Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Day commenced Sunday with the official opening ceremony held at the Warsaw Ghetto Square at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem. President Isaac Herzog and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered remarks at the ceremony. Yad Vashem Council Chairman and Holocaust survivor Rabbi Israel Meir Lau lit the memorial torch. The event began with a prayer for the return of captives held by Hamas and the well-being of fighters, and embracing bereaved families. The ceremony's honor guard consisted of six Holocaust survivors who lit torches ..read more

  Israel's Holocaust commemorations this year have a searing significance for six elderly survivors now deeply scarred by the Hamas attacks of Oct. 7 that sparked the ongoing Gaza war. The killing and kidnapping spree by Palestinian terrorists on a Jewish holiday morning shook the sense of security of Israelis – not least, those who had witnessed the state emerge as a safe haven after the Nazi genocide. For Bellha Haim, 86, the upheaval is especially profound. Her grandson Yotam – like her, a resident of a village near the Gaza border – was taken hostage by Hamas and managed to escap ..read more

  Q: You've served as director of the Hall of Names at Yad Vashem – the world Holocaust remembrance center – for nearly 30 years. You told me before, that the preoccupation with names and the stories of the victims in the Pages of Testimony collection fascinates you. On a deeper level, what does this pursuit mean to you? "Shimon Peres once said that people are not floating in the air like in Chagall's paintings, because every human being is tied to a specific place. For me, the pursuit of the source of the names, their place of origin, and their roots is a winning combination of history ..read more

  Prospects for a Gaza ceasefire appeared slim on Sunday as Hamas reiterated its demand for an end to the war in exchange for the freeing of hostages, which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu flatly ruled out. The two sides blamed each other for the impasse. In their second day of truce talks in Cairo with Egyptian and Qatari mediators, Hamas negotiators maintained their stance that any truce agreement must end the war, Palestinian officials said. Egyptian sources said CIA Director William Burns, who has also been involved in previous truce talks, arrived in Cairo on Friday. Israel ..read more

  British Green Party candidate Mothin Ali, who won the Gipton and Harehills seat in Leeds with 3,070 votes, proclaimed his election was a "win for the people of Gaza." After the results were announced, he shouted "Allahu Akbar!" while supporters unfurled a Palestinian flag behind him. "We will not be silenced. We will raise the voice of Gaza. We will raise the voice of Palestine. Allahu Akbar!" Ali declared in his victory speech. He was not alone in tying his success to the Palestinian struggle. Numerous other candidates running on a pro-Palestinian platform also defeated their rivals ac ..read more

  Amid escalating tensions with Qatar over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's cabinet voted unanimously on Sunday to close Qatari television network Al-Jazeera's operations in Israel, according to a government statement. The statement did not specify when the decision might take effect. The move comes after Israel's parliament recently passed a law allowing the temporary closure of foreign broadcasters considered a threat to national security during the ongoing war against Hamas. Qatar, which funds Hamas, has been accused by Israel of inflaming the confl ..read more

  The newly released Annual Antisemitism Worldwide Report for 2023 has revealed a disturbing increase in the number of antisemitic incidents across major Western nations compared to the previous year. The report, jointly published by Tel Aviv University (TAU) and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), highlights a particularly steep surge following the October 7 attack, but also notes relative increases in most countries with sizable Jewish populations during the first nine months of 2023, before the outbreak of conflict. "October 7 helped spread a fire that was already out of control," the re ..read more

  Many ask me why I am so confident that we have finally reached a turning point in the process of pushing back the progressive content worlds on campus. As a historian, I try to look at past cases, and try to compare patterns of action in the present and try to project them onto the future and from them try to extract a pattern of action. The saying "history tends to repeat itself" is very relevant and we see it every day. The images we see from campuses in America are a process that was painstakingly built on more than 200 campuses across the United States that has already seeped for ye ..read more

  In a disturbing escalation of tensions, three New York City synagogues and The Brooklyn Museum received false bomb threats on Saturday, prompting evacuations and concerns over rising antisemitism. The incidents came days after an Israeli restaurateur's eateries were defaced with swastikas amid the heightened Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Upper West Side's Congregation Rodeph Sholom was evacuated after police received a bomb threat report around 3:15 p.m. The threat was ultimately deemed unfounded. Another threat targeted the progressive, LGBTQ-friendly Congregation Beit Simchat Tora ..read more

  An exhibition using AI to depict Holocaust survivors' memories has launched at the Knesset in commemoration of Holocaust Remembrance Day. The unique display showcases images generated by Midjourney AI from textual descriptions provided by residents of Ahuzat Tzahala assisted living facility. AI artist Erez Rubinstein, a grandson of Holocaust survivors, spent hours with nine residents listening to their horror stories. He focused on one dominant memory from each, converting it into a powerful visual using Midjourney's image generation capabilities. "The picture brought me back to childho ..read more