a 19-year-old paratrooper from northern Israel 2024An Israeli paratrooper was killed on Sunday during combat operations in the Gaza Strip The fallen soldier was identified as 19-year-old Sgt who served in the Paratroopers Brigade's 101st Battalion was killed by a sniper during combat in the southern Gaza Strip was a graduate of Kiryat Tiv'on's Ort High School 690 Israeli soldier have been killed since October 7 including 330 who have fallen since the IDF began its ground operation in Gaza on October 27 I grew up in a place where my first name was nothing more than a word on my identification card Where the Holocaust was something that didn’t belong to me Ever since I was a young girl and through my years growing up in Kiryat Tiv’on I found myself trying my best to conceal my last name In the small town where I lived in Israel’s north without even understanding what I was feeling at the time that it was better simply not to admit that I was Mizrahi The first step in this process was to try not to say my last name out loud But my last name was almost always revealed everyone just called me “Sadaka.” My first name became nothing more than a word on my ID card my brother’s older friends – he was also called “Sadaka” – called me “Little Sadaka.” Even after I left Tiv’on went to the Garin (a pre-army year course) was drafted into the army and moved to Tel Aviv  people insisted on calling me by my last name And I’ve heard it in all of its forms: Sadakush is used only by my family members and maybe two or three friends My classmates who grew up with me in Tiv’on will be very upset with me if they hear me claim that even in our small town there is discrimination based on ethnicity They will surely say that I am searching for racism in places where it does not exist and that no one in actually Tiv’on cares where you come from But when you talk about where you are going that’s where you can see the difference Tiv’on is clearly divided into two areas On the lefthand side of Tiv’on Junction there is Kiryat Amal Kiryat Amal includes the most Zionist streets in town: Alexander Zaïd one sees the old Kiryat Tiv’on and the relatively new neighborhood of Ramat Tiv’on These neighborhoods are named after flowers and plants I spent my childhood and teenage years on a small street called Rehov Ha’Vradim (Rose Street) on the top of the hill The street is part of a neighborhood called Skhunat Ha’Gefen (Vinyard Neighborhood) just like there are a few Mizrahi families who live in other parts of Tiv’on The number of Mizrahi families in Ha’Gefen I’d say that I lived near Ramat Tiv’on I didn’t want to say “Sadaka” nor did I want to tell them what street I lived on I wanted so badly to be like those Ashkenazi kids from central Tiv’on or Kiryat Amal Those wonder children who were always the center of attention and with it the annual school trip to visit the death camps in Poland even though I had no relatives who were in the Holocaust or even ones who escaped just in time who were forced to flee Syria in the middle of the night on a dangerous and frightening journey But I didn’t appreciate this story at the time; I only wanted to see the train tracks at Birkenau So I spent the entire summer working as a baby-sitter painting walls and gardening in order to save enough money and be like the others everyone in my class stood in a ceremonial circle and read aloud the names of their relatives who were killed in the Holocaust The teacher then pushed a video camera into my hands and said “Since you don’t have any family members who were murdered in the Holocaust you need to film the ceremony.” I stood in the middle of the tearful circle and filmed silently I think about the physical places that Mizrahim like myself have been concentrated in And especially those who live in the nice neighborhoods of Tiv’on or take part of those circles in Auschwitz I think about the symbolic spaces that we are allowed to occupy with last names such as ours I think about those who are allowed two names – both first and last – and the kids who prefer to go by their first name I think about entire families who are reduced to a single last name and the fact that there is no effort to differentiate between the different people who make up those families I am Adi Sadaka – Mizrahi wonder child This article was first published in Hebrew on Café Gibraltar Our team has been devastated by the horrific events of this latest war The world is reeling from Israel’s unprecedented onslaught on Gaza inflicting mass devastation and death upon besieged Palestinians as well as the atrocious attack and kidnappings by Hamas in Israel on October 7 Our hearts are with all the people and communities facing this violence We are in an extraordinarily dangerous era in Israel-Palestine The bloodshed has reached extreme levels of brutality and threatens to engulf the entire region are seizing the opportunity to intensify their attacks on Palestinians The most far-right government in Israel’s history is ramping up its policing of dissent using the cover of war to silence Palestinian citizens and left-wing Jews who object to its policies one that +972 has spent the past 14 years covering: Israeli society’s growing racism and militarism We are well positioned to cover this perilous moment – but we need your help to do it This terrible period will challenge the humanity of all of those working for a better future in this land Palestinians and Israelis are already organizing and strategizing to put up the fight of their lives Can we count on your support +972 Magazine is a leading media voice of this movement a desperately needed platform where Palestinian and Israeli journalists and thinkers can report on and analyze what is happening Jerusalem's great assembly of the Sanhedrin a sort of Supreme Court of the Jewish nation migrated north to the Galilean city of Bet She'arim There's not much left of the city itself in what is now Beit She'arim National Park the city was a thriving center of rabbinical Judaism compiler of the Mishna (a written compilation of Jewish oral tradition) assisted by a land grant from his childhood friend But rather than the scattered remains of the city what most fascinates visitors to the park is the sprawling rock-hewn necropolis in which Rabbi Judah is buried The fact that Judah the Prince chose the site as his resting place rather than the Mount of Olives where any devout Jew of means would have traditionally preferred to be buried A three-arched façade guards the entrance of Beit She'arim's most impressive site Contained herein are 135 decorated coffins such as a human-sized sculpture of a menorah "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image," was conspicuously relaxed Adorning many of these tombs are images of lions Experts believe presence of this imagery simply illustrates that the tolerant Jews of Beit She'arim were immersed in the Hellenistic majority culture of the time and would have considered these figurative representations a sign of a person's prestige Elsewhere on the site are the remains of an Abbasid-era glassmaking facility as well as a poem from the same time written by the poet Umm al-Qasim which indicates the necropolis was still in use during Muslim rule during which time the city was known as Sheikh Ibreik This ancient Irish landscape boasts hundreds of legendary ruins mysterious stone altars are hidden among wild woods in central Italy A medieval cave used to shelter local hermits now holds nearly 200 old Quaker gravestones fossil-rich cobble beach holds Viking graves A mile-long navigable cave adorned with stalactites and stalagmites reaching up to 65 feet tall An ancient chamber filled with wonderful rock art and a Neolithic carving of a human face A fascinating assortment of cave dwellings and sarcophagi are being devoured by the forest This 15th-century cave complex is one of the very few monasteries to stay open throughout World War II and the Soviet regime Thousands protested Saturday across Israel to demand a hostage swap deal with Palestinian factions in the Gaza Strip and the dismissal of the government led by Benjamin Netanyahu The Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth reported that thousands in Tel Aviv Haifa and the Qiryat Tivon junction demanded the release of hostages in Gaza the holding of early elections and the dismissal of the government Israeli army radio also reported that tens of thousands demonstrated in Kaplan Square in central Tel Aviv to demand the government conclude an immediate hostage swap deal with Palestinian factions Several protesters closed a section of Ayalon Street in central Tel Aviv according to the Israeli broadcasting authority Nearly 37,300 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza by the Israeli forces since last October More than eight months into the Israeli onslaught vast tracts of Gaza lay in ruins amid a crippling blockade of food Israel is accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice whose latest ruling ordered Tel Aviv to immediately halt its operation in Rafah where more than 1 million Palestinians had sought refuge from the war before it was invaded on May 6 was born in Czechoslovakia and survived three years in Theresienstadt Courtesy of Nathaniel Schmidt She is a Holocaust survivor – she spent three years in the Theresienstadt Ghetto a concentration camp where some 33,000 Jews died and many more worked as slaves before being sent on to extermination elsewhere She eventually became a nurse and moved to Israel Throughout my life – I am only 17 – I have been fascinated by the bits of Ruth’s story that she shared with me and my siblings during our summers visiting relatives in Israel But with the number of Holocaust survivors like Ruth dwindling every day and share it with as many people as possible Ruth’s diary has previously been published in Hebrew But this is the first time her story will be documented in English which is my first language – my mother is Israeli and my father was born in Israel to survivors of Nazi Germany.) The interview has been edited for length and clarity How would you describe your life prior to the Holocaust Well actually my childhood was not that normal as my mother passed away when I was 8 years old we already had to leave home to run away from the Germans I came from a very rich family and we had a very nice home She was red-headed and won a beauty contest when she was 18 How did being Jewish impact your life at the time I spoke German because my mother didn’t speak Czech and at school as there were people who spoke German and people who spoke Czech you have people who speak Hebrew and people who speak Arabic and he told me that we are neither and that we are Jews How did your home and school life really begin to change when the Nazis conquered Czechoslovakia We got a yellow star to put on our clothes They shut down our school and Jewish kids were no longer allowed to attend any school I had a problem with wearing the yellow star so everyone on the street would always stare at me the picture of the hideous ugly Jew that people had in their minds they simply took him on the street….This was very very hard for me because he was the only person I had to take care of me and my grandmother was very old and didn’t really understand things anymore Did you understand what had happened to your father I understood what a child could understand at that time It was clear that he wasn’t there anymore And it wasn’t that much time anyway before they took us to the concentration camp Around half a year after they took my father and my grandmother to the Theresienstadt Ghetto Can you describe your experience being brought to the concentration camp People always ask why did we just go along when they told us to but you have to understand that at this time we had nowhere else to go at every corner they asked for your papers It’s hard to explain this to people who grew up in the ways you grew up And we had to go everywhere with the yellow Star of David You don’t always accept everything you are told And I raised my children very differently from the way I was raised we were gathered inside this large area that was surrounded by these massive walls and a few bridges There were huge military buildings and they put us where the horses used to be kept So we were in this crowded area with bunk beds There was no heating and we each had one blanket We didn’t have proper clothes and when our shoes became too small for us This is very difficult to explain because what I felt at the time I always say that people should not have to go through everything they are physically capable of going through Because it is practically unlimited what people can go through in order to survive We worked really hard from the morning to the evening took us to the fields and we grew food for the German army We always looked at it and thought about what was in it we were so hungry that we ate whatever they gave us You really can’t explain what it is like to be really hungry what they called coffee and a piece of bread They gave us just enough calories for us not to die There was very tight patrol around us at all times with the SS soldiers and their dogs We were very creative with how we would steal and how we would hide it my son used to come home from school and say he was hungry What are your darkest memories from the Holocaust We were in this place that people were brought in and out of and we had no phones or radios or any communications with the outside The fear was because people constantly disappeared and people who tried to escape were hung They would hang them and we would all have to watch They would walk around with their dogs and rifles and if they didn’t like someone they would just shoot them without thinking twice And also they would always take people away and we didn’t know where I remember also on the same carts that they would take all the dead people every day So I guess a normal person would not eat this bread There was also this one time when the Swedish Red Cross wanted to come to Theresienstadt to check on the Danish Jews that were brought there so the Germans had to change things to make it look nicer for the visit from the Swedish Red Cross So they cleaned up certain parts of the concentration camp and built a pool and showers They made us put on these nice clothes and put on a show for this one day to show the Red Cross how good it is for Jews here I remember they took me and other girls that were pretty and made us undress in the pool next to the soldiers and act as though we were enjoying ourselves Everything returned to what it was like before came to me one morning and said to take everything I have but the Germans had been defeated and the war was over The Russian army arrived at Theresienstadt and the gates were open So I left with my sister and the only belonging I had We didn’t have any money or any papers or anything The Russian soldiers took us on a truck and brought us to Prague My sister remembered that we had an aunt in Prague we had a non-Jewish aunt who married my mother’s brother and was German She always gave us bread when we visited her and I used to think we stood there and she didn’t even recognize us at first because of how horrible we looked She brought us inside and told us to take showers She burned our clothes in the oven and gave us new clothes to wear She gave us food as well and beds to sleep on I got in bed and it felt so weird because I was used to sleeping on hard wood for all these years because all of a sudden I was 17 years old and I had no idea what normal life was like The other thing that was really hard for me was that my sister reunited with her boyfriend and she completely forgot about me and left with him and I had to decide what I was going to do but I knew this would be too difficult because I had barely spent any years in school So I went to a university in Prague and told them I wanted to be a nurse They gave me some kind of a test and somehow I answered correctly on everything and they accepted me How did your experience in the Holocaust influence your faith in God and devotion to Judaism I lost my faith in God on the evening of Yom Kippur when they took my father Do you feel safer and more at ease living in Israel Nathaniel Schmidt lives in New York and is a senior at the Clinton School where  he is a member of the Jewish Student Union and co-president of the Sports Philosophy and Analysis Club He is planning to attend American University in Washington I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward American Jews need independent news they can trust At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S rising antisemitism and polarized discourse This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up Copyright © 2025 The Forward Association Wildfires in Athens, Israeli bombardment in Gaza, Ukraine’s offensive in Russia and Snoop Dogg at the Olympic Games handover: the last seven days as captured by the world’s leading photojournalists • Warning: this gallery contains images that some readers may find distressing Wildfires in Athens, Israeli bombardment in Gaza, Ukraine’s offensive in Russia and Snoop Dogg at the Olympic Games handover: the last seven days as captured by the world’s leading photojournalists Photograph: Angelos Tzortzinis/AFP/Getty Images Photograph: Anatoliy Zhdanov/Kommersant/AFP/Getty Images Photograph: Roman Pilipey/AFP/Getty Images Photograph: Omar Al-Qattaa/AFP/Getty Images Photograph: Guerchom Ndebo/AFP/Getty Images Photograph: Ioana Epure/Bloomberg/Getty Images Photograph: Adrian Dennis/AFP/Getty Images Photograph: Emma McIntyre/LA28/Getty Images