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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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Toronto man arrested after allegedly shooting at Orthodox Jews outside a synagogue
(JTA) — Police in Toronto have arrested a man they say shot at “visibly identifiable members of the Jewish community” on two occasions a week apart.
Ruslan Novruzov, 18, is charged with assault with a weapon and possession of a weapon for a dangerous purpose in conjunction with the shootings, which took place on April 30 and Thursday, one week later.
In both incidents, people experienced minor injuries, according to the Toronto police. The shooting on Thursday targeted three people standing outside of Congregation Chasidei Bobov, an Orthodox synagogue.
Following the shootings, the Toronto police tracked a blue Lexus to a residence in a suburb about 15 miles north of the shootings, where they said they searched both a home and a car and seized evidence including two “gel-blaster imitation firearms.”
The shootings and arrest add to a string of recent incidents targeting Jews and Jewish institutions in the Toronto area. A different 18-year-old man was charged last week in connection with two synagogue shootings that took place on March 6, but other incidents remain unsolved. No major injuries or damage has been reported, but the incidents have swelled anxiety within the city’s Jewish communities.
“We recognize that Jewish residents have been living with a heightened sense of fear due to repeated incidents targeting their community, and this only adds to that, which is unacceptable,” Acting Deputy Chief Joe Matthews said in a statement following Novruzov’s arrest. “While the weapons used were imitation firearms, the impacts are very real. These are criminal acts that we allege were meant to intimidate and cause fear.”
The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, Canada’s main Jewish advocacy group, expressed gratitude to the police for acting quickly.
“These incidents must continue to be treated with the seriousness they deserve, and those responsible must be held fully accountable,” it said on X. ”It’s long past time for governments and authorities to confront the serious threats driving violent attacks before we face a tragic loss of life.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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Netanyahu on ‘60 Minutes’: Fight with Hezbollah should be seen as separate from Iran war
(JTA) — In an appearance on U.S. television on Sunday night, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu argued that Israel should continue fighting against Hezbollah in Lebanon even if the war in Iran concludes.
Netanyahu spoke with Major Garrett on CBS’ “60 Minutes” as President Donald Trump continues to negotiate to end the Iran war that he and Netanyahu jointly began in February. When Trump declared a ceasefire with Iran on April 7, Netanyahu initially insisted that the deal did not require Israel to stop fighting Hezbollah, an Iranian proxy based in Lebanon. The Iranians insisted that it did, and Trump soon weighed in on social media to say that Israel was “prohibited” from attacking inside Lebanon.
In the weeks since, Israel and Hezbollah have continued to fight, but at a decreased intensity. Now, with Trump seemingly not eager to resume fighting with Iran even as the Iranians have not acceded to his demands at the negotiating table, Netanyahu said the conflicts should be decoupled.
“Is it possible, Mr. Prime Minister, that the war with Iran could end but the war with Hezbollah could continue? That these would be separate and divergent fields,” Garrett asked.
“They should be,” Netanyahu answered. “What Iran would like to do is to say, ‘No, you know, if we achieve a ceasefire here, we want a ceasefire there.’”
“Will you accept that?” Garrett asked. After Netanyahu said he would not, Garrett went on: “Even if President Trump asks you to?”
Netanyahu replied, “Look, he understands what I’m saying.”
Trump’s critics on both sides of the aisle have alleged that Netanyahu pushed him into entering the war. But Netanyahu said that belief is wrong. He called reporting by The New York Times about what he told Trump during a Feb. 11 White House meeting “incorrect,” saying that he had never told Trump that regime change in Iran was an assured outcome of a shared attack.
Netanyahu also insisted to Garrett that declining public support for Israel in the United States was a product of online campaigns designed to spread misinformation.
“Do you believe that’s the only explanation, or is it possible that some Americans have come to a different sense of Israel because of the last two or three years?” Garrett pressed.
“What they see is so many falsifications and vilifications that are unfounded, but they don’t know because they just get you know, the last reel in the movie. They don’t see the entire movie,” Netanyahu said.
The Israeli government recently allocated $730 million for public diplomacy, including online campaigns, designed to boost public opinion about Israel. The allocation quadrupled what was set aside last year for that purpose.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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Labour politician is booed as thousands rally against antisemitism in London
(JTA) — Thousands of British Jews, as well as politicians from multiple parties, rallied in London outside the prime minister’s residence on Sunday to call for more aggressive action against antisemitism following a string of violent attacks.
Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative party leader whose response to a heckler making light of threats against Jews went viral last week, spoke forcefully in defense of U.K. Jewry, to applause.
“I stand for a Britain where Jews can go to school freely without worrying about security,” she said. “I stand for a Britain where you can worship freely and not worry about who is coming to attack you. I stand for the celebration of Jewish culture and Jewish people. And I stand for a Britain that will always fight for you, that will always support you.”
The Labour Party representative dispatched by Prime Minister Keir Starmer, meanwhile, drew boos from an audience frustrated by what many British Jews view as an inadequate response from the government.
“I hear your anger, I hear your pain,” said Pat McFadden, the secretary of state for work and pensions. “I stand against antisemitism, I stand with you.” As he spoke, rally organizers at times interrupted to exhort the crowd to quiet down.
Gideon Falter, head of the nonprofit Campaign Against Antisemitism, called in his speech for a ban on pro-Palestinian demonstrations, which he called “hate marches,” as well as a ban on groups associated with antisemitic violence. He said U.K. Jews were facing a “Britifada,” a play on the word intifada.
He referred to a number of the most prominent recent incidents, including a stabbing in the Orthodox neighborhood of Golders Green earlier this month and an attack on a Manchester synagogue on Yom Kippur in which two congregants were killed.
“Jews stabbed. That’s the Britifada! Murder on Yom Kippur. That’s the Britifada! Synagogues ablaze. That’s the Britifada! Hatzola ambulances pelted with rocks and torched. That’s the Britifada! Jewish children nearly mown down in a car ramming. That’s the Britifada!” Falter said. “The attacks are coming thick and fast. Because Britain has become radicalized.”
The Jewish Leadership Council and the Board of Deputies of British Jews organized the rally, titled “Standing Strong: Extinguish Antisemitism,” and were joined by dozens of Jewish groups. It took place outside 10 Downing Street in central London and featured video appearances from Jews around the world as well as from Boy George, the pop singer who has emerged as an advocate against antisemitism.
The rally also drew attention because of who was and was not invited.
Ahead of the rally, thousands of people signed a petition calling for Nigel Farage, who heads the right-wing Reform party, which made significant gains in local elections on Thursday, to be disinvited, given his “division, scapegoating, racism and inflammatory rhetoric” and allegations of antisemitism during his school years. (Farage dismissed the allegations when they emerged in 2024, saying that he could not remember all instances of “playground banter” from his childhood but that he had never sought to be intentionally hurtful.)
Farage did not appear at the rally, but his deputy, Richard Tice, did. He called for penalties against universities that are seen as encouraging antisemitism.
Zack Polanski, the Jewish leader of the left-wing Green party, which made gains in the local elections despite an antisemitism scandal involving dozens of candidates, was not invited to speak.
Saul Taylor of United Synagogue, the British Orthodox umbrella group, called out Polanski during his speech, alluding to both Polanski’s criticism of the Metropolitan Police’s handling of the arrest of the alleged Golders Green attacker and his party’s pro-Palestinian platform. “The constant vilification of Israel has fueled the flames of antisemitism across our nation,” Taylor said.
Taylor said the previous week had “probably been the most movement from the government we have seen in a long time” but that the pressure should remain. Last week, after an emergency meeting at 10 Downing Street, the Metropolitan Police announced a 100-member special force to protect Jewish communities. On Sunday, the police said they had charged a man with racially or religiously motivated assault and harassment after he attacked three Jews in Enfield.
At least one liberal Jewish group opted not to participate in the rally after initially signing on. The New Israel Fund UK announced ahead of the rally that it was backing out after political figures were invited to participate.
Other liberal Jews did take the stage. Rabbis Charley Baginsky and Josh Levy of Progressive Judaism, the U.K. equivalent of the Reform movement, who were booed off the stage at an August 2025 rally for the release of the Israeli hostages after calling for an end to the war in Gaza, exhorted attendees to ensure that England is not “shaped by suspicion, anger and permanent division.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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