World landmarks lit up for Holocaust remembrance
(JNS) — Landmarks across Israel and around the world were illuminated in yellow and emblazoned with the hashtag #WeRemember to mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day on Jan. 27, as part of a global campaign by the World Jewish Congress.
Buildings from the Reichstag and Brandenburg Gate in Berlin to the Azrieli Towers, Knesset and Ben-Gurion International Airport in Israel glowed in solidarity with Holocaust victims and survivors. Other sites in Europe, including in the Czech Republic, Moldova, Greece, Brussels and Geneva, also joined the initiative.
In Germany, hundreds of bus stops displayed images of Holocaust survivors and public figures holding “We Remember” signs, while Bundesliga soccer clubs displayed banners before matches.
“Eighty-one years ago today, Auschwitz-Birkenau was liberated,” said WJC president Ronald S. Lauder. “We are grateful to have committed allies in our fight to remember the six million and to build a more secure world.”
Launched nearly a decade ago, the WeRemember campaign has become the world’s largest digital effort for Holocaust remembrance, supported by UNESCO, Meta and TikTok. The platforms direct users to aboutholocaust.org, an educational resource that reached more than 4 million people last year.
Vance omits mention of Jews from Holocaust Remembrance Day statement, incensing Jewish critics on both sides of the aisle
(JTA) — Vice President JD Vance made a statement marking International Holocaust Remembrance Day that failed to mention either Jews or Nazis, igniting further Jewish criticism of the vice president from both sides of the aisle.
The statement was the latest in a series of comments Vance has made that have triggered concern regarding his hesitancy to call out antisemites.
“Today we remember the millions of lives lost during the Holocaust, the millions of stories of individual bravery and heroism, and one of the enduring lessons of one of the darkest chapters in human history: that while humans create beautiful things and are full of compassion, we’re also capable of unspeakable brutality,” Vance posted Jan. 26. “And we promise never again to go down the darkest path.”
Tablet, the Jewish digital magazine that promotes conservative ideas, swiftly criticized Vance’s comments.
“Thank you Mr. Vice President for this unique commemoration of the Holocaust that manages to avoid mentioning Jews or condemning Nazis,” the site’s social media account posted. The post was reposted by Jews across the political spectrum, and its sentiments were echoed by many other Jews.
“It really takes effort on the part of Vice President Vance to issue a Holocaust Remembrance Day statement like this without any mention of six million Jews lost, the Jewish people, Nazis, or the issue of antisemitism,” Halie Soifer, CEO of the Jewish Democratic Council of America, posted.
Father of former Israeli hostage joins Columbia as a Jewish history professor
(JTA) — Jonathan Dekel-Chen, the father of a former Israeli hostage, has been appointed to join Columbia University as a professor of history with a course load that includes instruction about modern Israel.
Dekel-Chen’s son Sagui spent 498 days in captivity in Gaza. Dekel-Chen became a persistent advocate for a ceasefire deal and a critic of Israel’s prosecution of the war in Gaza.
Sagui, who like his father is a dual Israeli and U.S. citizen, was released during a temporary ceasefire in February 2025. Out of about 420 people who lived at Nir Oz, 47 were killed and 76 were taken hostage.
Dekel-Chen, currently a history professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, will join Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs in July. He will teach courses on Jewish history in Eastern Europe and the Russia-Ukraine War, Russia’s engagement in the Middle East and modern Israeli history.
His appointment comes as the school faces pressure to diversify the attitudes of faculty teaching about the Middle East. The fourth and final report from the school’s antisemitism task force, released in December, said that students had little access to academic expertise on the Middle East that did not come from an “explicitly anti-Zionist” perspective. It urged the school to move “quickly and energetically” to add expertise on Jewish and Israeli topics that did not take an anti-Israel stance.
Despite reforms, Tunisia’s textbooks remain full of antisemitic rhetoric, study finds
(JNS) — Tunisia’s national school curriculum is rife with antisemitic rhetoric and hostility toward Israel despite modern social reforms, according to a study released on Jan. 27.
The report, by the London-based Impact SE watchdog group, finds that while Tunisian school textbooks generally present peace, diversity and tolerance as foundational values, they continue to display a hostile attitude toward Israel, as well as antisemitic rhetoric.
According to the study, which analyzed 80 textbooks from grades 1-3 against UNESCO-based standards for peace and tolerance in education, while the curriculum “celebrates gender equality, condemns racism, and encourages civic duty, tolerance, and peaceful dialogue,” these values are “selectively applied.”
While some textbooks acknowledge tolerance for Tunisia’s minorities, other materials include antisemitic stereotypes that depict Jews as greedy, conspiratorial and harmful, thereby undermining messages of tolerance, the report found.
A Grade 11 Arabic Language textbook, for example, portrays a Jewish merchant as greedy and deceitful, stating that this is emblematic of all Jews, “who are always like this.”
Although textbooks discuss World War Two and the Nazis, the Holocaust receives virtually no attention, with Adolf Hitler described as having turned Germany into “a great economic and military power.”
Antisemitic slogans found near Bondi Beach massacre site
(JNS) — Unidentified individuals scrawled antisemitic slogans at the restroom of a McDonald’s restaurant on Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia, near where 15 people were killed last month during an attack on a Chanukah event, a local Jewish group said on Jan. 28.
The perpetrators used a black marker to write an antisemitic slur and “Jews rape kids” on the door of the restroom, footage uploaded by the Australian Jewish Association to social media showed.
Between Dec. 1, 2024 and Dec. 1, 2025, the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) documented 1,654 antisemitic incidents in Australia. This tally did not include the Bondi Beach massacre, which happened on Dec. 15, or its aftermath. The tally published by ECAJ was 19% lower than the one in the corresponding period the previous year.
Australia’s prime minister, Anthony Albanese, last week apologized to Jewish Australians, saying, “I am profoundly sorry that we could not protect your loved ones from this evil.”
Israel’s government and many Australian Jews have accused Albanese and his Labor-led government of letting antisemitism flourish by not siding with Israel and criticizing its war against Hamas after Oct. 7, 2023. Albanese’s critics have also said that authorities under his government did too little to identify threats, monitor and intervene against them.
