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Celebrities Help ‘Spotlight’ Holocaust Survivors, Their Testimonies in New NYC Portrait Exhibit
A new portrait series and exhibition that opened in New York City on Tuesday showcases Holocaust survivors paired up with some of the most notable figures in media, fashion, and entertainment, in an effort to preserve survivor testimonies and amplify their stories, as well as to help combat antisemitism.
The portraits in “Borrowed Spotlight,” which is on display at the Detour Gallery, were captured by South African-born, renowned fashion photographer Bryce Thompson. They debuted ahead of Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Day (Yom HaShoah), which begins on Wednesday night and marks 80 years since the end of World War II. The photographs feature portraits of survivors alongside prominent Jewish and non-Jewish figures such as Cindy Crawford, Jennifer Garner, Billy Porter, Wolf Blitzer, Chelsea Handler, Jenna Dewan, Barbara Corcoran, Nicola Peltz Beckham, Scooter Braun, David Schwimmer, Martha Grant, Ashley Benson, Josh Peck, George Stephanopoulos, Sheryl Sandberg, and Julius Erving.
The recognizable names heard testimonies from the Holocaust survivor they were paired with and then posed for photographs together with the survivor. A total of 18 celebrity and Holocaust survivor-paired portraits are in the series, and they were all taken by Thompson in 2023 and 2024. The exhibit features these large-scale portraits but also additional behind-the-scenes photos and other elements that aim to educate and inspire the public.
One section showcases notes written by some of the Holocaust survivors about life, hope, and reflection. In one such note that was on display, Holocaust survivor Risa Igelfeld, who is 107 years old, wrote: “I am writing this to urge the world to bring only positive thoughts to one another and let love flow.”
“Holocaust survivors are few and far between. Special people with special stories, and I really felt like they need to be told. [And] firsthand was really important to me,” Thompson, who is not Jewish, told the large crowd that attended the exhibit’s opening on Tuesday night. “Hearing a story from someone who has told a story is not the same as sitting in a room with someone who lived through something.”
Thompson told The Algemeiner he was originally hoping to only include non-Jewish celebrities in the portraits because “I wanted non-Jewish people standing up for Jewish people.” But once the project started, Jewish celebrities reached out to him and said they wanted to participate in the portrait series. He also admitted that he had a hard time getting some celebrities on board for the project.
“It wasn’t as easy as I had hoped, but the ones who did say ‘yes’ said [it] willingly and happily, and we were lucky to have them,” he said.
The Holocaust survivors in the series include natives of Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Belgium, Romania, and one man who was born in a Budapest ghetto basement during a bombing raid in 1944. The photographs feature survivors of the Warsaw Ghetto, Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen concentration camps, and one person who survived 12 concentration camps. After surviving the genocide of World War II, some of these Holocaust survivors went on to have large families, become graduates of MIT, rocket designers, entertainment lawyers, writers, acclaimed sculptors, tailors, members of the Israeli Air Force, doctors of clinical psychology, and Holocaust educators. The photo series also highlights a survivor of the Farhud pogrom that targeted Jews in Baghdad, Iraq.
The goal of the portrait series and exhibit is to take the spotlight off the featured celebrities and instead use it shed some light on the Holocaust survivors, to help magnify their testimonies and help them reach a larger audience, especially the next generation. “In these pairings, recognition is redirected, and the attention so often given to fame is instead used to illuminate history,” read a description of the exhibit that was on display at its entrance. “The result is a series of intimate portraits and conversations where past and present collide, where silence is broken, and where remembrance becomes an act of defiance against forgetting.”
Brazilian model Daniela Braga is featured in the portrait series alongside Czech Holocaust survivor Gabriella Karin, who survived the war as a teenager by hiding in the one-bedroom apartment of a non-Jewish young lawyer who was located directly across the street from the Nazi-Slovak Gestapo. Born and raised Catholic, Braga converted to Judaism and her husband is Jewish. She told The Algemeiner that hearing about Karin’s experience during the Holocaust made her “very emotional because growing up in Brazil, we learned just a little bit about the Holocaust and World War II. But to have the experience to actually talk to someone who lived through it, it’s something so mind-blowing to me.”
“I could hear the pain in her voice,” Braga added. “It made me happy in the end that she’s alive and is able to tell her story to all of us, to share with other people. When we say, ‘Never Again,’ it really has to be never again.”
Braga also told The Algemeiner she met a Jewish people for the first time ever when she moved to New York 15 years ago.
“I’ve been immersed in this [Jewish] culture for 15 years. The Jewish culture is something very close to my heart. Anything that I can do to help the Jewish community, I will do it,” she said while explaining why she wanted to participate in Thompson’s portrait series.
Jewish actress Kat Graham is photographed in the portrait series with Holocaust survivor Yetta Kana. Graham spoke at the exhibit opening and said Thompson’s portraits capture “truth, resilience, and humanity.” The “Vampire Diaries” actress – whose maternal grandmother fled Europe during the Holocaust – additionally said the photographs “build a bridge between generations; a conversation between memory and legacy.”
“This project is about remembrance but it’s also about responsibility,” she told the crowd. “We are the torchbearers now. It is up to us to keep these stories alive and to ensure that history is never forgotten. That the voices of survivors, like Yetta, are not only heard, but felt. I invite you to see, to feel, and to carry these faces with you, long after you leave … Let’s never forget.”
The opening of “Borrowed Spotlight” on Tuesday night was attended by other well-known figures including Gregg Sulkin, Remi Bader, Moti Ankari, and “Real Housewives of New Jersey” stars Margaret Josephs, Melissa Gorga, and Lexi Barbuto. Sulkin, who is Jewish, told The Algemeiner he wanted to be in the portrait series but ultimately was unable to participate in Thompson’s project because of scheduling conflicts.
The photographs in the exhibit, as well as additional ones not on display, were compiled into a coffee table book available for purchase that features a foreword by Crawford. Proceeds from the book sales will support efforts to educate younger generations about the Holocaust. Proceeds from a private auction on Monday night of select prints in the series will benefit Selfhelp, which provides services and assistance to living Holocaust survivors in New York, and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
There are more than 200,000 Holocaust survivors worldwide. Nearly 50 percent of all Holocaust survivors will die within the next six years, while 70 percent will no longer be alive within 10 years, according to a new report released this week by the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany (Claims Conference). There are estimated to be more than 1,400 alive today around the world who are over 100 years old.
“Borrowed Spotlight” will be open at the Detour Gallery through Sunday.
The post Celebrities Help ‘Spotlight’ Holocaust Survivors, Their Testimonies in New NYC Portrait Exhibit first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Nazi Symbols Appear at Northwestern University as School Seeks to Turn Page on Campus Antisemitism Crisis
Illustrative: Signs cover the fence at a pro-Palestinian encampment at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill. on April 28, 2024. Photo: Max Herman via Reuters Connect
Northwestern University said on Monday that it has identified the non-student who graffitied Nazi insignia on the campus earlier this month, pledging to file criminal charges against the suspect through the local police department.
The Schutzstaffel (SS) symbol representing the notorious paramilitary group under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party in Germany was spray-painted on Northwestern’s campus in Evanston, Illinois. The SS played a central role in the Nazis’ systematic killing of 6 million Jews during the Holocaust.
After the symbol’s discovery, students reported others like it on the north side of campus even as university maintenance staff rushed to repair the first defacement.
“Despicable and hateful graffiti were found on several signs of our Evanston campus, and the university immediately removed or painted over them,” the university told a local outlet, The Evanston RoundTable, in a statement on Feb. 6. “Northwestern has launched an investigation to identify the individual responsible for this vandalism, utilizing camera footage, forensics, and other methods. Based on that investigation, we have identified a suspect who we belief is unaffiliated with Northwestern.”
It added, “The university is working with local law enforcement on next steps, including potential criminal charges.”
On Feb. 10, The Northwestern Daily reported that the Evanston Police Department is involved in the investigation. “The department takes reports of hate-based incidents seriously and continues to pursue investigative leads,” a spokesperson for the department said.
Northwestern University has been the site of dozens of antisemitic incidents and the center of the federal government’s efforts to combat campus antisemitism.
During the 2023-2o24 academic year, former university president Michael Schill reached a shocking and unprecedented agreement with pro-Hamas organizers of an illegal encampment, agreeing to establish a new scholarship for Palestinian undergraduates, contact potential employers of students who caused recent campus disruptions to insist on their being hired, and create a segregated dormitory hall to be occupied exclusively by Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) and Muslim students. The university — where protesters shouted “Kill the Jews!” — also agreed to form a new investment committee that would consider adopting the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel.
In late November, Northwestern University agreed to pay $75 million and end the controversial agreement in exchange for the US federal government’s releasing $790 million in grants it impounded in April over accusations of antisemitism and reverse discrimination.
“As part of this agreement with the federal government, the university has terminated the Deering Meadow Agreement and will reverse all policies that have been implemented or are being implemented in adherence to it,” the university said in a statement which stressed that it also halted plans for the segregated dormitory. “The university remains committed to fostering inclusive spaces and will continue to support student belonging and engagement through existing campus facilities and organizations, while partnering with alumni to explore off-campus, privately owned locations that could further support community connection and programming.”
Northwestern had previously touted its progress on addressing the campus antisemitism crisis in April, saying that it had addressed alleged failures highlighted by lawmakers and Jewish civil rights activists.
“The university administration took this criticism to heart and spent much of last summer revising our rules and policies to make our university safe for all of our students, regardless of their religion, race, national origin, sexual orientation, or political viewpoint,” the university said at the time. “Among the updated policies is our Demonstration Policy, which includes new requirements and guidance on how, when, and where members of the community may protest or otherwise engage in expressive activity.”
The university added that it also adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, a reference tool which aids officials in determining what constitutes antisemitism, and begun holding “mandatory antisemitism training” sessions which “all students, faculty, and staff” must attend.
“This included a live training for all new students in September and a 17-minute training module for all enrolled students, produced in collaboration with the Jewish United Fund,” it continued. “Antisemitism trainings will continue as a permanent part of our broader training in civil rights and Title IX.”
Other initiatives rolled out by the university include an Advisory Council to the President on Jewish Life, dinners for Jewish students hosted by administrative officials, and educational events which raise awareness of rising antisemitism in the US and around the world. Additionally, Northwestern said that it imposed disciplinary sanctions against several students and one staff member whose conduct violated the new “Demonstration and/or Display Policies” which safeguard peaceful assembly on the campus.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Iran Says It Won’t Negotiate Over Missile Program as Trump Meets Netanyahu, With Nuclear Diplomacy Topping Agenda
US President Donald Trump talks with Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the Knesset, Oct. 13, 2025, in Jerusalem. Photo: Evan Vucci/Pool via REUTERS
Iran‘s missile capabilities are its red line and are not a subject to be negotiated, an adviser to Iran‘s supreme leader said on Wednesday, as US President Donald Trump hosted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House amid diplomacy between Washington and Tehran.
“The Islamic Republic’s missile capabilities are non-negotiable,” Ali Shamkhani said according to state media while appearing in a march commemorating the 47th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution.
Netanyahu was expected to press Trump to widen US talks with Iran to include limits on Tehran’s missile arsenal and other security threats beyond its nuclear program.
US and Iranian diplomats held indirect talks last Friday in Oman, amid a regional naval buildup by the US threatening Iran. Tehran and Washington are eyeing a new round of negotiations to avert conflict.
Washington has sought to extend talks on Iran‘s nuclear capabilities to cover its missile program as well. Iran has said it is prepared to discuss curbs on its nuclear program in return for the lifting of sanctions, but has repeatedly ruled out linking the issue to other questions including missiles.
On Sunday, Iran‘s Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said Tehran’s missile program had never been part of the talks’ agenda.
Both Israel and the US see Iran’s missile arsenal as an urgent threat.
In his seventh meeting with Trump since the president returned to office nearly 13 months ago, Netanyahu was looking to influence the next round of US discussions with Iran following the nuclear negotiations held in Oman.
Trump has threatened strikes on Iran if no agreement is reached, while Tehran has vowed to retaliate, stoking fears of a wider war. He has repeatedly voiced support for a secure Israel, a longstanding US ally and arch-foe of Iran.
In media interviews on Tuesday, Trump reiterated his warning, saying that while he believes Iran wants a deal, he would do “something very tough” if it refused.
TRUMP SAYS NO TO IRANIAN NUCLEAR WEAPONS, MISSILES
Trump told Fox Business that a good deal with Iran would mean “no nuclear weapons, no missiles,” without elaborating. He also told Axios he was considering sending a second aircraft carrier strike group as part of a major US buildup near Iran.
Israel fears that the US might pursue a narrow nuclear deal that does not include restrictions on Iran‘s ballistic missile program or an end to Iranian support for armed proxies such as Hamas and Hezbollah, according to people familiar with the matter. Israeli officials have urged the US not to trust Iran‘s promises.
“I will present to the president our perceptions of the principles in the negotiations,” Netanyahu told reporters before departing for the US. The two leaders could also discuss potential military action if diplomacy with Iran fails, one source said.
Netanyahu’s arrival at the White House was lower-key than usual. He entered the building away from the view of reporters and cameras, and a White House official then confirmed he was inside meeting with Trump.
GAZA ON THE AGENDA
Also on the agenda was Gaza, with Trump looking to push ahead with a ceasefire agreement he helped to broker. Progress on his 20-point plan to end the war and rebuild the shattered Palestinian enclave has stalled, with major gaps over steps such as Hamas disarming as Israeli troops withdraw in phases.
Netanyahu’s visit, originally scheduled for Feb. 18, was brought forward amid renewed US engagement with Iran. Both sides at last week’s Oman meeting said the talks were positive and further talks were expected soon.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said ahead of the Oman meeting that negotiations would need to address Iran‘s missiles, its proxy groups, and its treatment of its own population. Iran said Friday’s talks focused only on nuclear issues.
Trump has been vague about broadening the negotiations. He was quoted as telling Axios on Tuesday that it was a “no-brainer” for any deal to cover Iran‘s nuclear program, but that he also thought it possible to address its missile stockpiles.
Iran says its nuclear activities are for peaceful purposes, while the US and Israel have accused it of past efforts to develop nuclear weapons.
Last June, the US joined Israel’s strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities during a 12-day war.
Israel also heavily damaged Iran‘s air defenses and missile arsenal. Two Israeli officials say there are signs Iran is working to restore those capabilities.
Trump threatened last month to intervene militarily during a bloody crackdown on anti-government protests in Iran, but ultimately held off.
ISRAEL WARY OF A WEAKENED IRAN REBUILDING
Tehran’s regional influence has been weakened by Israel’s June attack, losses suffered by its proxies in Gaza, Lebanon, Yemen and Iraq, and the ousting of its ally, former Syrian President Bashar al‑Assad.
But Israel is wary of its adversaries rebuilding after the multi‑front war triggered by Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, assault on southern Israel.
While Trump and Netanyahu have mostly been in sync and the US remains Israel’s main arms supplier, Wednesday’s meeting could expose tensions.
Part of Trump’s Gaza plan holds out the prospect for eventual Palestinian statehood – which Netanyahu and his coalition have resisted.
Netanyahu’s security cabinet on Sunday authorized steps that would make it easier for Israeli settlers in the West Bank to buy land while granting Israel broader powers in what the Palestinians see as part of a future state. The decision drew international condemnation.
“I am against annexation,” Trump told Axios, reiterating his stance. “We have enough things to think about now.”
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University of California Faculty Fuel Antisemitism on Campus, New Report Finds
May 1, 2024; Los Angeles, California, USA; A flag is waved during a sit-in outside of a pro-Palestinian encampment at the campus of UCLA. Violence broke out early in the morning at the encampment, hours after the university declared that the camp “is unlawful and violates university policy.” Photo: USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
The antisemitism crisis at the University of California was started and accelerated by anti-Zionist faculty, according to a new report which draws on hundreds of antisemitic incidents to paint a picture of a higher education system that has become unmoored from its educational mission.
The AMCHA Initiative, a nonprofit organization dedicated to documenting and combating antisemitism at US institutions of higher education, on Wednesday released its latest report, titled “When Faculty Take Sides: How Academic Infrastructure Drives Antisemitism at the University of California.”
Examining the “antisemitism crisis” across University of California (UC) campuses since Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, the study exposes Oct 7 denialism; faculty calling for driving Jewish institutions off campus; the founding of pro-Hamas, Faculty for Justice in Palestine groups; and hundreds of endorsers of the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel.
As AMCHA tells the story, the situation is not simply the work of students but also of willing, culpable adults who intentionally reprised the world’s oldest hatreds while masking it as academic and intellectual freedom.
“While students are the most visible actors, faculty and academic departments are key institutional drivers of the hostile environment,” the AMCHA Initiative said on Wednesday in a press release shared with The Algemeiner. “Across three campuses, many faculty who promoted anti-Israel activism through university channels had previously endorsed an academic boycott of Israel (academic BDS). The boycott’s guidelines explicitly call on supporters to implement ‘anti-normalization’ in their professional roles. These include excluding Zionist perspectives, speakers, and programs from academic life.”
AMCHA Initiative executive director Tammi Rossman-Benjamin added, “This is far bigger than a discipline issue — it’s a faculty governance failure. Until UC enforces clear boundaries on faculty and academic-unit conduct, Jewish students will continue to face intimidation, exclusion, and harassment sanctioned by the institution itself.”
The report follows previous studies revealing the extent of faculty misconduct in higher education promoting anti-Israel animus and even outright antisemitism.
Just last week, The Algemeiner learned that, according to a lawsuit, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University assigned a Jewish student a project on “what Jews do to make themselves such a hated group.”
Similar incidents have come at a fast clip since the Hamas-led Oct. 7 massacre: a Cornell University praised the terrorist group’s atrocities, which including mass sexual assaults; a Columbia University professor exalted Hamas terrorists who paraglided into a music festival to murder Israeli youth as the “air force of the Palestinian resistance; and a Harvard University chapter of Faculty for Justice in Palestine (FJP) shared an antisemitic cartoon which depicted Zionists as murderers of Blacks and Arabs.
The University of California system is a microcosm of faculty antisemitism, the AMCHA Initiative explains in the exhaustive 158-page report, which focuses on the Los Angeles, Berkeley, and Santa Cruz campuses.
“The report documents how concentrated networks of faculty activists on each campus, often operating through academic units and faculty-led advocacy formations, convert institutional platforms into vehicles for organized anti-Zionist advocacy and mobilization,” the report states. “It shows how those pathways are associated with recurring student harms and broader campus disruption. It then outlines concrete steps the UC Regents can take to restore institutional neutrality in academic units and set enforceable boundaries so UC resources and authority are not used to advance activist agendas inside the university’s core educational functions.”
The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) alone holds at least 115 faculty endorsers of the BDS movement, according to the report. Meanwhile, dozens of its academic departments issued statements of support of the pro-Hamas encampments which struck college campuses during the 2023-2024 academic school year and became the hubs of antisemitic assault and discrimination.
Faculty for Justice in Palestine offered more than supportive words, the report says, “defending and helping orchestrate boycott-aligned activism (including encampment demands), seeking to deplatform Israeli speakers, and filing an amicus brief … that denied Zionism’s place within Jewish identity and defended exclusionary encampment conduct toward Zionist Jewish students, including expulsion from campus spaces.”
The federal government impounded, according to various reports, some $250 million to punish UCLA’s alleged exposing Jewish students to discrimination by refusing to intervene when civil rights violations transpired or failing to correct a hostile environment after the fact. The move came only days after UCLA agreed to donate $2.33 million to a consortium of Jewish civil rights organizations to resolve an antisemitism complaint filed by three students and an employee.
Many antisemitic incidents occurred at UCLA before the institution was ultimately sued and placed in the crosshairs of the Trump administration.
Just five days after Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, as previously reported by The Algemeiner, anti-Zionist protesters chanted “Itbah El Yahud” at Bruin Plaza, which means “slaughter the Jews” in Arabic. Other incidents included someone’s tearing a chapter page out of Philip Roth’s 2004 novel The Plot Against America, titled “Loudmouth Jew,” and leaving it outside the home of a UCLA faculty member, as well as Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) staging a disturbing demonstration in which its members cudgeled a piñata, to which a picture of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s face was glued, while shouting “beat the Jew.”
The US Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division has ruled that UCLA’s response to antisemitic incidents constituted violations of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the US Constitution and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act.
“Our investigation into the University of California system has found concerning evidence of systemic antisemitism at UCLA that demands severe accountability from the institution,” Attorney General Pamela Bondi said in a statement. “This disgusting breach of civil rights against students will not stand: the [Department of Justice] will force UCLA to pay a heavy price for putting Jewish Americans at risk and continue our ongoing investigations into other campuses in the UC system.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.