Hundreds of rabbis, cantors and other Jewish demonstrators gathered outside the headquarters of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Feb. 11 to voice opposition to the agency’s role in ongoing mass deportations. Pictured, Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum addressed the crowd, which stretched down the street. “We know it from history, and we know it from God, what is demanded of us in this moment,” she said.

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 crossing, Gaza’s border with Egypt and its key outlet to the outside world, the next phase of the ceasefire.

A banner of Ran Gvili is seen at Hostage Square in Tel Aviv.

Photo by Jack Guez/AFP via Getty Images.

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 culture. Classes, social gatherings and celebrations take place in Be’er Sheva, Israel, some Moroccans traveling to Israel for the events. “Bringing people together is peace-building, Elfassi says.

• 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 Holocaust. She was born at Bergen-Belsen, 30 days before the concentration camp was liberated.

• Jon Polin and Rachel Goldberg-Polin, the parents of slain hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin, would tape the number of days over their hearts until all hostages were home, a practice now ended.

• A new exhibit mounted by the Leo Baeck Institute in New York, titled “And that’s True Too: The Life and Work of Lore Segal,” opened on Jan. 22. Segal, who was raised in England by a foster mother, having arrived on the Kindertransport, died in 2024 at the age of 96. Her work includes an autobiographical novel, Other People’s Houses, decades of stories in The New Yorker, and a children’s book, Tell Me a Mitzi.

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 even the simple beers that they manufacture. Those flavors need to be kosherly supervised,” said Rabbi Moshe Elefant, the head of kosher operations at the Orthodox Union, which released the guidance along with Star-K and OK Kosher. “Some beers have dairy in them. They add lactose, they add milk, so a beer could be dairy, which has serious kosher ramifications.”

“Modern factory production involves long supply chains stretching around the world. Before a product hits the shelves, its ingredients may be the work of a dozen factories that result in a final product, and every step of that process needs to be certified to earn the OU stamp,” Rabbi Elefant said. Today. The Orthodox Union employs 55 rabbis in the New York office, and hundreds more in the field.

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 charge his son, Naveed Akram, 24, as the investigation continues.

Saeed Khan/AFP via Getty Images

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 of the genocide and to “educate the public about the history of the Holocaust and the dangers of antisemitism, racism, and all manifestations of intolerance.” The legislation passed through the state Senate and Assembly unopposed.