Amplifying voices of the Jewish world. Pro-Israel Pro-humanity. Please join our 400,000 strong community on Instagram and Facebook too @jewishlifenow
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🇮🇱 A moving moment in Hollywood.
Oscar-winning actor Dustin Hoffman, 89, joined Israeli singer Ester Rada for Israel’s national anthem, “Hatikvah,” at a special evening of solidarity with Israel at UCLA in Los Angeles.
The event brought together Hollywood stars and former Hamas hostage Eliya Cohen and his wife, Ziv Abud.
All ticket proceeds will support trauma recovery and resilience programs in southern Israel following the October 7 massacre.
Video: @erevtov2 , Israelim
COLONIZERS?
Funny.
Most colonizers leave their homeland to conquer someone else’s.
The Jewish people spent 2,000 years trying to get back to theirs.
That’s not quite the colonial story you’ve been told.
#amyisraelchai #israel #Zionists
I have to say to all of you, you ARE those people with a moral conscience 😊 Not to get all sentimental with you, but honestly, I’m pretty sure that we have the best group of people on the Internet on this page. You’re all amazing. Cindy
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The beauty of being a non-Jewish Zionist?
I can support the Jewish people without being Jewish, support Israel without being Israeli and annoy antisemites without even trying.
I continue to be in awe of the resilience of the survivors of October 7. But perhaps what moves me most is their extraordinary capacity to still believe in peace.
After witnessing unimaginable cruelty, enduring captivity, and confronting hatred in its darkest form, they somehow emerge with a message not of vengeance, but of hope.
Omer Shem Tov reminds us of something the world so often forgets: Israelis are not raised to glorify war. They are raised to cherish life, to dream of peace, and to believe in a future where their children will never have to know the horrors they have endured.
There is something profoundly moving about a young man who has seen the very worst of humanity and still speaks of peace.
That is not weakness. That is extraordinary strength.
And perhaps that is the part of the Israeli spirit the world most needs to understand. 🇮🇱💙
#omershemtov #hostages #amyisraelchai
In mid-November 2023, the illuminated “BRING THEM HOME” sign at Habima Square, outside the Charles Bronfman Auditorium, went up, right before the first deal, which we hoped would make the sign unnecessary.
Sadly, it illuminated the square for almost two years.
A year ago the sign was replaced.
A new one went up instead: “WELCOME BACK HOME.”
The joy of the returning hostages was only tempered by the wait for the deceased hostages to be returned.
No one left behind.
#bringthemhome
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#October7 has shaped the way I will think for the rest of my life. It has reoriented my approach to being a leader in the American #Jewish community and redefined my sense of responsibility — in what we say, what we teach and how we act. This dark day, and its aftermath, have upended decades of my assumptions and humbled me.
One of the saddest developments has been the shock experienced by many American Jews, who, for the first time in their lives, are encountering pervasive hostility. The realization that age-old hatreds are still alive and kicking thrust American Jews into a crisis of confidence. We have heard eerie echoes of Europe, the haunting howls of hatred that brought our ancestors to America in the first place.
What has kept me up at night is your profound concern regarding the intensification of #antisemitism. That a massacre of Jews in #Israel — the worst we've seen since the Holocaust — has resulted in protests and violence against Jews at the doors of our houses of worship and communal spaces in this country is shocking. That Israelis murdered in their own homes in Israel — in its internationally recognized borders — and would be blamed for their own victimhood — appalls us. The disappointment, even betrayal, that we feel from our social justice allies, with whom we have stood shoulder to shoulder in the struggle to create a better world, have shaken us and resulted in severed relations.
Jewish history has proven conclusively that it is far better for us to have power and agonize over its moral use than to be powerless and at the mercy of the dark lords. The clear lessons of centuries of Jewish history must not be misconstrued. Our vulnerability is the impetus to widespread animus, not our power.
Israel was founded to empower Jews. After 2,000 years, a persecuted, abandoned, decimated people finally rose up and said ‘enough.’ The days of murdering and massacring Jews with impunity are over. We will protect ourselves. We will defend our people. We will be masters of our own fate. We shall return to the ancient homeland and live again.
Amidst the turmoil, polarization and anxieties of our times, do not abandon your affection, responsibility and loyalty to our own people. Our destinies are tied one to the other. We have many different views, we believe many different things. We are a contentious, argumentative, strong-willed, opinionated family, but we are family that assumes the obligations and responsibilities of love for each other.
There is no force in the world more powerful than the united spirit of the Jewish people in urgent times.
The tragedies of October 7 and the years of October 8 have produced so many young Jewish heroes filled with the spirit of righteousness, who feel called to defend their families, their friends, their people, and all that is good and noble in this world. Be like them. Join the struggle. Do not sit it out.
Fight back everywhere, each in our own corner.
Three years later,
we remember those we lost,
those who survived,
and the world that changed forever.
#october7
And that my friends is 35 more words than most celebrities have ever had the guts to say, Jewish and non-Jewish. #daviddraiman #zionist #amyisraelchai
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* During the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks by Muslim Jihadis on Chabad House, Sandra Samuel, an Indian nanny, ran out of her hiding place and rescued toddler Moshe Holtzberg where he was crying near his slaughtered Rabbi father and mother.
* We Indians always have had the Jew's backs right from 2000 years ago when the first Jews landed in Kerala fleeing persecution in the middle East. They later became the Malabari and Paradesi Jews.
* In the 1930s, Kundanlal, a Punjabi businessman saved five Austrian Jewish families.
* In 1942, Maharaja Digvijaysinhji gave a home to about 1,000 Polish children, refugees and orphans displaced by the war, many of whom were Jewish.
* Again in 1942, over 600 Jews fled from Burma to escape the Japanese.The Jewish communities in Bombay and Calcutta sheltered these refugees.
* Between 1933 and 1945, nearly 5,000 German and Austrian Jews found asylum in India.
* And now on 30th September Captain Smit Machchhar was instrumental in saving around 174 of Israel's children.
UPDATE: New details are emerging about the attempted terrorist attack aboard flydubai Flight FZ1073 — and they raise troubling new questions about what happened after Israeli passengers helped restrain the axe-wielding co-pilot.
Two Israeli passengers who helped secure the suspect told the New York Post that after he was subdued and tied up, members of the flydubai crew demanded that they release him.
“They were asking us to untie the terrorist — we had no idea why,” passenger Tzvika Manes told the Post.
The Israelis refused, leading to a confrontation with members of the crew. The passengers say they had no intention of harming the restrained co-pilot — they even provided him with oxygen — but were determined to keep him secured until authorities could take custody of him.
The new account comes as UAE authorities have now officially characterized the co-pilot’s alleged attack on the captain with a cockpit crash axe as an attempted terrorist attack.
Importantly, there is currently no evidence that members of the crew were involved in or had prior knowledge of the attack, and flydubai has not explained why crew members reportedly wanted the suspect untied. The investigation remains ongoing.
#flydubai #israelis #flydubai
Speaking at an event honoring the life and legacy of his father, Elie Wiesel, Wiesel challenged the Museum to use the very expertise and moral authority it has used to examine atrocities in Darfur and against the Yazidis and Rohingya.
His point is an important one: remaining silent is not the same as answering an accusation.
“Since October 7, the word genocide has been used as a weapon against Israel on campuses, at the United Nations, and even by a member of your own governing council,” Wiesel told the Museum. “The charge is false.”
He argued that an institution devoted to preserving the history of the Holocaust and understanding genocide has the scholars, credibility and mandate to rigorously examine that charge — and to address what he says the misuse of Holocaust language is doing to Jews around the world.
And then came perhaps his most powerful challenge:
“Declining to join the accusation is not the same as dismantling it.”
For the son of Elie Wiesel, this is also deeply personal. His father helped shape the Museum and believed remembrance was never supposed to end with remembering.
As Wiesel put it: “That was my father’s vision: a place that remembers and then acts.”
#elishawiesel #eliewiesel #usholocaustmemorialmuseum
A war of words before Ireland and Israel took the field.
Ahead of the Republic of Ireland’s Nations League match against Israel, Irish national team coach Heimir Hallgrímsson was asked about the controversy surrounding the game.
His answer was pointed:
“We’re not playing with genocide, we’re playing against genocide. We’re playing against Israel, we’re not playing with Israel.”
The Israel Football Association responded just as pointedly, saying Israel had contributed to humanity in countless fields and earned an impressive number of Nobel Prizes — but had “not yet found a cure for stupidity, ignorance and hypocrisy” displayed by the Irish coach.
Then came the line that directly turned Hallgrímsson’s own words back on him:
“We’re not playing with ignorance, hypocrisy and stupidity, we’re playing against the coach who embodies them.”
There is an important postscript.
Days later, when Hallgrímsson was specifically asked whether he regretted saying Israel was committing genocide, he acknowledged that he had used a “strong word” and said it was “a wrong word for me to use.” He explained that his point was that Ireland’s decision to play Israel should not be interpreted as its players supporting what has happened in Gaza.
The Israel FA’s communications chief, Shlomi Barzel, subsequently confirmed that he was responsible for the original Israel FA post. He said he would not apologize for it, although he did withdraw the word “stupidity” after hearing Hallgrímsson’s later remarks.
Most people know Clive Davis as one of the most powerful figures in modern music — the man who discovered, signed, championed or helped transform the careers of Whitney Houston, Bruce Springsteen, Janis Joplin, Aretha Franklin, Billy Joel, Barry Manilow, Carlos Santana, Alicia Keys and so many others.
But there is another part of his story that far fewer people know.
Clive Davis was Jewish, a Zionist and unlike many in the entertainment industry, was not afraid to publicly speak out against antisemitism.
Raised in a Jewish family in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, he attended Hebrew school and was bar mitzvahed. And while he was not conventionally religious as an adult, his Jewish identity remained very much a part of who he was.
His son Doug once recalled a moment while preparing for his own bar mitzvah when Davis unexpectedly began reading the Hebrew with ease. When Doug told him he hadn’t known he could read Hebrew, Davis replied:
“I’m not at all religious, but I’m very Jewish.”
That line may say more about his connection to Judaism than almost anything else.
And after October 7, that part of him became especially public.
Davis condemned the Hamas attack, writing:
“I wholeheartedly oppose the murderous hate displayed by Hamas on the people of Israel and I support Israel’s right to eradicate terrorism.”
He also spoke about how personal the rise in antisemitism felt to him, tracing it back to his childhood and to the images of the concentration camps that returning World War II soldiers brought home.
And then he said something that feels especially worth remembering now:
“I have made it my mission in life to fight for equality and human rights — advocating for those who do not have a voice in music and elsewhere. You cannot be silent about antisemitism, or hate or discrimination of any kind.”
For someone whose entire career was built around recognizing important voices, it feels meaningful that when antisemitism demanded one, Clive Davis used his own.
Clive Davis, z”l, died earlier this year at 94, leaving behind an extraordinary musical legacy.
But for us, this lesser-known part of his story is worth remembering too.#
May his memory be a blessing.
September 2026. This is our world.
ANYONE travelling from Israel needs to pay attention to what they put in their suitcase.
Thank you @jonnydaniels per usual.
#netherlands #antisemitism #elal #amyisraelchai
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People talk about heroes and often point to celebrities.
Lior Raz is a hero for what he did in the days after October 7th. Idan Amedi is a hero for fighting in the war, being injured, working tirelessly to recover, and continuing to share his incredible talents with the world.
But the people I truly look up to are the survivors.
The former hostages. The people who were at Nova and the kibbutzim on October 7th who now wake up every day and choose to survive, rebuild and thrive.
The families and friends who lost the people they loved.
The families who stood beside their loved ones through captivity and now support them as they recover from what they endured in Gaza.
I’ve stood at the Nova site. I’ve seen where lives were shattered.
These are the people I call heroes.
It’s time to redefine the word hero.
And it’s time to show our children who they should admire.
Jewish life in Germany is no longer safe.”
Those were the stark words of German Chancellor Friedrich Merz this week as he addressed the rise of antisemitism in Germany — particularly in Berlin. (The Times of Israel)
Speaking after two state elections, Merz said what has become possible on Berlin’s streets, public squares and in the media is “a disgrace for Germany,” and pledged to do everything in his power to push it back.
He also pointed to increasingly radical and openly expressed antisemitism — which, he said, is sometimes even being applauded.
“The fact that Jewish life is no longer safe in Germany is the heaviest burden of recent years,” Merz said. (The Times of Israel)
And the numbers help explain the alarm.
RIAS, Germany’s national antisemitism monitoring organization, documented 8,725 antisemitic incidents in Germany in 2025 — nearly 24 every single day. That is more than three times the number recorded in 2022.
There were 178 assaults and 257 threats, and 68% of all documented incidents involved Israel-related antisemitism. (Report Antisemitism)
In Berlin alone, RIAS documented 2,197 antisemitic incidents in 2025 — approximately six every day. (Report Antisemitism)
For Germany, of all countries, there is something especially chilling about its chancellor having to say these words out loud in 2026:
Jewish life is no longer safe.
And that should concern far more than Germany’s Jewish community.
#merz #germany #antisemitism
How do you say goodbye to the woman who gave birth to you, who raised you with unconfditioal love, lead by example and elegance, and was the woman I most admired in the world?
Last Sunday, September 13, our extraordinary mother, Ruth Saltzman died.
Leaving behind 4 children,
6 grandchildren and 5 great grandchildren.
Mom was my guiding light, my inspiration. No matter where in the world I lived, she was my north star-my home base.
She was raised in Salem Oregon and went on to study at Stanford. She created and built White Swan Ltd. until it was acquired. She wrote the award-winning children’s book Poppy Bear: The Garden that Overslept and and grew award-winning roses. She also composed beautiful songs.
Mom was truly an incredible mother, not just to my sister and brothers and I, but over the years, we learned there were many others who viewed her as a mother figure as well. Over the years, many even viewed her as a princess or movie star-but that’s another story.
She and my dad shared in their philanthropic pursuits and leadership roles, in the Jewish community, and the Oregon business and civic world as well as the arts.
She started her company on a dare, and entered the business world at a time when women needed their husbands to cosign a loan. She had leadership roles in the Federation, ADL and other organizations and raised money for Israel during the wars.
She was a great believer in “giving back.”
Her elegant activism showed up in other areas too.
In the late 1960s, when people were talking about zero population growth, Mom was pregnant with my youngest brother, David, her fourth child. Someone came up to her and asked, “How dare you have another child in times like these?”
Mom’s response:
“I’m trying to make up for the six million we lost.”
At the end, I was not brave or generous enough to tell her it was okay, she could go to Dad.
But now I will try to be:
“Mom, it’s okay. We love you-
Go to Dad. He’s waiting for you.”
Tehei nishmata tzurah bitzror hachayim
May your soul be bound up in the bond of eternal life. 💕
