Posts By PHYLLIS BRAUN - AJP Executive Editor

I used to avoid everything Holocaust related. This Auschwitz exhibit changed my attitude.

An original barrack from Monowitz, a labor and concentration camp that was part of the Auschwitz complex, is featured in the exhibit "Auschwitz. Not long ago. Not far away" at the Museum of Jewish Heritage-A Living Memorial to the Holocaust in New York City. (Josefin Dolsten)
May 2, 2019 / Josefin Dolsten, JTA

NEW YORK (JTA) — As a teenager, whenever my mother would suggest watching a Holocaust film, I would groan. I always felt that the Shoah already was close enough. My father had shown me the letters my great-grandfather wrote from a concentration camp in Poland to his daughter, who… Read more »

First-ever official US delegation joins March of the Living at Auschwitz

Elan Carr, second from left, the U.S. special anti-Semitism envoy, stands with U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman, second from right, and Israeli soldiers at the March of the Living at Auschwitz, May 2, 2019. (Cnaan Liphshiz)
May 2, 2019 / Cnaan Liphshiz, JTA

OSWIECIM, Poland (JTA) — President Donald Trump’s appointee as special envoy for monitoring and combating anti-Semitism toured Auschwitz for the first time on Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Day. Elan Carr, who was named earlier this year, was part of the first official U.S. delegation to the March of the Living,… Read more »

In the wake of another deadly synagogue shooting, we need Holocaust education more than ever

A gate with the inscription "Work Sets You Free" at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp memorial in Oranienburg, Germany, Jan. 25, 2019. (Omer Messinger/Getty Images)
May 1, 2019 / Janice Weinman and Ellen Hershkin, JTA

(JTA) — On the Shabbat morning of April 27, Hadassah member Lori Gilbert-Kaye was murdered while celebrating Passover at the Chabad of Poway. The synagogue’s rabbi, a male congregant and an 8-year-old girl were wounded as well by the self-avowed white supremacist shooter. We know that anti-Semitism is on the… Read more »

Famed Nazi hunters Beate and Serge Klarsfeld: It feels like the 1930s

Beate and Serge Klarsfeld pose before receiving an award from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D.C., April 29, 2019. (Ron Kampeas)
May 1, 2019 / Ron Kampeas, JTA

WASHINGTON (JTA) — It’s not an unfamiliar frame for describing the rise of the new nationalism: There’s a bad wind blowing through the West, and nothing less than democracy is at stake. What makes it especially unsettling for Beate and Serge Klarsfeld is that they have lived through it… Read more »

French Jews say officials are reluctant to call out anti-Semitism by Muslims

The sundial of France's Palais de Justice in Paris reads "Hora fugit stat jus" (the hour passes, justice remains). (Thierry Chesnot/Getty Images)
May 1, 2019 / Cnaan Liphshiz, JTA

(JTA) — For most of his adult life, Sammy Ghozlan has worked with French authorities fighting crime. Ghozlan, 75, started as a police officer, ascending through the ranks to become a police commissioner in the Paris area. And since 2002 he has headed one of French Jewry’s most prominent… Read more »

Survivor Ed Mosberg, 93, is braving cancer to march at Auschwitz, perhaps for the last time

Edward Mosberg, holding a Torah scroll, during March of the Living in 2017 at the former death camp Auschwitz in Poland. (Courtesy of From the Depths)
May 1, 2019 / Cnaan Liphshiz, JTA

KRAKOW, Poland (JTA) — At the age of 93, Holocaust survivor Ed Mosberg is saying his goodbyes to the city of his birth. Flanked by two physicians who accompanied him all the way from New Jersey, Mosberg, who made his fortune in construction after surviving several Nazi concentration camps,… Read more »

Why President Trump desperately needs a White house Jewish liaison

President Donald Trump, first lady Melania Trump, Vice President Mike Pence and his wife, Karen, attend a Hanukkah reception at the White House, Dec. 6, 2018. (Oliver Contreras-Pool/Getty Images)
May 1, 2019 / Aaron Keyak, JTA

WASHINGTON (JTA) – The terrorist attack at Chabad of Poway on April 27, which occurred on Shabbat and the last day of Passover, was horrific – and only the latest hate crime among the increasing number of anti-Semitic acts in recent years. The shooting left one dead and three injured.… Read more »

Mitt Romney: Two-state solution is all there is

Sens. Mitt Romney, left, and Chris Murphy at the Capitol discuss their recent tour of the Middle East, April 30, 2019. (Ron Kampeas)
May 1, 2019 / Ron Kampeas, JTA

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Sen. Mitt Romney returned from a Middle East tour saying that he saw no alternative to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict other than the two-state solution. The Utah Republican, his party’s 2012 presidential nominee, has just assumed the chairmanship of the Middle East subcommittee in the Senate. Romney’s conclusion… Read more »

Alleged Poway synagogue shooter charged with murder
April 29, 2019 / Marcy Oster, JTA

(JTA) — The alleged gunman in the attack on the Chabad of Poway synagogue near San Diego was charged with murder. John Earnest, 19, was charged on Sunday afternoon with one count of murder in the first degree and three counts of attempted murder in the first degree, according… Read more »

Lori Gilbert-Kaye, 60, killed in Poway attack, shielded rabbi from bullets

Mourners leave mementos across the street from the Chabad Community Center in Poway, California a day after a shooter killed a congregant and wounded three others, on April 28, 2019. (Gabrielle Birkner)
April 28, 2019 / Gabrielle Birkner and Marcy Oster, JTA

POWAY, California (JTA) — Lori Gilbert-Kaye, who was killed in the attack at a Chabad synagogue near San Diego, is credited with jumping in front of the synagogue’s rabbi to shield him from the gunman’s bullets. Gilbert-Kaye, 60, of San Diego, is survived by her husband and 22-year-old daughter.… Read more »

Poway mayor: post-Pittsburgh precautions saved lives
April 28, 2019 / Gabrielle Birkner

POWAY, California (JTA) — Poway’s mayor said preparations made in the aftermath of the massacre at a Pittsburgh synagogue “contributed to saving lives” in his hometown. On Saturday, a gunman entered Chabad of Poway, killing Lori Gilbert-Kaye, a 60-year-old congregant, and injuring three others, including Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein, the… Read more »

In second statement, New York Times apologizes for publishing ‘anti-Semitic political cartoon’
April 28, 2019 / Josefin Dolsten, JTA

NEW YORK (JTA) — After widespread condemnation, and an initial statement that critics slammed as inadequate, The New York Times apologized for publishing an “anti-Semitic political cartoon.” The image, which appeared Thursday in the opinion section of the international print edition of the newspaper, depicted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu… Read more »