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Disney+ series ‘A Small Light’ tells the Anne Frank story from the perspective of the woman who hid her
(JTA) — The short life of Anne Frank has inspired generations of filmmakers and television producers. The list of past productions range from “The Diary of Anne Frank” (1959), whose director George Stevens witnessed Nazi occupation as a U.S. army officer, to the Academy Award-winning documentary “Anne Frank Remembered” — featuring the only known footage of Anne — to the Emmy Award-winning dramatized miniseries “Anne Frank: The Whole Story” (2001).
On Monday night, viewers will get another TV version. But “A Small Light,” an eight-episode series premiering on National Geographic and streaming Tuesday on Disney+, tells the story from a new perspective: through the eyes of the woman who hid the Frank family.
Miep Gies was an independent 24-year-old with a busy social calendar and a dance club membership when she began working for Anne Frank’s father Otto in 1933 at Opekta, his successful jam business in Amsterdam. As Jews were rounded up and deported from the Netherlands in 1942, her Jewish boss asked if she would be willing to hide his family in an annex above the office, and she did not hesitate.
“A Small Light” stars Bel Powley as Gies, Joe Cole as her husband Jan Gies and Liev Schreiber as Otto Frank. It’s named for a quote from the real Gies, who once said that she did not like to be called a hero because “even an ordinary secretary or a housewife or a teenager can turn on a small light in a dark room.”
That metaphor had literal meaning for the Frank family and four others in the secret annex, who spent two years in a dark 450-square-foot space behind a hinged bookcase. Gies, her husband and four other employees of Otto Frank secretly kept eight Jews alive while running his business downstairs. Gies brought them food and library books, using black market ration cards and visiting several different grocers to avoid suspicion. Anne Frank said in her diary, “Miep is just like a pack mule, she fetches and carries so much.”
In the series, the “dark room” is seen less than Gies’ frenzied bicycle trips across Amsterdam, as she tries to sustain the appearance of a normal life. Her secret pushes her away from friends and family, while her marriage strains under the weight of ever-looming disaster. The creators of “A Small Light” sought to recreate a hero as a modern, flawed, at times even annoying person.
“She’s not some kind of saint,” executive producer Joan Rater told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “She had moods, she had a new marriage, she wanted to hang out with friends. She wanted to take a day off and she couldn’t.”
“I think everyone can relate to Miep,” said Powley, an English-Jewish actress known for starring in several British shows and in American films such as “The King of Staten Island.” “She was just an ordinary person in extraordinary circumstances.”
Although “A Small Light” is rife with tense scenes and suspense, the producers fashioned it with young audiences in mind. The show conspicuously avoids the explicit violence and horror typically expected of its subject matter, leaving out concentration camps and murders. Rater and co-creator Tony Phelan wanted children like their own to watch the series. While they were writing it, their daughter was the same age as Anne was when she was writing her diary.
Some young viewers have seen Anne’s story being swept up in literary purges across U.S. school districts, as part of the debate over what should be taught in American classrooms. Earlier this month, a Florida high school removed an illustrated adaptation of her diary after determining that references to her sexuality were “not age appropriate.” The same edition was previously yanked from a Texas school district, although it was reinstituted after public outcry. Meanwhile, a Tennessee school board banned “Maus,” Art Spiegelman’s Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel about his father’s experience in the Holocaust, after objections over curse words and nudity last year.
The name “Anne Frank” has long been synonymous with Holocaust education as her diary remains one of the world’s most-read books, with translations in over 70 languages. But the “relatable” rescuer presents another appealing way to teach children about one of the most wretched chapters in human history, said Brad Prager, a professor of German and film studies at the University of Missouri.
“It is the message that people like to hear,” Prager told the JTA. “If you ask a fourth-grader why we watch TV and movies — well, this is so that you can learn to do the right things, or you can learn that in certain circumstances anyone can be a hero.”
Liev Schreiber plays Otto Frank and Amira Casar plays Edith Frank in “A Small Light.” (National Geographic for Disney/Dusan Martincek)
A broader lens on the Netherlands during World War II is less palatable. The Germans and their Dutch collaborators implemented a highly effective system of persecution: Between 1942 and 1944, about 107,000 Dutch Jews were deported primarily to Auschwitz and Sobibor, then murdered. Only 5,200 of them survived.
Although Gies did everything she could to save the Jews in her care, the unwritten ending to Anne’s diary is well-known. Three days after her last entry in August 1944, Dutch police officers led by SS officer Karl Josef Silberbauer raided the annex. Gies escaped arrest by observing that she and Silberbauer shared a hometown.
“My luck was that the police officer in charge came from Vienna, the same town where I was born,” she said in a 1997 interview with Scholastic. “I noticed this from his accent. So, when he came to interrogate me, I jumped up and said, as cheerfully as I could, ‘You are from Vienna? I am from Vienna too.’ And, although he got very angry initially, it made him obviously decide not to arrest me.”
In a valiant last-ditch effort, Gies walked into the German police office the next day and attempted to buy her friends’ freedom. She was unsuccessful.
Gies found Anne’s notebooks and papers strewn on the annex floor. Without reading them, she gathered and tucked the writings into a drawer, hoping to return them to their owner. Germany had all but lost the war already, with Allied troops less than 250 miles from Amsterdam.
The Franks were packed on the last train ever to leave the Westerbork transit camp for the Auschwitz extermination camp. Otto was separated from his wife Edith and daughters Anne and Margot on the Auschwitz platform. In October, the girls were transported to Bergen-Belsen, and Edith succumbed to starvation in January 1945. Her daughters died of typhus a month later, when Anne was 15 years old.
Some studies have suggested that knowledge about the Holocaust is diminishing. In 2020, the Claims Conference found that 63% of Millenial and Gen Z Americans (ages 18-39) did not know that six million Jews were murdered in the Holocaust. More than 10% did not recall ever hearing about the Holocaust, while 11% believed that Jews caused it. Another Claims Conference survey reported that despite living in the country where Anne hid from the Nazis, a majority of Dutch people did not know the Holocaust took place there.
“In a time that antisemitism is on the rise and there are more displaced people in the world than there ever have been before, it couldn’t be a better time to re-explore this part of history, but through the lens of this ordinary young woman,” said Powley.
While “A Small Light” celebrates the power of the individual, the fate of Anne Frank also represents the failure of the whole world, said Prager. By centering Gies’ perspective, he said, the series risks making Anne a peripheral character in her own brutally aborted story.
“When you decenter Anne Frank, one thing is that you lose the Jewish perspective on the persecution,” he said.
Otto Frank, the sole survivor from the annex, appeared at Jan and Miep Gies’ doorstep after the war and ended up living with them for over seven years. In July 1945, Gies watched as he received the notice that his children were dead.
“He took it in his hands and suddenly he became eerily quiet,” Gies said in an interview for the Anne Frank House. “You cannot explain it, it was a silence that speaks. I looked up. He was white as a sheet. And he handed me the letter.”
Gies read the piece of paper, stood up and opened her desk drawer. “I took all the diaries, with all the separate sheets and everything and handed them over to Mr. Frank,” she said.
She told him, “This is your daughter Anne’s legacy.”
In 2010, Gies died at 100 years old. Every year on Aug. 4 — the day the Franks were arrested — she stayed at home, drew her curtains and did not answer the phone or doorbell.
Powley believes the show’s angle gives a fresh perspective on “your mom’s dusty copy of Anne Frank’s diary.” She approached the role of Gies with a heavy sense of responsibility.
“I feel a deeper connection to this story than I have with other projects,” she said. “This offer came to me on Holocaust Memorial Day and it immediately had that special feeling to it. My grandma, the Jewish matriarch of my family, died during COVID. I feel that she would be proud.”
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This David Schwimmer sweater ad is playing on ‘Friends’ nostalgia. So why are commenters talking about Israel?
David Schwimmer, who played Ross on Friends, is tapping into some late ’90s and early 2000s nostalgia as the star in an ad this week marketing his “dream sweater” for Quince, a clothing and home goods store.
In the ad, Schwimmer, who is Jewish, sketches the perfect red sweater in a notebook while he sits in Central Park and then begins to see it on everyone: a man riding an electric scooter, an angry taxi driver who almost runs into him, a beautiful woman riding in the back of the taxi, even a dog.
The gag is a reference to the Friends episode “The One with the Red Sweater,” where Ross’ on-again-off-again girlfriend Rachel is pregnant and has not told the father, whose identity is a mystery to the group; Joey, Monica and Phoebe know that the father left a red sweater at the apartment, so when Ross stops by and is relieved to find his sweater, they figure out he’s the dad-to-be.
“I’ve been looking for this for like a month,” he says, just after making a reference to the Yiddish-named snack, Mashuga Nuts.
The episode and the ad are apolitical. So why then are some people planning to cancel their Quince orders and boycott the company?
Schwimmer, many of the commenters on the ad are saying, is a Zionist.
“I don’t approve of you featuring a Zio in your ad,” one Instagram user commented. “Please do better.”
Schwimmer on Israel, antisemitism
Schwimmer has been outspoken about antisemitism since long before the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks on Israel and the ensuing war in Gaza. Over the course of his career, he’s spoken at multiple Anti-Defamation League events and called for other people to stand against hate, routinely saying, “Silence is complicity.”
The actor appears to have never explicitly identified as a Zionist, and his statements have focused more on galvanizing support for Jews and Israelis — rather than on the Jewish state. But this is of little importance to his critics.
His relationship with the ADL, a staunchly pro-Israel organization, is damning enough for some. Schwimmer also starred in an Israeli commercial for Meitav, an investment management company. The move puts him at odds with the growing Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign, which stands against any financial relationship with Israel or Israeli companies.
After Oct. 7, Schwimmer put out a statement calling the Hamas attack an “atrocity” and a “genocide,” adding that any attempt to justify what happened is “indefensible and antisemitic.” In the same statement, he also touched on Palestinian suffering:
“One can condemn Hamas and still object to the Israeli government’s policies regarding the occupation (as many Israelis do), still believe in the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination, and still mourn the loss of Palestinian civilians and the current destruction of their homes, schools, hospitals and places of worship.”
He’s also been vocal about sexual violence that occurred on Oct. 7, sharing the controversial New York Times piece headlined “Screams Without Words,” that investigated allegations of sexual assault committed by Hamas during the attack. Critics of the piece have questioned the validity of the reporting and argued that one of its reporters is biased toward Israel. The Times has stood by the piece.
Additionally, Schwimmer has criticized universities’ responses to pro-Palestinian protests on campuses that he said have veered into antisemitism.
Schwimmer spoke at a 2025 ADL summit about the backlash he’s gotten for his advocacy, noting that while he’s been “attacked” and “abandoned,” he’s found deep meaning in speaking out and has no plans to stop. He concluded his speech calling on fellow celebrities to do the same.
“You don’t have to say anything political,” Schwimmer said. “No one is asking you to solve the conflict in the Middle East. Just say that you stand with your Jewish friends, colleagues and neighbors against hatred and discrimination.”
The controversy isn’t bothering Quince.
“We’ve seen more than 8 million views across our social channels in the first 48 hours, alongside international press coverage and recognition from the marketing community for the creative,” said Dakota Isaacs, head of brand strategy and narrative, in an email to the Forward. “It’s been especially rewarding to see fans connect with the humor and nostalgia while discovering Quince.”
The post This David Schwimmer sweater ad is playing on ‘Friends’ nostalgia. So why are commenters talking about Israel? appeared first on The Forward.
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Why I urged my parents to avoid the counterprotest in Philadelphia
Parents usually tell their children whether they can go out, but last week, on a phone call with my parents, our roles reversed, and I urged them not to join a Philadelphia food crawl with their friends. The event was organized in response to a bicycle rally calling for the boycott of six restaurants, all Jewish-owned, to “show these zionist business owners that we see them for the disgusting humans they are.”
The counterprotest intended to show solidarity with these businesses by patronizing and protecting them on the day of the protest, given the hostile framing of the boycott against the restaurants and their Jewish owners. However, I was concerned that it would be co-opted by pro-Israel partisans, who not only would instrumentalize it for their own agenda — one which, in my view, is actively detrimental to the fight against antisemitism — but would also stoke chaos and violence. It’s a film that’s played out time and again, including when I was an undergraduate at UCLA: A call is put out that Jews are under attack, counterprotesters mobilize in response, and anger quickly morphs into belligerence, hostility, and violence.
Fortunately, it appears that no one was seriously hurt during Sunday’s bike rally and counterprotest. As I had feared, though, some demonstrators became aggressive as verbal confrontations and scuffles broke out across Rittenhouse Square. While it’s likely that some of the pro-Israel demonstrators were there for the sole purpose of displaying that they are not “Jews with trembling knees,” others ostensibly were there because, as the names of two of the organizations behind it would suggest, they want to StopAntisemitism and EndJewHatred.
If those were the goals, the demonstration was an unmitigated disaster. And much of the discourse surrounding the boycott laid the groundwork for failure.
To many Jews, it may seem self-evident that the boycott was illegitimate and antisemitic. For the protesters, though, there seems to be a genuine inability to understand how it could be. They also seem unable or unwilling to condemn antisemitism.
Anger at the protesters is understandable, but if the goal is to stop antisemitism and end Jew hatred, it is important to address the root of the problem, which starts with understanding why the protesters might have such a profound misunderstanding of antisemitism.
For several decades, following the Six-Day War of 1967 and the Cold War period, pro-Israelism has been a core, essential feature of hegemonic anti-antisemitism advocacy. Groups like the ADL have made the phenomenon of so-called “new antisemitism” – a term that explains hostility toward Israel by claiming that the nation is maligned out of bigotry, as the proverbial Jew among the nations – a central focus of their work, especially in times of increased Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Though this is hardly “new,” the stakes and intensity of attacks against the “new antisemitism” have been raised in a post–Oct. 7, post–destruction of Gaza reality. In effect, this approach has been successful in as much as it has led to a public perception that the fight against antisemitism and the fight in defense of Israel are the same fight, and cannot be separated.
As a result, when anti-Zionist, pro-Palestinian activists are accused of antisemitism or expected to condemn it, they view it as purely cynical — an attempt to delegitimize their movement rather than a true objection to how they have treated or spoken about Jews. This very refusal to condemn antisemitism is often read as itself antisemitic by many Jews. This “acrimonious circle,” as philosopher Brian Klug described it 13 years ago, could go on forever.
As the acrimonious circle spins and spins, there are a few options that groups fighting antisemitism can consider:
- They can continue pushing pro-Palestinian activists to see both condemning antisemitism and supporting Israel as intertwined moral duties.
- They can insist on that interconnection, but tell pro-Palestinian activists to choose combatting antisemitism no matter what their beliefs about Israel are.
- They can accept that pro-Palestinian activists will rarely condemn antisemitism at their own initiative, and deploy tactics of intimidation, bullying, harassment, and/or violence against them.
- They can accept that pro-Palestinian activists will rarely condemn antisemitism at their own initiative, and present condemning antisemitism as a human-rights oriented stance, in line with standing up for all marginalized people, including Palestinians.
The first option is the one that organizations like the ADL have often chosen. In its statement about the bike rally and boycott, the group said that criticism of Israeli government policies are acceptable, but discrimination is not. Criticisms that the ADL considers ipso facto discriminatory, however, include claims that Israel has committed the crimes of genocide and apartheid. As a result, activists lend the ADL and groups like it no credibility and will dismiss any of their condemnations out of hand.
The third option is what the protest on Sunday became. Any Philadelphian can tell you that a brawl in the middle of Rittenhouse Square during an Eagles game is far from unusual. But the fighting in this instance broke out because of the boycott — one side driven by a fervor that they needed to defend Jews facing an existential threat from anti-Zionists, the other driven by a fervor that they needed to bring justice to a city ravaged by what protesters believe are business-owning war criminals.
The second option is a sensible demand from a moral perspective. However, it is not a strategic one. The hard truth is that for many, though certainly not all, pro-Palestinian activists, the cause comes before all else, including standing up against antisemitism.
Therefore, the only way forward for Jews is the fourth option: to frame the fight against antisemitism as a fight for the rights of all people. This is not a perfect solution — no solution could be. There will always be some unwilling to oppose antisemitism no matter what tactic is deployed. However, it will make plain that there is no contradiction between condemning antisemitism and supporting Palestinian rights, that in fact the task is to support human rights universally and to condemn all who violate these rights. That necessarily includes standing against Israeli war crimes and its regime of inequality, and that includes condemning those who hold Jews as Jews complicit for Israel’s actions and condemning those who harass, intimidate, and scrutinize Jewish business owners for their presumed political stances.
My parents, fortunately, decided to remove themselves from the chaos of this day and went to support the targeted businesses as regular patrons on other days throughout the week. I was pleased to see that our rabbi, who leads one of the largest synagogues in Center City, made a point of trying to de-escalate tensions and confrontations from within the Philadelphia Jewish community, as well as highlighting the strength and vibrancy of Philly’s Jewish life on its own terms.
These are important, positive things we can do in the short term. That said, if we want long-term change to come from the pro-Palestinian movement – and I think this moment requires it – anti-antisemitism groups that cannot meet the moment must step aside and make room for those that are capable and prepared to frame the fight against antisemitism as a fight for, not against, fairness, justice, and equality for all.
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Israel approves $31.5 million plan to strengthen Jewish education in North America
(JTA) — JERUSALEM – Israel’s government has approved a NIS 100 million ($31.5 million) plan, initiated by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, to strengthen Jewish education in North America, a statement from his office said Wednesday.
Based on a partnership and joint investment with North American Jewish communities, the goal of the plan is to strengthen Jewish identity and ties to Israel among the next generation of Diaspora Jews in the United States.
The approval of the plan, which was developed with representatives of the Jewish Federations of North America (JFNA), follows a government decision made in June.
It comes a day after Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, was sworn in and two weeks after a national election left Netanyahu facing a battle to stay in power as his rival, Gadi Eisenkot, received the mandate to form the next government.
It also comes amid signs of growing disaffection among Diaspora Jews, particularly younger generations, toward Israel and the Netanyahu-led government. Recent polls suggest that support for Israel among Diaspora Jews, especially in response to its policies in Gaza and on matters of democracy, is slipping.
A February survey of American Jews by the Jewish Federations of North America found that only one-third of American Jews aged 18-34 identify as Zionist, even as nearly nine in 10 say they support Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish and democratic state.
A separate Pew poll in May examining American views of Israel found that Jewish attitudes have shifted since 2024. The survey found that 83% of Jews view the Israeli people favorably, down from 89% in 2024, while 47% view the Israeli government favorably, compared with 54% in 2024.
“The plan we approved today, in partnership with Jewish communities in North America, is an investment in the future generation of Diaspora Jews. Together, we will strengthen Jewish identity, deepen the connection to Israel and ensure that our heritage and values are passed proudly from generation to generation,” Netanyahu said in the statement.
“The future of the Jewish people depends on our ability to ensure that future generations know their heritage, connect to their Jewish identity and maintain their deep ties to the State of Israel,” he said, adding that Israel would not “stand idly by in the face of challenges,” such as antisemitism.
Under the framework of the plan, which will focus on increasing the number of students enrolled in Jewish educational frameworks, the Israeli government allocation will be matched 50% with funding from Jewish Federations and other non-governmental sources.
JFNA said in a statement that it welcomed the Israeli cabinet’s decision to invest in Jewish education across the U.S. and Canada, calling it an “unprecedented partnership between the Government of Israel and North American Jewish communities to strengthen Jewish identity and ensure a vibrant future for the Jewish people.”
“We are proud to launch this historic partnership with the Government of Israel to expand access and grow enrollment in Jewish day schools across North America,” said Gary Torgow, chair of the Board of Jewish Federations of North America.
Eric D. Fingerhut, JFNA’s president and CEO, said the partnership “reflected the shared commitment of Israel and North American Jewry to strengthening Jewish identity and expanding educational opportunities for more families.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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