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By Naeisha Rose

TimesLedger Newspapers

Two mayoral agencies have joined forces with a Latino advocacy coalition to discuss impending federal action that will have a major impact on immigrant communities in New York and beyond.

The Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs and the Mayor’s Office of International Affairs joined forces with the Coalition of Latin American Consulates on New York, which comprises of 17 Latin American nations at City Hall to discuss Thursday’s deadline for Congressional action for Dreamers and for the renewal of Temporary Protected Status for immigrants on Jan. 24.

Together Acting Immigrant Affairs Commissioner Bitta Mostofi and International Affairs Commissioner Penny Abeywardena discussed federal immigration policies and emphasized its continued support of the Latin American immigrant community.

Throughout the meeting the importance of DACA renewals for eligible recipients and re-registering for TPS ahead of a respective country’s deadline was reiterated.

“We need Congress to act or more Dreamers will suffer,” said Mostofi.

According to a MOIA analysis there was an increase in non-criminal arrests by ICE officers by 421 percent from Feb. 2017 to Sept. 2017, compared to the period before his inauguration, Oct. 2016 to Jan. 2017.

There are currently 30,000 DACA recipients and 15,000 people on TPS who call New York City home, according to Mostofi.

Queens has 55,000 Dreamers across the city, the most of any borough. Brooklyn has 46,000 Dreamers, the Bronx has 29,000, Manhattan has 18,000 and Staten Island has 4,000.

Dreamers contributed $4.7 billion in towards the city’s Gross Domestic Product in 2017 and they account for $2 billion in total earnings in occupations ranging from service workers to managers and professionals.

More than 20,000 Dreamers are homeowners or contribute to their families’ mortgage, and nearly one-third are attending college, have graduated or attended some college, according to MOIA.

The DREAM Act, a longstanding bill from which the Dreamers name is taken, would grant lawful status to immigrants brought here as children without documentation. If Congress were to pass it, 150,000 residents in the city would benefit from it, including the 96,000 Dreamers people who would be eligible for status. An additional 16,000 Dreamers would be eligible for protection from deportation, according to MOIA.

More than 16,000 elementary school students and middle-schoolers are among the 150,000.

The vast majority of TPS recipients in New York are from Haiti, El Salvador and Honduras, according to MOIA.

Over 8,000 children born in the U.S. live with family members on TPS.

TPS recipients generated $591.1 million in Gross City Product and they account for $260 million in income.

Recipients under TPS are in the United States because they were displaced from their countries due to natural disasters, war and political strife, according to the USCIS.

Reach reporter Naeisha Rose by e-mail at nrose@cnglocal.com or by phone at (718) 260–4573.

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By Naeisha Rose

TimesLedger Newspapers

As January came to a close, the Department of Homeland Security announced an extension to the Temporary Protected Status for nearly 7,000 Syrians that came to the United States before Aug. 1, 2016, but the remaining 2,000 recipients will have to find immigration relief through other channels and no new Syrian applicants will be accepted into the program.

Recipients under TPS are in the United States because they were displaced from their countries due to natural disasters, war and political strife, according U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

Syria was granted the status because of a political uprising there in 2011, which erupted into a violent civil war that displaced 6 million people by 2014, according to the Federation of American Scientists, an organization that analyzes national and international security.

“After carefully considering conditions on the ground, I have determined that it is necessary to extend the Temporary Protected Status designation for Syria,” said Dept. of Homeland Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen.

“It is clear that the conditions upon which Syria’s designation was based continue to exist, therefore an extension is warranted under the statute.”

The Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs was pleased with the extension.

“New Yorkers welcome the Trump Administration’s decision to provide a common sense extension of Temporary Protected Status for nearly 7,000 Syrians living in the United States today,” said Bitta Mostofi, the Acting Commissioner of MOIA.

However, the lack of support for the newer Syrian TPS recipients by the Trump Administration was deemed inexcusable.

“The Administration is talking out of both sides of its mouth and putting people in danger as a result,” Mostofi said.

Oxfam, an international organization dedicated to combatting poverty, issued a press release on Feb. 5 stating that in the Afrin district of Syria, 140 people have died and 310 were injured by warring parties in the country. Homes were destroyed and more than 5,000 people and have a lack of food, water and medicine.

Babies, young children, pregnant women and the elderly are trapped in the midst of the violence, according to the Oxfam Country Director in Syria, Moutaz Adham.

“By recognizing that Syria is not able to safely absorb current TPS recipients, there is no justification for refusing their fellow nationals currently in the United States the same humanitarian relief,” said Mostofi. “Syria is still an active war zone.”

There is no current count of Syrian TPS recipients in Queens or throughout New York City, according to MOIA.

Reach reporter Naeisha Rose by e-mail at nrose@cnglocal.com or by phone at (718) 260–4573.

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By Gina Martinez

TimesLedger Newspapers

Queens rent prices dropped in 2017, according to a new StreetEasy report.

The real-estate website reported that 28 percent of Queens rentals received price cuts in the fourth quarter of 2017, following a citywide trend that showed 34 percent of Manhattan rentals seeing a price cut, as well as 28 percent of rentals in Brooklyn.

Median rent in Queens dropped to $2,066 — a 1.3 percent year-over-year decrease — in the final quarter of 2017, according to the report, which said northwest Queens saw the biggest median decline in rent, with a 2.5-percent decrease to $2,129.

Rent cuts were most prevalent in Corona, where they declined by 44 percent, followed by College Point, where they dropped by 36 percent, and Long Island City, where they fell by 33 percent.

StreetEasy Senior Economist Grant Long attributed the rent cuts to the winter’s usual market slowdown, and to new construction. He said a flood of new builds primarily propelled the rental market’s slowdown over the last year, and that the fourth quarter’s rent cuts are more far-reaching than in previous years.

“The cooling in the market is no longer limited to new, high-end buildings in select pockets of the city, there’s a broader trend of rents topping out across all price points,” Long said. “The slowdown is forcing landlords across the city to cut deals, and renters now have the most negotiating leverage in years.”

StreetEasy reported that all sub-market rents grew less than two percent year-over-year citywide.

While rents have dropped, the new report said that Queens resale prices rose twice as fast as they did in 2016. The median resale price for condos, townhouses, and co-ops in the borough rose 6.1 percent year-over-year to $509,217.

Properties in Central and Northeast Queens, where resale prices went up more than 8 percent, led the borough’s price growth, the StreetEasy report said.

And Northeast Queens’ resale price, which grew by 8.2 percent to a median of $588,052, was the highest the real-estate site ever recorded in the area, according to its report.

Reach Gina Martinez by e-mail at gmartinez@cnglocal.com or by phone at (718) 260–4566.

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By Steve Spanolios

TimesLedger Newspapers

In the last 18 months, I immersed myself in a lot of things, one of which was understanding state politics.

The first thing I discovered as a resident of Astoria is that my representative — Jose Peralta — was a member of the Independent Democratic Caucus (“IDC”).

I did my due diligence on the IDC. I inhaled articles that both complimented and criticized the IDC. I asked some people who work in and with Albany about the impact and significance of the IDC.

As a lifelong Democrat, the more I read, the angrier I got. I understood the political argument that joining IDC allowed these members to caucus with Republicans and gain benefits for themselves and their respective communities. The concept that being a valuable member of a group allowed them to get funds for schools and environmental studies in their communities. But I was also not privy as to what this really was: a grab for power.

In all the justifications for why they abandoned their progressive campaign promises and absent from those altruistic descriptions were the direct individual benefits these eight members of the IDC obtained by betraying their party and to a certain extent the people who voted for them.

Also, apparently not part of the analysis was whether staying loyal to their party and the general beliefs of the Democratic Party would have somehow precluded them from getting those same benefits in their communities. It seems like the only thing that was mutually exclusive was the ability to sit on various committees that in turn gave the IDC members what they sought in actuality – influence and power.

The thing stands out to me in 2018 is that I no longer have the patience for politicians who rely on our cynicism in order to personally benefit themselves. The idea that you can run on a certain platform and then compromise your beliefs in the name of practicality no longer works in this political environment, even for a pragmatist like me.

And that is why when I saw women like Jessica Ramos and Alessandra Biaggi taking on two members of the IDC (including Senator Peralta), I was pleased. I quickly donated to both and added my name as a potential volunteer. Smart women who have worked in government and are more than qualified to hold these positions is what we need in our communities and government. People who will understand that you can be practical without sacrificing your moral compass.

I write this now for all those politicians and all those members of the media who are trying to grasp how things will play in 2018. The message from all these marches, protests and general activism is that time for compromising your ideology for personal benefit as a civil servant is over.

At least here in New York City, the people you align yourself with matters more than the words justifying why you stand with them. Even a pragmatist like me has lost patience with you, and I won’t let my cynicism cause me to turn away from this.

My anger is just a small part of what is coming in the next couple of years. If there is one thing we can learn from what occupies the White House, it is that the ransom you received for power and influence cannot be justified because it came at the cost of what a politician should value the most- their integrity. I believe Ms. Ramos and Ms. Biaggi are the reckonings for the IDC and the politics that helped create it.

Steve Spanolios

Astoria

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By Merle Exit

TimesLedger Newspapers

A free film screening, a theatrical performance and a concert highlight Black History Month at Jamaica Center for the Performing Arts and the Jamaica Center for Learning.

“Finding Samuel Lowe: From Harlem to China” is a film about three successful black siblings who discover their heritage as they trace their long-lost grandfather, Samuel Lowe. Their journey takes them from Toronto, Canada, all the way to China, where they are reunited with hundreds of Chinese relatives, but not without a stop in Jamaica along the way.

The film will be screened at the Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning located at 161-04 Jamaica Ave. Friday, Feb. 9 at 7:30 p.m.

“We are happy to be able to offer this free screening of ‘Finding Samuel Lowe: From Harlem to China’,” said JCAL director Cathy Hung. “It offers a completely different view of black in America. Ultimately, it is a story about how we are all related and we are all from the same place.”

Musical stylings as diverse as gospel, rhythm and blues, bluegrass and original Negro spirituals, with an infusion of American folk music highlight the Children’s Theater Company’s production of “Henry ‘Box’ Brown” on Saturday, Feb. 10 at 2 p.m. Mehr Mansuri, director of the theater company, wrote the book and lyrics to this historic performance that tells the true story of an 1850s Virginia slave who shipped himself to freedom in a box. Mansuri also co-composed most of the 19 songs with Frank Sanchez.

“We pay homage by weaving in some of the heart-stopping Negro spirituals, sung by the creme de la creme of gospel music from the world-renowned Christian Cultural Center, a massive megachurch in Brooklyn,” said Mansuri.

Mansuri chose Henry “Box” Brown because he wanted to tell a story about the triumph of the human spirit, where sacrifice was made by both whites and blacks for the greater good.

“Henry is also a story teller and a musician and a man of faith, so it was much more organic to produce original songs within a ‘musical’ model. Because he was also a man of great faith in God, it was a perfect excuse to weave in the songs of faith and perseverance that embodied the Negro spirituals,” Mansuri said. “We wanted to give homage to those nameless, faceless musicians and orators who created those amazing songs, arguably the founders of American music.”

Mansuri is co-directing this epic with Tony winner Ben Harney, who was in the original Broadway run of “Dreamgirls.”

“Mr. Harney is, among other things, an African-American music historian,” Mansuri said. “He has led the research and musical execution of the original Negro spirituals that infuse the show. While not credited as a writer for the show, he is credited as a music dramaturge, ensuring the accuracy of non-original/public domain Negro spirituals.”

“Ask Your Mama: 12 Moods for Jazz” is a Langston Hughes project scheduled for Saturday, Feb. 17 at the Jamaica Center for the Performing Arts at 7:30 p.m. “Ask Your Mama” is an homage to social and artistic freedom movements that began in the 1960s. The concert will feature the Ron McCurdy Quartet.

“We want to be able to celebrate Black History in a diverse approach and offer an opportunity for the family to celebrate together,” said Hung.

Langston Hughes scored this 12-part epic poem with musical cues from gospel songs, boogie-woogie, blues, Dixieland, Latin “cha cha” and bebop as well as German lieder, Jewish liturgy and West Indian calypso. This multi-media masterwork was left unperformed at his death.

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Affordable housing is finally coming to Willets Point.

On Tuesday, Mayor Bill de Blasio, Borough President Melinda Katz and Councilman Francisco Moya (D-Corona) unveiled their new plan for the abandoned land that promised construction of 1,100 affordable apartments on six acres of Willets Point, starting in 2020.

This new plan will offer 225 additional affordable homes than the original development proposal. According to the mayor, this new plan will include three, 100 percent affordable buildings including a standalone building with 220 homes for low-income seniors and also apartments for families at lower incomes than originally proposed.

The one-million square foot project will also include a new 450-seat public elementary school, neighborhood retail and public open space and according to de Blasio the city will pursue additional school seats if more residential units on the site are built.

De Blasio said this project will focus on the community’s main concern, affordable housing.

“It’s time to jump-start Willets Point, and we are doing that by building more than a thousand homes for seniors and families struggling to make ends meet,” he said. “ I look forward to working with Borough President Katz and Councilman Moya to ensure these homes are delivered on time, and that we build even more affordable homes, schools and parks across Willets Point,”

The city will still work with developer Queens Development Group but the new plan increases the affordable homes to 1,100 across just six acres, compared to the 2013 agreement, which would have produced 875 affordable homes across the entire 23-acre development site. This new agreement will also provide more homes for individuals who earn less than $17,190, or $25,770 for a family of three. The city announced that nearly 100 apartments will be reserved for formerly homeless families and 220 apartments for seniors.

According to the mayor, environmental remediation of the 23 acres will be completed by the developers by the end of 2020 and by 2022 at least 500 of the project’s housing units are expected to be finished.

One of the more controversial aspects of the 2013 proposal has been modified as well, The city will retain ownership of the property through a long-term ground lease for the six-acre site. Under the 2013 plan all of the 23 acres would have been sold to the developers for only $1.

Last June the New York Court of Appeals ruled against the development of a proposed mega mall project, ruling that the developers needed approval from the state Legislature before moving on with the project to be built on parkland.

Willets Point United, a group of business owners in the area against eminent domain abuse, are not happy with the City’s decision to stick with original developer QDG. The group said if the initial phase of development is going to be limited to the Willets Point Phase One property without expanding the project onto public parkland as QDG had proposed, then the City should re-start the developer selection process, with no unwarranted special status given to QDG, Sterling Equities or The Related Companies.

“There is absolutely no basis to think that QDG is the “best” developer for this six-acre site and configuration, because the de Blasio administration did not implement any competitive sealed proposal process (although it should have done so).” The group wrote in a blog post.

Recently elected councilman Moya said the city will move forward with his proposed task force where the community can give input on their priorities and come up with recommendations for the remaining 17 acres of the development site.

“Willets Point has been 12 years of bad politics and broken promises,” he said. “With this deal, we can look to providing some great housing relief for a lot of people who need it. By securing school seats, deep affordability, and senior housing we have accomplished something none of the previous iterations have been able to, and now with the task force I will co-chair, we can ensure this same community minded development continues in future phases.”

Reach Gina Martinez by e-mail at gmartinez@cnglocal.com or by phone at (718) 260–4566.

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By Gina Martinez

TimesLedger Newspapers

Nearly half of the city’s public school cafeterias are not up to health code, according to a recently published report by the City University of New York Graduate School of Journalism.

The report’s release comes after the schools started offering free meals to 1.1 million public school children citywide. It revealed that nearly 700 school cafeterias — almost half of the 1,400 inspected by health officials in 2017 — were found to have at least one critical violation, which indicates the kinds of problems that could lead to food-borne illnesses.

Health Department inspectors found an average of two violations per school cafeteria visit. Officials noted that while some schools had no violations, others racked up more, driving up the average.

The report found that one out of every five of the citations was classified as a critical violation. More than half of the 1,150 critical violations reported in 2017 showed evidence of mice, rats, roaches and flies in food preparation and consumption areas, the report said.

On July 12, 1,500 flies were found at Ozone Park’s MS 137 cafeteria. The school’s kitchen prepares more than 700 meals for five area schools. The Health Department gave the middle school two days to clean up and put all food in rat-proof containers. According to the report, while there was some improvement when an inspector returned July 17, flies still loomed and the kitchen remained dirty. The school got another two days to fix the violations; by the third try the problems were solved.

The four dozen schools with the worst health inspection records in 2017 were found to serve some of the city’s poorest students. The CUNY report said that city records showed that students who attend these schools tend to be disproportionately minority group members.

The research also found that at least five suspected outbreaks of food-borne illnesses were suspected to stem from norovirus, and affected hundreds of students, including 200 students at PS 12 in Woodside during an outbreak in 2016. The school was shut down for the day after the outbreak, according to the CUNY report.

The Department of Health released a statement regarding the report’s findings, saying that in 2016, 97 percent of city schools passed inspection and “any violations were immediately addressed.”

“We are committed to working with the Department of Education to ensure all students are provided with a safe and clean environment in our city’s schools,” the statement said. “We will continue to hold school cafeterias to rigorous safety standards.”

Reach Gina Martinez by e-mail at gmartinez@cnglocal.com or by phone at (718) 260–4566.

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By Bill Parry

TimesLedger Newspapers

The Queens LGBT community gathered last week with elected officials to celebrate a new safe space in Long Island City that will offer health and educational services. The LGBT Network, a nonprofit organization now in its 25th year, cut the ribbon on its first full-service LGBT community center in the borough. The Q-Center, as it is called, is located at 37-18 Northern Blvd.

“We’re going to have everything from education to support to advocacy to organizing,” LGBT Network President and CEO David Kilmnick said. “We’re going to be able to provide HIV testing on site and we’re going to have fun arts and cultural stuff for people to celebrate. We need to celebrate our community. We need to work across all different groups, and this center is going to provide that home and safe space.”

The Q-Center will serve all ages and offer programming such as the Safe Schools Initiative with more than 60 schools to establish gay-straight alliance clubs and offer educational workshops for students and faculty. The Q-Center will work to protect the LGBT community against hate crimes, which are up 30 percent in the city since 2016, in a program with the Queens District Attorney’s Office and the NYPD.

“Today the LGBT community is facing challenges we didn’t think we would have to after eight years of progress under the Obama administration,” Kilmnick said. “Our new center is respondent to these challenges in front of us.”

Hate crimes against LGBT individuals now account for one-fifth of all hate crimes committed, Kilmnick added which U.S. Rep. Joseph Crowley (D-Jackson Heights) blamed on the era of Trump.

“In these trying times when so many communities, including the LGBT, have come under attack from this administration people feel helpless,” Crowley said. “The support group is here now where they can feel safe and feel accepted and appreciated for who they are. No one should be picked on or brutalized. This center will go a long way towards helping people come to terms with who they are.”

City Councilman Jimmy Van Bramer (D-Sunnyside) attested to that notion offering a personal story having grown up just a few blocks away on 31st Avenue in Astoria where he went to Bryant High School.

When I was in high school I was extremely depressed, I was suicidal,” Van Bramer said. “I stopped going to school for months at a time. I was afraid that if I spoke in class people would here my voice and automatically know I was gay. That’s how terrified I was of being who I am today.”

An LGBT youth center on 13th Street helped Van Bramer come to terms with his identity and helped him come out and now he is the only openly gay and married member of the City Council.

“At Bryant High School today, while the world has changed so much, I’m sure that there is a student or someone at that school who is discovering his sexual orientation or gender identity,” he said. “And he’s struggling to talk about it.”

That student would be enabled by friends and allies at the Q-Center, Van Bramer concluded. City Councilman Daniel Dromm (D-Jackson Heights), who is also openly gay, agreed.

“It’s great to finally have a full-service LGBTQ community center in Queens,” Dromm said. “I look forward to working with the LGBT Network on the many desperately-needed programs that they will bring to the borough and to fill the gap in the LGBTQ community.”

Reach reporter Bill Parry by e-mail at bparry@cnglocal.com or by phone at (718) 260–4538.

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By Tammy Scileppi

TimesLedger Newspapers

Israeli singer-songwriter Achinoam Nini is a popular global artist who spreads a message of peace and love wherever she performs.

Better known as Noa, Israel’s leading international superstar is an activist and pacifist who always speaks truth to power, and is known for her indefatigable, courageous work advocating for peace in Israel and the Middle East.

“My style and voice are eclectic, they reflect my soul,” said Noa, an exotic beauty of Yemeni/Israeli roots.

For 28 years, Noa has been sharing her enticing, heartfelt songs, original music, and much more with diverse audiences across North America and Europe. If you’ve never experienced her unique sound and magnetic presence, you will have the opportunity to see her perform right here in Queens when she takes the stage at a special concert celebrating the Free Synagogue of Flushing’s 100th anniversary this Sunday, Feb. 11 at 3:00 p.m.

“Angelic voice, beautiful soul, and a messenger of peace” is how the synagogue’s executive director Alan J. Brava describes her. “Our synagogue has served the Jewish community of Queens for 100 years and we couldn’t think of a better way of beginning our second 100 years than with a concert featuring Israel’s greatest vocal treasure.”

While Noa has been blessed with a successful career in Israel, having performed on all of its major and minor stages, she has also managed to touch the hearts of American audiences with the power of her voice and the deep humanity of her message. It’s no wonder she has enjoyed a growing fan base both here and abroad.

She’s performed at many famous city venues, including Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, and the Colden Center in Queens, where she had her first U.S. concert. Noa, who plays almost-yearly shows in and around Gotham, has introduced people to music that many say is unlike anything they’ve ever heard before.

Sunday’s concert will consist of songs from throughout her career — sung in English, Hebrew, and Yemeni — and some new numbers from the project she and gutiarist/arranger/composer Dor are currently working on. Noa herself plays guitar and piano, but said “percussion is by far my strongest instrument.”

Her story began in New York City and she remains a New Yorker at heart. A fourth-generation Israeli, she said she feels “very much at home in the Big Apple.” She came to the U.S. with her parents of Yemeni descent at a young age, and grew up in Riverdale in the Bronx.

“When I was two, my parents moved to Rochester, N.Y., following my father’s education. Later, we moved to the Bronx as my father was completing his Ph.D. at Columbia University.”

At 16, she moved back to Israel alone, and completed high school in Jerusalem. Her parents stayed in the U.S. for 15 more years, and her siblings still live in the States. At 18, she began serving in the Israeli army and sang in a military-entertainment unit.

Looking back, Noa said she was inspired by the music she heard at home — Israeli, Yemeni, classical — and started composing songs at a very young age. Later, she was further inspired by the music she “discovered and adored” as a teen in New York, including popular artists like Paul Simon, Joni Mitchell, and Billy Joel, as well as musical theater and jazz.

The global performer has shared the stage with renowned artists such as Sting, Stevie Wonder, Quincy Jones, and Andrea Bocelli, and has collaborated with symphony orchestras worldwide, even performing at the White House.

She has penned hundreds of tunes in English and Hebrew, including the theme song she co-wrote and recorded for Roberto Benigni’s Academy Award-winning film “La Vita e Bella” (“Life is Beautiful”).

Noa’s inspiration is sparked by “anything and everything,” she said. “Like many artists, I am an acute observer and very sensitive to everything around me … to nuance and subtlety, to changes in the wind and water, to tremors in the earth, to facial expressions, emotions, relationships, paradoxes and dilemmas. I am curious about everything. I care. I am especially sensitive to human beings in all their complexity, misery and beauty.”

Noa said she always integrates one song from the Yemeni Jewish tradition into her concerts, a song her beloved grandmother Rachel Nini — who is 94 and lives in Tel Aviv — taught her about child brides when she was a little girl.

“It is a tragic song, reflecting the hardships of a life devoid of freedom, the fate of too many women in Yemen and throughout the world, then and now,” she explains. “My grandmother is a strong and beautiful woman who taught me to always stand up for myself and be strong and independent, as she was and still is.”

Few people — even those who are famous — ever get the chance to meet the Pope, let alone three pontiffs, or have the opportunity to perform for them in St. Peter’s Square. Noa did, and she felt honored to become the first Israeli to perform at the Vatican when she sang her original version of “Ave Maria” for Pope John Paul II in 1994, before being invited back on eight other occasions, including to meet with Pope Francis last December.

“I was invited to sing in the Vatican for Pope John Paul II for the first time in 1994 and many times afterwards, and later for Pope Benedict XVI,” she said. “Francis is a pope I especially admire and adore. I have met him personally three times now. I am honored as a Jew to have been embraced by the Vatican and given the opportunity, through music, to break the walls that separate us and find common ground.”

As someone who has taken part in several awe-inspiring experiences, Noa has many interesting stories to tell.

With great sadness, she remembered a particularly tragic event. She was the only major Israeli artist to agree to perform at the historic peace rally on Nov. 4, 1995 in Tel Aviv, where former prime minister Yitzhak Rabin — who took a historic step towards peace with the Palestinians — was assassinated by a right-wing nationalist.

Years later, she is still heartbroken by his passing and recalls what it was like to be at that rally minutes before he was killed.

“What started as a wonderful, glorious moment, where hundreds of thousands came out to celebrate peace, became a horrible nightmare; a bloody opened wound that became an ugly scar on the face of Israeli society that we are still reeling from.”

Noa said she knew both Rabin, as well as Israeli Labor Party veteran and former prime minister and president Shimon Peres, for years.

“I met Rabin in various events where I performed, and on a TV show we did together,” she said.

The singer lives in Israel with her pediatrician husband and three children on a kibbutz by the sea.

“It’s simple, beautiful, natural. I feel so fortunate to live in this wonderful place,” she said, “where my children grow up barefoot and free, where we are close to nature and where the education is focused on community and volunteering.”

As a symbol of Israel to the world, Noa’s message is a powerful one: “My light is my dedication to peace, humanism and human rights, and to the most beautiful concept conveyed to me as a child: ‘Love your brother as you love yourself.’ ” I promote these luminescent ideas with my words, my voice, and the inspiring, magical power of music, and I invite one and all to join me.”

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