- NEWS & COMMENTARY
Jewish organizations to deliver 20,000 pounds of food to Oklahoma
In the wake of the disastrous tornado in Oklahoma, The National Council of Young Israel has joined with the Masbia organizations, as well as with Agri Star Meat & Poultry…
Industry is best bet for peace, Israeli billionaire says
On a new industrial park in Israel's largest Arab town, a software plant belonging to a multibillion-dollar U.S.-listed firm sits cheek-by-jowl with two small Arab-owned businesses: a metal factory and one producing tools for brain surgery.
Adelsons donate $40 million to Birthright
Casino tycoon Sheldon Adelson and his wife, Miriam, donated $40 million to the Birthright Israel Foundation.
- HOLLYWOOD
Billy Crystal to star in Larry Charles’ FX series
Looks like FX is going to be injecting some humor into their lineup. Not a bad idea, we think, after many seasons of the awesome yet dark series “Justified” or…
Civility replaces violence in ‘Last White Night’
In June 1965, during the most violent days of the civil rights movement, 21-year-old Paul Saltzman drove from Toronto to Mississippi to become a freedom fighter with the Student Nonviolent…
Spielberg to produce ‘Halo’ television series, plus other news from the Xbox One announcement
Microsoft Corp gave the world a first look at its new Xbox One on Tuesday, announcing that its first gaming console in eight years will come with exclusive video and…
- LIFE & CULTURE
A talent agent turns yogurt maven
Amy Salko Robertson — producer of such films as “The Oh in Ohio,” “Lab Rats” and “When Do We Eat?” a comedy set at a Passover seder —realized that she…
Maccabi Tel Aviv back on top but coach future uncertain
Champions Maccabi Tel Aviv have reasserted their dominance of Israeli soccer but media reports on Tuesday suggested they might have to continue their revival without coach Oscar Garcia.
Angelina’s breast cancer victory isn’t for celebrities only
Actress Angelina Jolie just announced that she underwent a preventive double mastectomy after learning that she was genetically predisposed to cancer. Her disclosure was a powerful show of solidarity with…
- BLOGS
Propaganda lies in a disguise
Muhammad al-Durrah, the little boy who became the symbol of the Al-Aqsa Intifada, is returning to the headlines after a decade. A photo of him, crying, leaning against a wall…
Male Eating Disorders: A Real Thing
Recently, People Magazine came out with an article about Ashley Hamilton talking openly about his struggles with an eating disorder. I applaud Ashley for coming out about having an eating…
Religion at the End of The Big C
Last night, Showtime’s The Big C aired its final episode. After three seasons of half-hour installments, this comedy returned for a shortened final season consisting of four hour-long episodes. Subtitled…
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Survivor: Eva Katz Brettler
Arrow Cross soldiers banged on the front door. Eva Brettler, then Eva Katz, hid behind her grandmother as the soldiers, members of Hungary’s fascist party, ordered Eva’s grandmother and aunt to quickly pack and prepare to leave.
Holocaust survivors say Israel must do more to help them
Holocaust survivors living in Israel say the country isn't doing enough to help them, and some are resorting to skipping meals and medicine.
Lapid orders $13 million transferred to Holocaust survivors fund
Israeli Finance Minister Yair Lapid ordered the transfer of more than $13 million to a foundation to assist Holocaust survivors.
Survivor: Abe Rosenstein
"Abe, go. You’re young. You’re not afraid to work.” Bronia Rosenstein, Abe’s older sister, urged him to answer a call for strong, healthy men to work outside the Lodz ghetto. It was November 1940. Abe was 21 and for nine months he had been living in one small room with his parents, two sisters and one brother. Abe signed up to work. Living conditions in the ghetto were deteriorating, and people were dying from hunger on the street daily. On the day he reported for work, he spotted his mother standing behind a barbed-wire fence, crying. “It was the last time I saw her,” he said.
Survivor: Harry Magid
"The Jews are going to be taken from the ghetto and killed.”
My Ima, Peppi Feller
Three weeks ago, my ima, Peppi Feller, passed away at the age of 96. She was a remarkable woman — determined, honest to a fault, principled, sharp-witted, devoted, a fighter, a survivor.
Surviving terror in two generations
Auschwitz survivor Liza Zajac Novera — who goes by Lea — was on an anniversary cruise with her husband to Iguazu Falls in September 1977, when she got the call. Her sister-in-law told her that armed men had come to their apartment in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and had taken away her two sons, law students.
67 years later, Holocaust survivor reunites with rescuer
Even though 67 years had passed since they last saw each other, Wladyslawa Dudziak and Rozia Beiman reunited as if they hadn't missed a moment.
Poster collection looted by Nazis to be auctioned
A collection of pre-World War II posters that were returned to the heir of a Jewish dentist who fled the Nazis is going on sale. The more than 4,300 posters collected by Hans Sachs and looted by the Nazis will be auctioned at Guernsey's in New York on Jan. 18, though the auction house is seeking to sell the entire collection to one buyer. The posters are worth about $5.8 million, according to Bloomberg.
Comparing animal rights and the Holocaust
On Oct. 2, Alex Hershaft, a Holocaust survivor and founder of the nonprofit Farm Animal Rights Movement (FARM), sat on the ground with some 100 other protesters in front of the Farmer John pig slaughterhouse in Vernon, Calif., blocking the entrance from two bi-level trucks carrying 200 pigs that had arrived to be slaughtered that day. In the next 24 hours, the pigs would be among 6,000 animals that would be stunned by electrical shock, hoisted up by their hind legs and their necks slit in the plant, which is the largest pig slaughterhouse on the West Coast.
Surviving a Survivor
It’s an age-old, common dilemma faced by adult children of aging parents: What is the right thing to do when those parents begin to lose their faculties? That theme is at the heart of “Surviving Mama,” by playwright Sonia Levitin, which opens Oct. 12 at the Edgemar Center for the Arts in Santa Monica.
Survivor: Alex Friedman
The train arrived at Dachau one morning in late November 1944. As the doors opened, German soldiers wielding big sticks yelled, “Raus, raus” (“Out, out”). Alex Friedman and the other Jewish prisoners exited, were marched toward the camp and, outside in the snow and cold, ordered to strip.
Survivor: Regina Hirsch
“Leave your possessions. We will bring them to you,” a Jewish commando greeted the trainload of Jews arriving at Auschwitz. He pointed to Regina Landowicz’s mother: “Too old.” And to her sister Lillie: “Too young.” Sally, another sister, took scissors from her rucksack and quickly trimmed their mother’s hair and lopped off Lillie’s braids as German soldiers shouted, “Raus, raus!” (Out, out!) On the platform, a German soldier tried to grab Lillie from their mother’s arms, but their mother clutched her tightly, even as he beat her.
Eli Zborowski, founder of American Society for Yad Vashem, dies
Eli Zborowski, a Holocaust survivor who founded and served as the chairman of the American Society for Yad Vashem, has died.
Survivor: Edith Frankie
"Hey, you Jew. Open up the door.' It was 4 a.m. on a Sunday morning, just before Passover 1944, when two gendarmes in the village of Chiesd, Transylvania, banged on the door where 12-year-old Edith Izsak lived with her parents, three siblings and two young cousins.
Survivor: Hedy Fingerman
The cattle car doors opened onto the Auschwitz platform and Hedy Markowitz, abruptly separated from her mother and younger brothers, was pushed along a walkway. She was first detained at a building where two Jewish prisoners shaved her head, and was then ushered into another building and ordered to undress. She took off the pink and blue plaid suit that her mother’s friend had sewn for her 16th birthday.
‘Tree of Testimony’ showcases redemption, hope
Ablack lattice of metal piping spreads in front of a dark, curved wall holding a large cluster of television screens. About 20 people stand or sit transfixed beneath this Tree of Testimony, watching the faces of about 70 Holocaust survivors as they laugh, cry, gesticulate and often just sit solemnly while speaking to the camera.
Survivor: Sol Berger
“Where are the dollars?” two plainclothes Gestapo officers demanded as they appeared without warning on both sides of Sol Berger. Sol denied any knowledge, even though the daughter of a local currency dealer was hovering nearby at the train station in Tarnow, Poland, holding the dollars he desperately needed to immigrate to Palestine.
Survivor: Sonja Telias
From the upstairs bedroom she shared with four girls, Sonja Blits heard the soldiers marching through the quiet village of Zaandijk, outside Amsterdam, where she was being hidden by a generous Dutch family. "Remember, stay below the windowsill," Moe Haidel, the other girls' mother, reminded her. But, drawn to the unusual noise, Sonja stood up and peeked through the curtain. Her eyes fixed on the SS troops' black boots making clicking noises on the brick street. That sound continued to haunt her.
In a new network, Jewish cancer survivors are finding the understanding they need
Roni Bibring was 15 when she was diagnosed with leukemia. Four years later, her treatment completed, she says her biggest challenge -- having lost touch with many of her friends -- is making new friends who understand what she’s been through.
Survivor: Masha Loen
As Masha Sapoznikow returned to the Kovno ghetto just past noon on March 27, 1944, she sensed an eerie quiet. German and Lithuanian soldiers, armed with machine guns, were uncharacteristically posted at the gate.
Opinion: Jewish organizations, others must stop interfering with Holocaust survivors' rights
The JTA recently published an op-ed by Menachem Rosensaft which gratuitously offers an “alternative” to the legislation that Holocaust survivors and children and grandchildren of survivors are seeking in Congress. The bills Rosensaft patronizingly calls “well-intentioned” are necessary to restore our rights to go to U.S. courts to recover insurance policies sold by Allianz, Generali, AXA, and other global insurers to our parents and grandparents which the companies dishonored after the Holocaust.
Legislation to support Holocaust survivors introduced
Three U.S. senators introduced legislation Thursday aimed at supporting programs to assist aging Holocaust survivors.
Crafting a Holocaust insurance solution that works
There is a solution to get us beyond the seemingly endless stalemates and complications that continue to characterize the ongoing debate over Holocaust-era insurance claims. And I do not believe it can be found in the well-intentioned bill before the U.S. Congress.
Claims Conference steps up aid to Greek Holocaust survivors
The Claims Conference is tripling its aid to Greece’s Holocaust survivors in light of the country's economic crisis and funding an education program on anti-Semitism due to the recent rise of a neo-Nazi party.
Gad Beck, the last known gay Holocaust survivor, dies at 88
Gad Beck, the last known gay Jewish survivor of the Holocaust, died in Berlin.
Survivor: Edith More
Edith Klein and her mother lined up on the Auschwitz II-Birkenau roll-call field. It was September 1944, and they feared being transported to a different camp. “Let’s hide,” Edith’s mother suggested, and the two darted into an empty barracks. But soon, afraid they would be missed, they rejoined the roll-call lineup, only to be caught and dispatched to the crematorium, where they faced another selection.
Survivor: Gitta Seidner Ginsberg
Gitta Seidner -- known at the time by the Christian name Jannine Spinette -- was abruptly awakened around 4:30 a.m. by a large commotion outside her farmhouse bedroom in Waterloo, Belgium. "No, no, no. What do you want with my goddaughter?" she heard her godmother, Alice Spinette, say. SS soldiers then kicked open the door and pulled the crying girl from her bed. "She's not Jewish," Alice insisted. The soldiers didn't listen. They ordered Alice to get Gitta dressed and drove them to SS headquarters in Brussels.
Holocaust survivor’s family must return artifact to Berlin museum
The family of a deceased Holocaust survivor must return to a German museum a 3,200-year-old artifact that he had brought with him to the United States, a New York state appellate court has ruled.
Survivor: Jack Seror
Jack Seror didn’t know what to do. He was 25 and knew he had to leave Salonika; it wasn’t safe for Jews. And now a contact from the Greek resistance had come to fetch him. Jack stood with his parents in their living room, crying. They hugged, kissed and hugged some more. “We have to leave,” the contact said. Half of Jack wanted to stay with his parents; the other half wanted to escape. Finally, his father, with tears in his eyes, said, “Go. And remember, if you survive, to say Kaddish for us.”
Arno Lustiger, historian and Holocaust survivor, dies at 88
Arno Lustiger, a Holocaust survivor and historian who put a spotlight on Jewish resistance against the Nazis, has died. Lustiger died Tuesday in Frankfurt, Germany, at the age of 88.
Survivor: Julius Bendorf
The morning stillness was shattered in the German village of Ober-Ramstadt, as people started running through the streets, crying out that the synagogue was burning. Julius Bendorf, 23, could see the flames from his house. Later, around 1 p.m., a group of men broke into his father’s butcher shop at the front of the family’s house. The Nazis had already closed down the shop, as they had all Jewish businesses, but the intruders destroyed the counters, scales and other equipment. “These were men we knew really well, who bought meat from us,” Julius remembered. The men then entered the family’s living quarters, but Julius, his parents and brother had already escaped through the back door. The next day, the family returned to find their feather bedding shredded, their food tossed on the floor and the house in shambles. It was Kristallnacht, Nov. 9, 1938, and, as Julius said, “It all happened so fast.”
Child Holocaust survivors speak up for those who can’t
Only a precious remnant of Holocaust survivors is alive today, and many of them were just children when they went into hiding or ended up behind barbed wire.
Toronto woman charged in Holocaust claims case
A woman living in Toronto was charged in the United States with taking part in a scheme to steal from a Holocaust survivors' fund.
Living with Holocaust ghosts
Ed Asner, aka Lou Grant, walked slowly to the front of the stage at the Museum of Tolerance on Sunday night, and in his familiar growl — this time with a Latvian accent — he softly spoke: “Thank you for the help that is not only material, but also moral. A person lives through hope, and I hope it will get better.”
Survivor: Jack Adelstein
“Raus, raus!” (Out, out!) Jack Adelstein — then Janek Eidelstein, 4 years old — was abruptly awakened by a dozen SS soldiers and Polish farmers. He was sleeping in a cave in a dense forest outside Krasnik, Poland, where he was hiding with his father, brother and an older sister.
Survivior: Julia Moshe
In early October 1943, a day or two after Rosh Hashanah, Julia Moshe — née Conti — was walking to her bookkeeping job at the Atlas Watch Co. in Volos, Greece, when she heard footsteps behind her. “Mademoiselle, don’t turn around your head,” a male voice warned. “Yesterday SS soldiers came to city hall asking for a list of the Jewish people.” Julia started trembling. She recalled her mother’s words, “If the Germans come here, it’s OK if they take us.” Julia gave notice at work and hurried home. “Please don’t say no,” she begged her mother. “We have to go from here.”
Survivor: Miriam Rothstein
“I don’t know where I am.” After three days and nights in a cramped cattle car, Miriam Rothstein — neé Farkas — was thrust onto the Auschwitz-Birkenau platform. Her sister Margaret and Margaret’s three children were sent to one side, her brother Baruch to another. Where was Rachel?
Survivor: Albert Rosa
Albert Rosa spied his older sister Luna across the chain-link fence. He remembered her as beautiful, with big, blue eyes and long, dark hair. Now she was skinny and filthy, her head shaved. “It broke my heart,” he said. Albert had been at Auschwitz only three weeks and had given up two days’ rations to persuade a bunkmate to trade uniforms and work details so he could see his sister.
Reality TV Overdose
Survivor: Sara Gilmore
The train carrying about 1,600 Jews from the island of Rhodes pulled up to the Auschwitz platform in mid-August, 1944. Ezra Hanan, along with all the other men, was corralled into one line. His wife and six children were pushed into another.
Drama: My Personal Samoa Survivor (Video)
Survivor: Liselotte Hanock
Liselotte Hanock — née Ortner — was sent by her grandmother to buy food on a cold, rainy November afternoon in 1944. She was wearing only a light raincoat when she left her yellow-star apartment in Budapest — a de facto ghetto, where she lived with her paternal grandparents and two other families. Suddenly, she was approached by a group of Arrow Cross soldiers — boys 16 to 18 years old carrying rifles. “Come with us,” they said. Liselotte, who was just 11, knew not to resist.
Partisan Vitka Kovner dies at 92
Holocaust survivor and partisan Vitka Kovner, who was active in the Vilna Jewish underground, has died. Kovner, the widow of the poet and partisan Abba Kovner, died Wednesday in her home at Kibbutz Ein Hahoresh at the age of 92.
Grandson of Auschwitz survivor takes the ice for Germany
More than 65 years ago Kurt Kaufmann was liberated from the Auschwitz concentration camp. This weekend his U.S.-born grandson, Evan Kaufmann, is taking the ice for the German national hockey team.
Survivor: Ernest Braunstein
Ernest Braunstein was walking back to his barracks at the Bor labor camp, in Yugoslavia, when he spotted a man suspended from a post by his wrists, which had been tied tightly behind the man’s back. He had passed out, and Ernest brought him water. A guard, witnessing the interaction, gave Ernest the same punishment. When Ernest blacked out from the pain, the guard lowered him, revived him and hung him again, repeatedly. After three hours, Ernest estimates, he was sent back to his barracks, where his friends surreptitiously fed him until he recovered. To this day, he can lift his right arm only to his shoulder.
Polio survivor’s new film explores sexual surrogacy
‘50/50’s’ Will Reiser to compete against Woody, Diablo
Survivor: Donna Tuna
Suddenly, midday on Sept. 1, 1939, Donna Tuna — then Golda Tajchman — spotted planes flying low over her small town of Ryki, Poland, machine-gunning the inhabitants, who were running, panicked, in all directions. Donna, along with her mother, sister Regina, and younger twin siblings, Feige and Avrum, raced to the riverbank.
Survivor: Rosalie Greenfield
The train pulled up to the platform at Auschwitz. Men and women were immediately separated. Rosalie Schwartz had only a couple of minutes to say goodbye to her 69-year-old father, a hearty man who now appeared weary and old to the 21-year-old. “A happy man is one who can die in his own bed,” he told her.
Survivor: Motek Kleiman
“It was such a winter, with wind and snow. It was Dante’s night.”
Reality Television Blogging Updates: Abridged
Survivor: Violet Raymond
Violet Raymond, then Ibolya Friedmann, and her new husband, George Singer, stood under a chuppah at Nagyfuvaros Synagogue in Budapest, Hungary, on May 27, 1944. She was 17, and he was 19. Three days later, George was ordered to report to Bethlen Ter 2, a labor camp housed in another of Budapest’s 22 synagogues.
Tracking a Warsaw ghetto fighter
I met Leon Weinstein, hale and hearty at 101, three months ago and listened to his dramatic recollections as a fighter and survivor of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, one of the bravest chapters in modern Jewish history.
“I hate you and I hate Samoa:” The beginning of a Great Travel Adventure (video)
Survivor: Margaret Liebenau
Margaret Liebenau celebrated her 18th birthday in Auschwitz. It was Sept. 20, 1944, and she spent the day, like most days, sweeping dirt outside her barracks, overseen by a female SS guard and a dog.
Samoa Survivor (video/slideshow)
Survivor is Back and There Might be Pot!
Jessica Chastain and John Madden on “The Debt”
Child Holocaust survivors meet in Poland for first time
More than 300 people who survived the Holocaust as children are meeting in Warsaw -- a first for Poland.
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