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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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Israel Says US Gaza Executive Board Composition Against Its Policy
FILE PHOTO: Displaced Palestinians shelter at a tent camp in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, January 14, 2026. REUTERS/Haseeb Alwazeer/File Photo
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said on Saturday that this week’s Trump administration announcement on the composition of a Gaza executive board was not coordinated with Israel and ran counter to government policy.
It said Foreign Minister Gideon Saar would raise the issue with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
The statement did not specify what part of the board’s composition contradicted Israeli policy. An Israeli government spokesperson declined to comment.
The board, unveiled by the White House on Friday, includes Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan. Israel has repeatedly opposed any Turkish role in Gaza.
Other members of the executive board include Sigrid Kaag, the U.N. special coordinator for the Middle East peace process; an Israeli‑Cypriot billionaire; and a minister from the United Arab Emirates, which established relations with Israel in 2020.
Washington this week also announced the start of the second phase of President Donald Trump’s plan, announced in September, to end the war in Gaza. This includes creating a transitional technocratic Palestinian administration in the enclave.
The first members of the so-called Board of Peace – to be chaired by Trump and tasked with supervising Gaza’s temporary governance – were also named. Members include Rubio, billionaire developer Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner.
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Iran’s Leader Khamenei Accuses Trump of Inciting Deadly Protests
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei speaks during a meeting in Tehran, Iran, January 17, 2026. Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Saturday blamed President Donald Trump for weeks of demonstrations that rights groups said have led to more than 3,000 deaths.
“We consider the US president criminal for the casualties, damages and slander he inflicted on the Iranian nation,” Khamenei said, according to Iranian state media.
The protests erupted on December 28 over economic hardship and swelled into widespread demonstrations calling for the end of clerical rule in the Islamic Republic.
Trump has repeatedly threatened to intervene, including by threatening “very strong action” if Iran executed protesters.
But on Friday, in a social media post, he thanked Tehran’s leaders, saying they had called off mass hangings. Iran said there was “no plan to hang people.”
In comments that appeared to respond to Trump, Khamenei said: “We will not drag the country into war, but we will not let domestic or international criminals go unpunished,” state media reported.
IRAN’S WORST UNREST IN YEARS
Iran’s ultimate authority Khamenei said “several thousand deaths” had happened during the nationwide protests, which are Iran’s worst unrest in years. He accused Iran’s longtime enemies the US and Israel of organizing the violence.
“Those linked to Israel and the US caused massive damage and killed several thousand,” he said, adding that they started fires, destroyed public property and incited chaos. They “committed crimes and a grave slander,” he said.
The US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency, or HRANA, said it had verified 3,090 deaths, including 2,885 protesters, and over 22,000 arrests.
Last week, Iran’s prosecutor general said detainees would face severe punishment. Those held included people who “aided rioters and terrorists attacking security forces and public property” and “mercenaries who took up arms and spread fear among citizens,” he said.
“All perpetrators are mohareb,” state media quoted Mohammad Movahedi Azad as saying, adding that investigations would be conducted “without leniency, mercy or tolerance”.
Mohareb, an Islamic legal term meaning to wage war against God, is punishable by death under Iranian law.
INTERNET SERVICES ARE RESTORED IN PART
Reuters has not been able to independently verify the numbers of casualties or details of disturbances reported by Iranian media and rights groups.
Getting information has been complicated by internet blackouts, which were in part lifted on Saturday.
Iran’s crackdown appears to have broadly quelled protests, according to residents and state media, and the semi-official Mehr News Agency reported on Saturday that internet service had been restored for some users.
The ISNA news website said SMS service had also been reactivated.
“Metrics show a very slight rise in internet connectivity in #Iran this morning” after 200 hours of shutdown, the internet monitoring group NetBlocks posted on X. Connectivity remained around 2% of ordinary levels, it said.
A resident of Karaj, west of Tehran, reached by phone via WhatsApp, said he noticed the internet was back at 4 a.m. (0000 GMT) on Saturday. Karaj experienced some of the most severe violence during the protests. The resident, who asked not to be identified, said Thursday was the peak of the unrest there.
A few Iranians overseas said on social media that they had also been able to message users in Iran early on Saturday.
ARRESTS HAVE FOLLOWED INTELLIGENCE OPERATIONS, MEDIA SAY
State media has reported the arrest of thousands of “rioters and terrorists” across the country, including people linked to opposition groups abroad that advocate the overthrow of the Islamic Republic.
The arrests included several people Iranian state media described as “ringleaders,” including a woman named as Nazanin Baradaran, who was taken into custody following “complex intelligence operations.”
The reports said that Baradaran operated under the pseudonym Raha Parham on behalf of Reza Pahlavi – the exiled son of Iran’s last shah – and had played a leading role in organizing the unrest. Reuters could not verify the report or her identity.
Pahlavi, a longtime opposition figure, has positioned himself as a potential leader in the event of regime collapse and has said he would seek to re-establish diplomatic ties between Iran and Israel if he were to assume a leadership role in the country.
Israeli officials have expressed support for Pahlavi. In a rare public disclosure this month, Israeli Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu said in an interview with Israel’s Army Radio that Israel had operatives “on the ground” in Iran.
He said they aimed to weaken Iran’s capabilities, though he denied they were directly working to topple the leadership.
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Protesters Rally in Denmark and Greenland Against Trump Annexation Threat
A protester takes part in a demonstration to show support for Greenland in Copenhagen, Denmark January 17, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Tom Little
Protesters in Denmark and Greenland demonstrated on Saturday against President Donald Trump’s demand that the Arctic island be ceded to the US and called for it to be left to determine its own future.
Trump says Greenland is vital to US security because of its strategic location and large mineral deposits, and has not ruled out using force to take it. European nations this week sent military personnel to the island at Denmark’s request.
MARCHING IN COPENHAGEN AND NUUK
In Copenhagen, demonstrators chanted “Greenland is not for sale” and held up slogans such as “No means No” and “Hands off Greenland” alongside the territory’s red-and-white flag as they marched to the US embassy.
Some wore red baseball caps resembling the “Make America Great Again” caps of Trump supporters, but with the slogan “Make America Go Away.”
In Greenland’s capital Nuuk, thousands led by Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen carried flags and similar banners as they headed for the US consulate chanting “Kalaallit Nunaat” – the island’s name in Greenlandic.
“I’ve come here today because I think it’s important to show that Greenland is not for sale. It is not a toy. This is our home,” said Naja Holm, a civil servant.
By the consulate, Nielsen addressed the crowd, drawing loud cheers.
Organizers estimated over 20,000 people attended the protest in Copenhagen – akin to the entire population of Nuuk. Police did not provide an official figure. Other protests were held across Denmark.
“I am very grateful for the huge support we as Greenlanders receive … we are also sending a message to the world that you all must wake up,” said Julie Rademacher, chair of Uagut, an organization for Greenlanders in Denmark.
TRUMP TRIGGERS DIPLOMATIC RIFT
Trump’s repeated statements about the island have triggered a diplomatic crisis between the US and Denmark, both founding members of the NATO military alliance, and have been widely condemned in Europe.
The territory of 57,000 people, governed for centuries from Copenhagen, has carved out significant autonomy since 1979 but remains part of Denmark, which controls defense and foreign policy, and funds much of the administration.
Some 17,000 Greenlanders live in Denmark, according to Danish authorities.
All parties in Greenland’s parliament ultimately favor independence, but they disagree on the timing and have recently said they would rather remain part of Denmark than join the US.
Only 17 percent of Americans approve of Trump’s efforts to acquire Greenland, and large majorities of Democrats and Republicans oppose using military force to annex it, a Reuters/Ipsos poll found. Trump called the poll “fake.”