The body of Master Sgt. Ran Gvili, the last Israeli still unaccounted for after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack, was returned from Gaza, ending more than two years of waiting. Gvili, a 24-year-old police officer killed while defending Kibbutz Alumum, was brought home for burial 843 days after he was taken captive. “The first to go, the last to leave,” his mother posted on Facebook. “Our hero.” Israel is now expected to reopen the Rafah [...]

Growing up in Fez, Morocco, Yona Elfassi was always aware of the history of the city, a center of culture and home to great minds, including Maimonides. Only about 2,500 Jews remain in the country; about a million Moroccan Jews make up one of Israel’s largest ethnic groups. Elfassi, a sociologist, now teaches a hybrid course in Darija, the Moroccan Arabic dialect, to allow diaspora Moroccan Jews to connect with their ancestors through language and [...]

• Fewer than 200,000 Holocaust survivors — half in Israel — are still alive worldwide, according to data released by the Times of Israel. The number is down from about 220,000 only one year ago. New York is home to the largest population of Holocaust survivors outside of Israel, with an estimated 14,000 to 15,000 living in the metropolitan area.    • Ilana Kantorowicz Shalem, 81, is one of the youngest living survivors of the [...]

In November 2025, three of America’s largest kosher-certifying organizations came together to release new guidance regarding the status of beer, which has long been considered kosher by default. But due to the proliferation of flavorings brought on by craft brewing and other industry changes, the rabbis who declare food products to be in line with Jewish dietary laws now say to check the label before drinking. “We’ve discovered that companies use many flavors to enhance [...]

Mourners gathered on Dec. 15 at Sydney’s Bondi Beach to light the menorah for the second night of Hanukkah, one day after the mass shooting at a Hanukkah celebration. Officials say a father and son killed 15 people and wounded more than three dozen others at the beachfront gathering, making it one of the deadliest attacks on Jews outside Israel in years. The father, Sajid Akram, 50, was killed, and police said they plan to [...]

New York Governor Kathy Hochul signed legislation on Dec. 1 that will establish New York’s first state-sponsored Holocaust memorial. The memorial will be built at the Empire State Plaza in Albany, a centerpiece in the state’s capital. New York has a number of Holocaust memorials, but none funded and supported by the state government. The legislation says the monument will be called the New York State Holocaust Memorial, and will aim to commemorate the victims [...]

Our Synagogue Is Cited In The Acknowledgments  I met Andrea Strongwater about 20 years ago in a summer writing class at Cornell University. She was wildly energetic about her many pursuits — art, history, writing, painting, and anything having to do with Cornell. I, on the other hand, was quiet writer, elevating my own family’s stories into essays, while a mere visitor to the campus courtesy of my husband, an alum. I admired her [...]

Every year around this time, a handwritten sign goes viral on social media, and appears taped to the windows of many of New York’s Chinese restaurants: “The Chinese Rest. Assoc. of the United States would like to extend our thanks to The Jewish People. We do not completely understand your dietary customs... But we are proud and grateful that your GOD insist you eat our food on Christmas.” Although it’s not prescribed in Jewish texts [...]

The Toledo Museum of Art had been searching for an object that embodied the connectivity of the pre-modern era. The cup calls attention to the largely forgotten Medieval Jewish community of eastern Khorasan, modern-day Afghanistan. The artifact is wide, flat and often mistaken for a bowl, but according to the curators, that was the shape of wine goblets at the time. This month, the Toledo, Ohio, Museum of Art Acquired a 12th Century Afghan Kiddish [...]

An attacker rammed a car into people outside the Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation, a synagogue in Manchester, England, then went on a stabbing spree on Thursday, Oct. 2, killing two people and wounding three others in what the police called an act of terrorism on Yom Kippur, the holiest Day of the Jewish calendar. Police said officers responded in minutes and shot and killed the attacker whom they identified as Jihad al-Shamie, 35, a British [...]