Speaking at a joint news conference with Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar in Tirana, Hoxha reaffirmed Albania’s commitment to peace and stability in the Middle East, stressing the importance of ensuring Israel’s security while pursuing a just and lasting peace for Israelis and Palestinians.

Reflecting on the history of the Jewish people and the tragedy of the Holocaust, Hoxha said the establishment of Israel stemmed from the aspiration of the Jewish people to live in security and dignity.

He condemned the Oct. 7 attacks and highlighted the devastating toll of the ensuing conflict on innocent civilians in both Israel and Palestine.

“No nation can be expected to accept the threat of terrorism against its citizens, just as lasting peace cannot exist amid insecurity, violence and constant fear,” Hoxha said, adding that the international community must help create conditions in which Israelis and Palestinians can live in security, dignity and hope.

Hoxha said Albania had become a founding member of the Board of Peace and had committed to contributing to the International Stabilization Force in support of security, stability and humanitarian efforts in Gaza.

He also recalled Albania’s role in sheltering Jewish families during the Holocaust, describing their protection as one of the proudest chapters in the country’s history.

“Albanians opened their homes and their hearts, welcoming and protecting Jewish families and ensuring that those seeking refuge found shelter, security and dignity,” he said.

Hoxha said this legacy was embodied in the Albanian tradition of besa – a pledge of honour and a promise kept – and reflected the values of hospitality, solidarity and respect for human life.

To preserve this shared history, Albania is moving forward with plans for the Besa Museum in Tirana and the Jewish Museum in Vlora, he said.

“These institutions will serve as centres of education and culture, celebrating the historical ties between our peoples and recognising the enduring presence and contribution of the Jewish community to Albanian society,” Hoxha said.

/m.q/j.p/u.sh/

Rama described the Jewish Museum as “a cornerstone of the historical memory of the city of Independence and its legacy of protecting Jews during World War Two.”

In a post on X, Rama accused Democratic Party lawmaker Bujar Leskaj of mobilising a group of people against the project.

Rama also said the Albanian-American Development Foundation (AADF) had allocated 200,000 dollars to prepare a project for the “Renaissance of the Labëria Museum.”

He said the museum, alongside the Jewish Museum, would provide another important space for preserving Vlora’s identity and history while supporting tourism development.

“The Leskaj group has made a ritual of attacking the construction sites behind Vlora’s transformation,” Rama said, adding that, at his request, the AADF had allocated 200,000 dollars for the project to revive the Labëria Museum, which he described as a severely degraded building.

The museum, he said, would be restored and, together with the Jewish Museum, become “another open door of pride” for Vlora’s patriotic and tourism heritage.

/gj.m/r.e/u.sh/

The winning museum design, due to be built in the southern coastal city of Vlora, was unveiled by Kimmel Eshkolot Architects, a renowned Tel Aviv-based architectural studio, on the eve of the international museum today.

Addressing the presentation ceremony of the winning design, Prime Minister Edi Rama underlined that similar projects should be designed continuously in the future.

“I am really happy that we take another step towards creating the first address of this history, namely a Jewish museum in Vlora. I very much hope that the museum will be built as soon as possible, also hoping it won’t be the last, because it won’t be sufficient to really chronicle such a really great story about the relations between Albanians and the Jews,” the Premier said.

I think it is one of the missing links in the whole space of the territory of our country, a museum or memorial site displaying a incredible history and perhaps one of the golden pages in the history of Albanians, namely the stories of Albanians who saved Jews, about which a memorial site has yet to be built in this country, and I am really happy that today we take another step towards creating of the first address of this history. A Jewish Museum in Vlora that used to harbour and house an important Jewish community and where we are granted the opportunity for such a structure to be built precisely in the very neighbourhood, where Vlora’s Jewish community was once located.

I would like to highlight the fact that Albania has probably been the only country in Europe to adopt a piece of legislation on observing the Sabbath, legally-binding employers not to penalize Jews who rested from work on Fridays.

In the meantime, a number of documents and even written reports from special envoys of Jewish communities, like the Jewish community of the United States, showing a country demonstrating a special readiness to welcome Jews and provide them shelter and land plots and provide them the opportunity to build their own settlements. More than once, these reports state that Albania is considered as an ideal “reserve homeland” to give safe refuge to Jews and this has been written by the envoys of these communities themselves.

However the Second World War marked the climax all this very long history of ties between Albanians and Jews, because Albania is not only the only country in Europe with more Jews after the Second World War, but is the only country in the world where not a single Jew was handed over to the Nazis.

Having all this said, the history of saving the Jews is not just important to be chronicled in a museum, in two or three, although more are needed to do so, but to show our children and our grandchildren how important this part of our common history is and how people and societies should not lose this sense of humanism and this sense of belonging to the human community that our forefathers showed.

Our cooperation with the Albanian-American Foundation is immensely valuable and significant and extremely productive.

Jewish Museum in Vlora will be the first, but not the only one of its kind. We are preparing and working build a Jewish centre in Tirana as a space to both showcase history, as well as cultivate and promote friendship with Israel, with the people of Israel, the Jewish community, as a long traditional friendship, which has gone through also a period that has not been characterized by the same intensity of those previous years. But the point is that they have grown rich now and when people become extremely wealthy they start suffering issues with the memory. We know this and we will do our best to be as persuasive as we can to strengthen this relationship.

/u.sh/