Boston’s unfinished Holocaust museum hoists boxcar into exhibit space overlooking Boston Common
(JTA) — Traffic on Tremont Street in downtown Boston came to a standstill the morning of Nov. 25 as a crane lifted a historic 12-ton railcar onto the fourth floor of the city’s upcoming Holocaust museum.
The museum, the first of its kind in New England, was launched by the The Holocaust Legacy Foundation in 2022, which was founded by business partners Jody Kipnis and Todd Ruderman following a 2018 March of the Living trip to Auschwitz.
While construction on the site, which rests on the city’s Freedom Trail near the Boston Common, remains ongoing, the installation of the 20th-century railcar, believed to be the same type used by the Nazis to transport Jews to extermination camps, marked a major milestone for the museum’s creation.
The railcar, which measures 30 feet long, 12 feet high, and nearly 9 feet wide, was lifted into the new museum structure by a 173-foot tower crane before construction continues around it.
A group of supporters, Massachusetts officials, civic leaders, Jewish community representatives and Boston-area partners looked on as the railcar was installed, according to the museum.
“The hardest truth this railcar forces us to confront is this: the Holocaust was not carried out by the Nazis alone. It was carried out by people, ordinary people, who kept the trains running, who stamped the papers, who followed schedules, who chose silence over courage,” said Kipnis, the co-founder and CEO of Holocaust Museum Boston, in a statement.
Florida neo-Nazi allegedly planned to livestream domestic terror attack
(JNS) — Federal authorities reportedly arrested a grocery store worker in Sarasota, Fla., who is accused of sharing bomb-making instructions in encrypted, neo-Nazi group chats that the FBI monitored and planning to livestream a terror attack.
Lucas Alexander Temple, 20, who used the online handles “Devilwaffen999” and “Micah Fischer,” was taken into custody on Nov. 20 at his parents’ home, according to news reports. At press time, there was no statement from the U.S. Department of Justice.
Temple was charged initially with distributing information on explosives, but prosecutors later filed a complaint alleging possession of an unregistered gun after agents found a sawed-off shotgun in his bedroom, according to the Independent. Per an affidavit that the paper reviewed, detectives found Nazi literature and a flag and copies of journals of mass shooters in his bedroom.
The investigators also reportedly found what appeared to be a written plan for a livestreamed domestic terror attack. “Write manifesto. Notify friends of livestream. Put flags on car. Play music on speakers during operation,” it reportedly stated, referring also to “motion-activated bombs in doorways.”
Oct. 7 families’ lawsuit says Bitcoin CEO, whom Trump pardoned, facilitated $1B in payments to Hamas and its allies
(JTA) — The families of victims of Hamas’ Oct 7, 2023, attack on Israel filed a lawsuit against the cryptocurrency fund Binance and its CEO, claiming they facilitated over $1 billion in funding to the terror group and others behind the attacks.
The latest lawsuit against Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao comes one month after he was pardoned by President Donald Trump for his November 2023 conviction on violating anti-money-laundering and sanctions laws. Zhao, who pleaded guilty, had been sentenced to four months in prison, and Binance paid more than $4.3 billion in fines.
When asked about the pardon earlier this month on “60 Minutes,” Trump distanced himself from Zhao and Binance, which struck a $2 billion deal with the Trump family’s crypto venture last spring.
“I don’t know who he is,” Trump said of Zhao. “I know he got a four-month sentence or something like that. And I heard it was a Biden witch hunt.”
The complaint, filed Monday in U.S. federal court in North Dakota, lists 306 American plaintiffs and their family members who were killed, injured or taken hostage on Oct. 7 or in other subsequent terror attacks.
Mamdani appoints former Women’s March leader, who resigned over Jew-hatred, to transition team
(JNS) — Zohran Mamdani, mayor-elect of New York City, announced the appointment of Tamika Mallory — a former leader of the Women’s March who resigned amid accusations of antisemitism — to his transition team.
Mallory, who will serve on the team’s community safety committee, previously claimed that Jews held responsibility for the exploitation of “black and brown people,” alleging that Jews played a major role in the slave trade, according to Tablet Magazine.
She has also called for a boycott of Starbucks over the company’s enlistment of the Anti-Defamation League to develop its anti-bias training, praised Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan and referred to the founding of Israel as a “human rights crime.”
“New Yorkers are shocked to learn that Zohran Mandani has appointed Tamika Mallory to his team,” the Lawfare Project wrote. “Mallory is a notorious trafficker of Jew-hatred in America, a defender for Louis Farrakhan’s vicious vitriol against Jews. Farrakhan called Jews ‘termites’ and Judaism a ‘gutter religion.’ Mallory refused to denounce him.”
“We must be vigilant and carefully scrutinize who Mamdani appoints to key positions and, more importantly, what they do once in office,” the Lawfare Project wrote. “Protecting Jewish civil rights means taking action whenever they are violated.”
Sa’ar: Israel stands with America
(JNS) — Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar offered condolences to the American people after an Afghan national shot two National Guard members near the White House in a suspected terrorist attack.
“My thoughts are with the families of the two brave National Guardsmen,” Sa’ar wrote on social media.
“We stand in solidarity with the United States, the American people and the president of the United Sates,” he tweeted.
Israeli Ambassador the United Nations Danny Danon added: “I pray for the two National Guardsmen who were shot in downtown Washington, D.C., today. I hope justice is swiftly served to the terrorist behind this atrocious attack.”
Speaking to the nation on Wednesday night, U.S. President Donald Trump said that the gunman shot the two victims at “point-blank range” in a “monstrous, ambush-style attack just steps from the White House.”
Trump called the attack an “act of evil and act of hatred and act of terror.”
Earlier in the day, Israeli President Isaac Herzog offered “heartfelt condolences.”
“From Israel, we send a message of friendship and solidarity to President Trump and all those serving in and around the White House,” he said. “We stand shoulder to shoulder with our greatest friend and ally, the United States of America.”
