter.com/4GfJ5oCtqR
— Jacob N. Kornbluh (@jacobkornbluh) April 19, 2026
The Michigan Senate race is shaping up as one of the starkest tests of the Democratic coalition and how the party navigates policy towards Israel in Congress amid the wars in Gaza and Iran. The state is home to the largest concentration of Arab Americans in the United States.
Last week, 40 Senate Democrats voted to block $295 million for the transfer of bulldozers, used by the Israeli military to demolish homes in the West Bank and Gaza; 36 of them also supported a measure to block the sale of 1,000-pound bombs to the Jewish state. It shattered a previous high of 27 Democrats who backed a similar pair of resolutions of disapproval to block some weapons transfers last year.
Sen. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, who is Jewish, was among those who voted for the measures. In remarks as they announced their votes, Democrats highlighted their opposition to the Israeli government’s policies in the occupied West Bank, the humanitarian situation in Gaza and the war with Iran.
The post U.S. Senate candidate from Michigan calls Israeli government ‘evil’ like Hamas appeared first on The Forward.
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NYC Mayor Mamdani Unveils Major Tax Hike on Unoccupied Luxury Real Estate
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani holds a press conference at the New York City Office of Emergency Management, as a major winter storm spreads across a large swath of the United States, in Brooklyn, New York City, US, Jan. 25, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Bing Guan
i24 News – NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani has officially introduced a controversial new tax targeting secondary residences valued at over $5 million.
The measure, designed to tap into the city’s vast concentration of unoccupied luxury wealth, is projected to generate roughly $500 million annually for the municipal budget.
“This tax is specifically aimed at the ultra-rich,” Mamdani stated, highlighting high-profile examples such as Ken Griffin’s $238 million Midtown penthouse and Alexander Varshavsky’s $20.5 million Columbus Circle residence.
While the city has yet to finalize specific evaluation criteria or the methods for distinguishing primary from secondary homes, the proposal has already become a flashpoint for economic debate.
The move has drawn sharp condemnation from billionaire investor Bill Ackman, who argued that the policy is fundamentally flawed.
Ackman contended that owners of luxury secondary residences contribute significant capital to the local economy without utilizing costly municipal services. He warned that the tax would likely trigger a corporate and high-net-worth exodus to low-tax jurisdictions like Miami, ultimately harming the city’s tax base.
President Donald Trump also entered the fray, denouncing the policy as “totally misguided” and claiming it is “destroying New York.” Trump, whose own extensive real estate holdings in the city could be impacted, argued that such taxation serves only to drive away the international investors who fuel New York’s development.
Implementation remains a significant question mark, as the tax could potentially affect nearly 13,000 property owners, including major figures like Jeff Bezos. Financial analysts point out that many of the city’s most expensive apartments are held through complex offshore structures and shell companies, making the identification and appraisal of these properties an immense administrative challenge for the city.
As the debate intensifies, the Mamdani administration faces a difficult path ahead in balancing its “tax the rich” mandate with the practical realities of New York’s competitive global real estate market.
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Iran Rebuffs Trump Announcement of New Peace Talks, State News Agency Reports
Iran rejected new peace talks with the United States, its state news agency reported on Sunday, hours after US President Donald Trump said he was sending envoys for talks in Pakistan and would launch new strikes on Iran unless it accepts his terms.
Trump posted on Truth Social that his envoys would arrive in Pakistan on Monday evening for negotiations, a timetable that would leave only a day for talks to make progress before a two-week ceasefire ends.
“We’re offering a very fair and reasonable DEAL, and I hope they take it because, if they don’t, the United States is going to knock out every single Power Plant, and every single Bridge, in Iran,” he wrote. “NO MORE MR. NICE GUY!”
Iran’s official IRNA news agency cited no specific source in its report that Iran had rejected the talks.
“Iran stated that its absence from the second round of talks stems from what it called Washington’s excessive demands, unrealistic expectations, constant shifts in stance, repeated contradictions, and the ongoing naval blockade, which it considers a breach of the ceasefire,” IRNA wrote.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Iran’s rejection of the talks.
Earlier, a White House official said the US delegation would be headed by Vice President JD Vance, who led the war’s first peace talks a week ago, and also include Trump’s envoy Steven Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner. Trump had initially told ABC News and MS Now that Vance would not go.