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A castle built by a Jewish man sells for $72 million. Oheka Castle, a French-style chateau on Long Island, was sold to an anonymous buyer at an auction in Manhattan yesterday. The castle was built in the 1910s on the dime of Otto Hermann Kahn, a German-American investment banker, after he was turned away from New Jersey social clubs for being Jewish.

Hochul appoints commission for Holocaust memorial. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul announced a 19-member panel that will facilitate the creation of a planned memorial in Albany to the Jews who were murdered in the Holocaust. The advisory body includes representatives of the UJA-Federation of New York, Jewish Community Relations Council of New York, American Jewish Committee, Anti-Defamation League and a number of other Jewish groups and Holocaust remembrance organizations, Jewish Insider reports.

Swastika spray-painted on upstate Jewish candidate’s sign. Republican Scott Manley, who is Jewish, said he was “shocked that anyone would go this low” after a swastika was found spray-painted on one of his campaign signs as he runs for Newburgh town supervisor. Police are investigating the incident as a hate crime, Mid-Hudson News reports.

NYPD backs away from negotiations with Israeli software firm. The NYPD has suspended plans to sign a no-bid contract with an Israeli company called Cognyte with the aim of adopting the firm’s AI-driven surveillance system, according to the New York Daily News. Progressive lawmakers and groups had called for the city not to move forward after reports of negotiations surfaced earlier this week; human rights groups have accused Cognyte of “doing business with governments, including Israel, that use the tech to target adversaries and opponents,” the New York Daily News writes. Cognyte can still submit a bid for the contract, but an NYPD spokesperson said that it “does not meet the criteria for a sole source procurement.”

Lander pushes for Jewish-Arab governing coalition in Israel. One day after Israel’s election, Brad Lander, the progressive Democratic nominee for New York’s 10th Congressional District, called for the formation of a Jewish-Arab coalition that would oust Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “If Gadi Eisenkot and the opposition bloc are remotely serious about getting rid of Netanyahu, and about Israel’s democratic future, they’ll do the obvious, strategic, and non-racist thing of forming a government with the Arab parties,” he wrote on X.

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