A version of this piece first ran as part of the New York Jewish Week’s daily newsletter, rounding up the latest on politics, culture, food and what’s new with Jews in the city. Sign up here to get it in your inbox.
🤝 Holocaust survivor says Mamdani will help him find housing
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Holocaust survivor Sami Steigmann, a frequent public speaker, said Mayor Zohran Mamdani offered to help him find new housing, according to The Times of Israel.
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Steigmann, who is 86, said his current building in Harlem has no elevator and he has difficulty climbing the stairs.
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Steigmann was previously slated for a photo op with Mamdani today to mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day. After he told The New York Post that the mayor was “using” him for a 10-minute visit, the photo op was canceled in favor of a longer, private meeting that has not yet been scheduled.
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In November, controversy broke out over a Brooklyn middle school turning down a talk from Steigmann because of language he had used supporting Israel and Zionism.
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Steigmann speaks often about his experiences as a child survivor of the Mogilev-Podolski labor camp from 1941 to 1944. During the Holocaust, he was subjected to Nazi medical experiments and starvation.
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Though Mamdani is a vocal critic of Israel, Steigmann told The Times of Israel that he would not “prejudge” the mayor. He added that the offer to meet privately was an unexpected “sign of goodwill” and he would ask Mamdani questions “in a non-controversial way.”
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Mamdani will visit several other survivors and deliver food to their homes today, according to the Blue Card, a group that assists Holocaust survivors in New York.
🟨 Mamdani marks International Holocaust Remembrance Day
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Mamdani weighed in on International Holocaust Remembrance Day in a statement posted to social media.
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“Today, on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, we honor the six million Jewish lives — and the millions of others — senselessly murdered by the Nazi regime. We remember not only the unimaginable loss, but the warning history leaves us,” he tweeted. “This day calls on us to do more than reflect; it calls on us to act — to confront antisemitism wherever it exists and to reject all forms of hatred and dehumanization. May the memories of all those lost be a blessing — one that guides us as we build a world where every life is sacred.”
🕯️ Ways to mark the day around the city
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And Gov. Kathy Hochul has announced that 16 landmarks across the state will again be illuminated Tuesday night in yellow in recognition of the day. They include portions of Penn Station and Grand Central Station, as well as several bridges and 1 World Trade Center. The Empire State Building, too, said it would be illuminated in yellow.
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The city is hosting a range of programs this week to commemorate International Holocaust Remembrance Day, including a schedule of talks and screenings at the Museum of Jewish Heritage.
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Watch a free screening of “999: The Forgotten Girls,” a documentary about the first mass transport of Jewish girls and women from Slovakia to Auschwitz in 1942, at the Streicker Cultural Center today at 6 p.m.
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You can also tune into WNET’s “Honoring Our Stories: Jewish Culture and Remembering the Holocaust,” a series of programs about Jewish heritage and survival running until Feb. 6.
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The Leo Baeck Institute has a new exhibit on writer Lore Segal, whose classic novel “Other People’s Houses” was inspired by her experience as a refugee on the Kindertransport.
🙅♂️ NYC Dems saying no to Noem
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A growing number of members of Congress from the city are calling for Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to be impeached after the shooting deaths of two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis by federal immigration agents this month.
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Jewish Reps Jerry Nadler and Dan Goldman have signed onto a House impeachment resolution, along with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ritchie Torres, Nydia Velázquez, Adriano Espaillat, Gregory Meeks, Yvette Clark and Grace Meng.
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The resolution now has 140 cosponsors, nearly two-thirds of the caucus.
🌉 ‘Hot girl for Cuomo’ joins bridge authority
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Emily Austin, a 24-year-old pro-Israel influencer who founded a campaign called “Hot Girls for Cuomo” to support Mamdani’s chief opponent during the mayoral election, has a new gig.
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Bruce Blakeman, the Jewish Nassau County executive running for governor of New York, selected Austin as a commissioner on the county’s bridge authority, reported Politico.
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Austin, who has interviewed Blakeman on her YouTube show, doesn’t have a known background in engineering and has not attended in-person meetings for the bridge authority over the past six months.
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A spokesperson for Blakeman told Politico that Austin was chosen partly because she is “considered an important spokesperson against antisemitism in the world.”
🇮🇱 Adams in Israel
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Former Mayor Eric Adams is in Israel for the government’s International Conference on Combating Antisemitism, which is hosting a lineup of right-wing European leaders this week.
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Israeli Diaspora Minister Amichai Chikli called Adams “a great warrior against antisemitism” during his remarks at the opening gala in Jerusalem on Monday night.
🗞 Jewish family-owned newspaper shutters
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The Central New York Business Journal, a Jewish family-owned newspaper in Syracuse, is shutting down after 40 years.
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Marny Nesher, whose father Norm Poltenson established the newspaper in 1986, announced that Monday’s issue was the final weekly edition.
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Poltenson, who died in 2021, served on the boards of Jewish organizations including the Jewish Community Foundation of Central New York and was a president of Shaarei Torah Orthodox Congregation of Syracuse. An obituary memorialized his “insatiable love of learning, especially Jewish texts and history.”
