Jewish News

Holocaust survivor’s dance sparks controversy

He’s a Holocaust survivor dancing with his family on what easily could have been his own grave. A video clip of Adolek Kohn awkwardly shuffling and shimmying with his daughter and grandchildren to the sound of “I Will Survive” at Auschwitz and other sites where millions died during the Holocaust has become an Internet sensation. It’s also sparking debate over ...

Holocaust Survivor Starts Fresh at 87

Oscar Phillips, an 87-year-old Holocaust survivor from Deerfield Beach, Florida, made his lifelong dream come true on November 12, when he finally made aliyah to Israel through Nefesh B’Nefesh, in cooperation with the Jewish Agency and the Ministry of Immigrant Absorption.Phillips, who was 14-years-old when the Germans invaded Poland, was sent to Auschwitz in 1944, where he then worked in ...

Holocaust Survivor Recalls Kindness of US Troops

Aliza Vitis-Shomron on Thursday vividly recalled her brush with death on the eve of her liberation from the Nazis in 1945.The survivor, who spoke on a panel at the Kibbutz Yad Mordechai Holocaust Museum the day before the world marks International Holocaust Remembrance Day, said a rumor had spread among the group of Jewish prisoners she was part of in ...

Holocaust Stories Retold by Holograms

For years, Holocaust survivor Pinchus Gutter has told the tragic story of watching his parents and 10-year-old twin sister herded into a Nazi death camp’s gas chambers so quickly that he had no time to even say goodbye.He was left instead with an enduring image he has carried with him through 70 years: That of his sister vanishing into a ...

Holocaust orphan finds new relatives

The phone at the Hecht home in Rehovot hasn’t stopped ringing. The family has been receiving exciting reactions from all across the globe ever since Ynet published Martin Hecht’s story as part of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s “Remember Me” project, which aims to locate 1,100 orphaned children who survived the Holocaust.“People have been calling from New Zealand, the ...

Holocaust omitted from Russian site

Authorities in the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don have removed a memorial plaque for Jews murdered during World War II, replacing it with a monument which fails to mention the Holocaust or the victims’ religion.The memorial site was erected in a bloody area, which is known as the “Russian Babi Yar” as more than 27,000 people were murdered there.Authorities claim that ...

Holocaust Hospice Workers Win Labor Struggle with Israel’s Treasury

Some 130 subcontracted workers at three mental health hospices for Holocaust survivors were reinstated as government employees yesterday by the treasury, in a delayed implementation of a year-old agreement with the Histadrut labor federation that reduces the impact to employees of privatizing social services.The treasury has agreed to give workers the same seniority-related benefits they would have received had they ...

Holocaust forum in Romania raises awareness on mass graves

Dozens of scholars and historians from across Europe and the U.S. attended a symposium Friday on Holocaust mass graves in Eastern Europe to raise awareness in countries where little information on the subject was available under communism.Paul Shapiro from the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum said well over 1 million Jews were murdered in ...

Holocaust exhibit opens in Kiev

An exhibition focused on the massacre of 1.4 million Jews in Soviet Ukraine opened in Kiev recently, featuring a sobering display of Nazi bullets, photographs of bones and tearful witness testimonies.The exhibit is based on the work of French Catholic Priest Patrick Desbois, who has been canvassing Ukrainian villages on a quest to identify hundreds of mass graves of Jews ...

Holocaust-Era Books of Esther Unveiled

Three Books of Esther kept in the attic of a house in the Warsaw Ghetto during World War II have been returned to Jewish hands.In honor of Purim, the Shem Olam Institute for Holocaust education, documentation and research unveiled the rare holy items which were in Polish possession for dozens of years and were located and brought to Israel in ...

Holocaust could happen again, warns expert

As it does every year on the 27th day of the Hebrew month of Nisan, Israel came to a standstill at 10 AM Monday morning as air raid sirens blared across the country commemorating the senseless massacre of six million Jews in the Nazi Holocaust.Memorial ceremonies were held at several locations, as the nation’s leadership took time away from their ...

Holocaust Commemorated in Istanbul

Guests of the Ortaköy Etz Ahayim Synagogue in Istanbul – a holy place that has witnessed countless weddings, ceremonies, bar mitzvahs and hopeful prayers throughout decades and generations – commemorated the International Holocaust Remembrance Day on January 27.Millions of Jews, who were systematically murdered by Nazi regime during World War II, were commemorated in the Turkish city.Besides the members of ...