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This 16-year-old turned her grandmother’s Holocaust survival story into a novel
(New York Jewish Week) — In May of 1937, 7-year-old Inge Eisinger lived in a luxurious Vienna apartment with a pantry stocked with favorite foods and a staff to keep her company. Though she had a strained relationship with her mother and an absent father, Inge, who was mostly raised by her maternal grandmother Anna, was living a charmed life.
This is the scene that opens “Running for Shelter,” a young adult novel about the Holocaust written by a young adult herself: 16-year-old Suzette Sheft, who is a junior at the Horace Mann School in the Bronx. In the novel, Sheft retells her grandmother’s story of surviving the Holocaust.
Published by Amsterdam Publishers, which specializes in Holocaust memoirs, the book is a delicate and powerful reminder of the importance of recording one’s family history. It’s a lesson Sheft learned too early in life: Her father died of pancreatic cancer when Sheft was just 13 and she soon realized she was forgetting all the stories he told her about his childhood.
“I fantasized about rewinding time, so I could go back and record my favorite stories about his childhood,” Sheft writes in an author’s note. “I wished I had taken the time to write these stories down when I had the chance, because his death allowed me to understand the vitality of preserving the stories of our loved ones before it is too late.”
In memory of her father, Sheft recorded the story of his mother, her grandmother Monique Sheft, who was once the Viennese school girl Inge Eisinger.
In pre-war Austria, Eisinger had been living a completely assimilated life — so much so that her parents never even told her that she was Jewish. Following the Nazi takeover of Austria, her mother managed to whisk the two of them away to Switzerland, then Paris, but soon abandoned her. After a twisting and tragic story, Eisinger eventually reunited with her grandmother and moved to a village in Central France to wait out the war, changing her name to the more French “Monique.”
Sheft’s novel ends in 1946, when the two are on the boat to New York after the war and Eisinger’s grandmother reveals to her that she and her family are actually Jewish.
In spite of this — or perhaps because of it — Sheft, who lives in Manhattan with her mom, her twin brother and two dogs, is very committed to her Jewish identity. “Although my grandmother never really practiced Judaism, my dad was very involved in the Jewish world,” she said. “He was very passionate about Jewish causes and just Judaism, in general. So I felt very connected to the Jewish world because of him.”
The New York Jewish Week talked with Sheft about what the book means to her, why its subject matter is important and what she learned in the process of putting it together.
This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
New York Jewish Week: What was the process of writing the book; how did the idea begin and how did you collect your grandmother’s story?
Suzette Sheft: I had heard a lot of my grandmother’s stories from my dad. I always had an interest in the Holocaust — I would go to Holocaust museums in every city I visited, and I almost exclusively read books about World War II and the Holocaust growing up. So I kind of knew in the back of my head that I wanted to do something like this, but [my father’s death] sparked and ignited the necessity of doing it as soon as possible.
As for the process, a few summers ago I spent a week with my grandmother, interviewing her every day about her escape from Austria to France. At first she shared physical elements of her life, like her apartment and her family dynamics and her school life, but then she began to talk to me about the time leading up to the war — the years before the Germans invaded Austria. As she spoke, I recorded everything she said in bullet point form and I would periodically stop and ask for more detail. The next day, at the beginning of the conversation, I would recap what we had talked about, and then allow her to elaborate or clarify the story.
Later, I wanted to widen my perspective and uncover other stories and details that she may have forgotten, so I watched an interview she did with the USC Shoah Foundation. This was really helpful because there were some details that she had forgotten or that she had left out.
Even though the book is about your grandmother’s life, you wrote it as fiction. How much of the story came from your grandmother’s details, and how much did you have to research or create on your own?
Every event that happens is true, and everything actually happened to her, but there are some small details that I embellished. For me, it was really helpful because, while I love creativity and writing, I sometimes struggle to pick an idea. So the fact that she had all these little stories, and I could expand from those, was something I loved while writing this. I had to use fiction when describing the atmosphere of certain places and also to write the dialogue because I can’t know exactly what they said or how they said it.
Do you have a favorite story your grandma told you that you made sure to get in the book?
Inge goes to a boarding school [in France] with her host family and there the children play a game where they pick someone to be the “torturer,” who is usually whoever they think the ugliest person is. My grandma had red hair and green eyes, and I guess she wasn’t the traditional standard of beauty. They picked her to be the torturer and she would have to pull people’s hair and scratch them. There would also be a queen, who was usually the prettiest girl with blond hair and blue eyes, and she would be protected. I thought it was interesting because to me it was the children’s way of understanding what was going on in the world around them. It’s a bit complicated, but when she told me this story I was completely shocked. It was really fascinating.
For people your age, why do you think Holocaust education is still relevant and important?
Some people my age don’t know anything about the Holocaust. I recently came across a statistic that talked about how little Gen Z knew about the Holocaust. There’s also been a spike in antisemitism and a decrease in awareness of history. For example, with Kanye West, who has a lot of followers, saying antisemitic remarks, a lot of people are going to just go along with what he says. There’s also just been a lot of hate crimes towards Jewish people, especially during COVID.
Lastly, the number of living Holocaust survivors is diminishing by the day. Gen Z is the last generation probably that is ever going to have the ability and the opportunity to speak with Holocaust survivors before they’re all gone. It’s important that we share this book now and then we educate people now before it’s too late.
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The post This 16-year-old turned her grandmother’s Holocaust survival story into a novel appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Mamdani denounces Hamas chants, but his delay draws scrutiny
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is facing mounting scrutiny after a delayed response to a protest in which demonstrators chanted pro-Hamas slogans. The episode reopened lingering doubts among Jewish leaders and voters who have watched Mamdani stumble through earlier flashpoints.
In a statement shared with reporters Friday evening, Mamdani condemned the language used during a protest outside a Queens synagogue Thursday night. The demonstration targeted an event promoting real estate investment in the Jewish communities of Modi’in and Ma’ale Adumim, settlements in the occupied West Bank, and included chants of “Say it loud, say it clear, we support Hamas here.”
Mamdani said the rhetoric and displays at the protest were “wrong and have no place in our city.” An hour later, amid criticism that he had not explicitly named Hamas, he followed up in a post on X, “Chants in support of a terrorist organization have no place in our city.”
It echoed a similar episode after Mamdani’s election in November, when he issued a mixed response to a demonstration outside Manhattan’s Park East Synagogue that featured anti-Israel and antisemitic slogans. He initially questioned the use of a sacred place for an event promoting migration to Israel. He later clarified his statement and said he would consider legislation limiting protests outside synagogues.
Critics said the response, which took nearly a day, was slow and undercut Mamdani’s repeated pledges to protect Jewish New Yorkers, and raised fresh questions about what kind of mayor he intends to be. New York City is home to the largest concentration of Jews in the United States. New York Police Department data shows that antisemitic acts made up 57% of all reported hate crimes citywide in 2025.
A week earlier, on his first day in office, Mamdani — a democratic socialist whose strident criticism of Israel deepened rifts within New York City’s Jewish community during the election — had already drawn criticism from mainstream Jewish organizations for revoking two executive orders by former Mayor Eric Adams that adopted a controversial definition of antisemitism that includes some forms of anti-Zionism, and another penalizing city contractors who engaged in boycotts of Israel.
Mamdani’s response to the Thursday night Hamas chants was issued around 5 pm on Friday. By the time, many Shabbat-observant New Yorkers did not see the mayor’s condemnation until Saturday night.
Some allies who accepted Mamdani’s ideological position privately expressed surprise that the mayor did not immediately denounce the chants, given the predictability of the backlash and the stakes involved. During the election, Mamdani came under fire for his refusal to explicitly condemn the “globalize the intifada” slogan used at some pro-Palestinian protests, perceived by many as a call for violence against Jews.
Adam Carlson, a political polling and research expert, called Mamdani’s statement denouncing the Hamas chants reasonable but “not perfect,” after spending much of the day criticizing the mayor’s lack of response, even as Democratic elected officials and some of Mamdani’s progressive allies issued fierce condemnations. “This is not only hurtful to me,” Carlson wrote on X, “but it’s bad politics and distracts from his agenda.”
Former City Comptroller Scott Stringer, who is Jewish and ran in last year’s Democratic mayoral primary, was even more blunt. “I have never been as concerned about the direction of our city as I am today,” Stringer said in an interview. “We are not up to a strong start in bringing the city together.”
Stringer, who was an active leader in combating anti-Muslim hatred after 9/11, said he had hoped that Mamdani would focus on affordability and issues that unite New Yorkers across communities. “But if that’s not to be, then we will fight politically,” he said. He pointed to the upcoming June primaries for Congress and the State Assembly, in which some of Mamdani’s socialist allies — and candidates he has endorsed — could pay a political price. In New York, Stringer said, “we are at the epicenter of Jewish hate, and we’re not going to stand down and allow this to unfold without a political response.”
Speaking with reporters on Saturday, Mamdani declined to address why he didn’t respond immediately, but said his statement was “consistent with my own politics and my own policies.”
A recent poll found that 55% of non-Jewish voters in New York City say Jewish concerns about feeling threatened by Mamdani’s statements on Israel are an overreaction fueled by politics. By contrast, among a smaller sample of 131 Jewish respondents, 53% say they have reason to feel that way, given Mamdani’s statements and associations.
What other city leaders said
While Mamdani remained silent through much of Friday, other city leaders moved quickly. City Council Speaker Julie Menin, City Comptroller Mark Levine, Gov. Kathy Hochul and Attorney General Letitia James all issued statements strongly condemning the pro-Hamas chants.
Speaking Friday night at Park Avenue Synagogue in Manhattan, Menin, who is the first Jewish speaker in the council’s history, was cautious but optimistic about collaborating with Mamdani on issues related to antisemitism in Israel.
“The Torah reminds us that leadership does not emerge from a place of peace, but from a place of struggle,” Menin told congregants. “When it comes to fighting for our Jewish community, I promise I will be the leader that you can count on — one who stands up to hate, who is not afraid to speak out, and who will not look away when it is uncomfortable or inconvenient.”
Levine, who is also Jewish, said, “There is no ambiguity” in condemning the support of a terrorist organization. “This cannot be normalized or excused,” he wrote on X. “Truly reprehensible.”
Hochul, who is running for reelection this year, said in a joint appearance with Mamdani last week that in her upcoming State of State address on Tuesday, she will announce safety zones around houses of worship “where people can go freely to a safe place without threats of violence or protests.”
The post Mamdani denounces Hamas chants, but his delay draws scrutiny appeared first on The Forward.
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Deaths from Iran Protests Reach More Than 500, Rights Group Says
Smoke rises as protesters gather amid evolving anti-government unrest at Vakilabad highway in Mashhad, Razavi Khorasan province, Iran, released on January 10, 2026, in this screen grab obtained from a social media video. SOCIAL MEDIA/via REUTERS
Unrest in Iran has killed more than 500 people, a rights group said on Sunday, as Tehran threatened to target US military bases if President Donald Trump carries out threats to intervene on behalf of protesters.
With the Islamic Republic’s clerical establishment facing the biggest demonstrations since 2022, Trump has repeatedly threatened to intervene if force is used on protesters.
According to its latest figures – from activists inside and outside Iran – US-based rights group HRANA said it had verified the deaths of 490 protesters and 48 security personnel, with more than 10,600 people arrested in two weeks of unrest.
Iran has not given an official toll and Reuters was unable to independently verify the tolls.
Trump was to be briefed by his officials on Tuesday on options over Iran including military strikes, using secret cyber weapons, widening sanctions and providing online help to anti-government sources, The Wall Street Journal said on Sunday.
Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf warned Washington against “a miscalculation”.
“Let us be clear: in the case of an attack on Iran, the occupied territories (Israel) as well as all US bases and ships will be our legitimate target,” said Qalibaf, a former commander in Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards.
AUTHORITIES INTENSIFY CRACKDOWN
The protests began on December 28 in response to soaring prices, before turning against the clerical rulers who have governed since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Iranian authorities accuse the US and Israel of fomenting trouble and called for a nationwide rally on Monday to condemn “terrorist actions led by the United States and Israel” in Iran, state media reported.
The flow of information from Iran has been hampered by an internet blackout since Thursday.
Footage posted on social media on Saturday from Tehran showed large crowds marching along a street at night, clapping and chanting. The crowd “has no end nor beginning,” a man is heard saying.
In footage from the northeastern city of Mashhad, smoke can be seen billowing into the night sky from fires in the street, masked protesters, and a road strewn with debris, another video posted on Saturday showed. Explosions could be heard.
Reuters verified the locations.
State TV showed dozens of body bags on the ground at the Tehran coroner’s office, saying the dead were victims of events caused by “armed terrorists,” as well as footage of loved ones gathered outside the Kahrizak Forensic Medical Center in Tehran waiting to identify bodies.
Authorities on Sunday declared three days of national mourning “in honor of martyrs killed in resistance against the United States and the Zionist regime,” according to state media.
Three Israeli sources, who were present for Israeli security consultations over the weekend, said Israel was on a high-alert footing for the possibility of any US intervention.
An Israeli military official said the protests were an internal Iranian matter, but Israel’s military was monitoring developments and was ready to respond “with power if need be.”
Israel and Iran fought a 12-day war in June last year, which the United States briefly joined by attacking key nuclear installations. Iran retaliated by firing missiles at Israel and an American air base in Qatar.
IRAN DENOUNCES ‘RIOTERS AND TERRORISTS’
While the Iranian authorities have weathered previous protests, the latest have unfolded with Tehran still recovering from last year’s war and with its regional position weakened by blows to allies such as Lebanon’s Hezbollah since the October 7, 2023 Hamas-led attacks against Israel.
Iran’s unrest comes as Trump flexes US muscles on the world stage, having ousted Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, and floating the possibility of acquiring Greenland by purchase or military force.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, in a TV interview, said Israel and the US were masterminding destabilization and that Iran’s enemies had brought in “terrorists … who set mosques on fire …. attack banks, and public properties.”
“Families, I ask you: do not allow your young children to join rioters and terrorists who behead people and kill others,” he said, adding that the government was ready to listen to the people and to resolve economic problems.
Iran summoned Britain’s ambassador on Sunday to the foreign ministry in Tehran over “interventionist comments” attributed to the British foreign minister and a protester removing the Iranian flag from the London Embassy building and replacing it with a style of flag that was used prior to the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Britain’s foreign office did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
Alan Eyre, a former US diplomat and Iran expert, thought it unlikely the protests would topple the establishment.
“I think it more likely that it puts these protests down eventually, but emerges from the process far weaker,” he told Reuters, noting that Iran’s elite still appeared cohesive and there was no organized opposition.
Iranian state TV broadcast funeral processions in western cities such as Gachsaran and Yasuj for security personnel killed in protests.
State TV said 30 members of the security forces would be buried in the central city of Isfahan and that six more were killed by “rioters” in Kermanshah in the west.
US READY TO HELP, SAYS TRUMP
Trump, posting on social media on Saturday, said: “Iran is looking at FREEDOM, perhaps like never before. The USA stands ready to help!!!”
In a phone call on Saturday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio discussed the possibility of US intervention in Iran, according to an Israeli source present for the conversation.
Some US lawmakers on Sunday questioned the wisdom of taking military action against Iran. Republican Senator Rand Paul and Democratic Senator Mark Warner warned that rather than undermining the regime, a military attack on Iran could rally the people against an outside enemy.
But Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, who has often touted a muscular approach to US foreign policy, advised Trump to “kill the leadership that are killing the people.”
Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of Iran’s last shah and a prominent voice in the fragmented opposition, said Trump had observed Iranians’ “indescribable bravery.” “Do not abandon the streets,” Pahlavi, who is based in the US, wrote on X.
Maryam Rajavi, president-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, a Paris-based Iranian opposition group, wrote on X that people in Iran had “asserted control of public spaces and reshaped Iran’s political landscape.”
Her group, also known as Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MEK), joined the 1979 Revolution but later broke from the ruling clerics and fought them during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s.
Netanyahu, speaking during a cabinet meeting, said Israel was closely monitoring developments. “We all hope that the Persian nation will soon be freed from the yoke of tyranny,” he said.
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Fire at Mississippi’s largest synagogue under federal investigation after arrest
A suspect is in custody as authorities investigate a weekend fire that damaged Mississippi’s largest synagogue, which has been attacked before.
The fire broke out around 3 a.m. Saturday at Beth Israel Congregation, the only synagogue in Jackson, the state capital. Investigators said the blaze originated in the synagogue’s library, burning it and the offices. Soot and smoke damaged the rest of the building, including the sanctuary.
Two of the synagogue’s Torahs, kept in the library, were burned in the fire; another five in the sanctuary were damaged. An additional Torah, rescued from the Holocaust, was behind a glass case and survived the fire.
“At this time, we do have a person in custody for the fire,” said Division Fire Chief Charles Felton, who is overseeing the investigation. The arrest was made at about 8 p.m. Saturday, he said.
Felton said the FBI is now involved and is expected to pursue federal charges, including determining whether the fire qualifies as a hate crime. Local authorities made the initial arrest before federal investigators stepped in, he said.
A reporter who was inside the building before federal authorities secured the scene described extensive damage. Allen Siegler, a reporter with Mississippi Today, said the interior was “very dark and ashen.”
“It was wet — puddles of ashes,” Siegler told the Forward.
Jackson Mayor John Horhn said the fire was an attack not only on the Jewish community, but on the city itself.
“Acts of antisemitism, racism, and religious hatred are attacks on Jackson as a whole and will be treated as acts of terror against residents’ safety and freedom to worship,” Horhn said in a statement. “Jackson stands with Beth Israel and the Jewish community, and we’ll do everything we can to support them and hold accountable anyone who tries to spread fear and hate here.”
A congregation shaped by fire — and defiance
Beth Israel Congregation, which counts around 150 member families, has anchored Jewish life in Jackson since the Civil War, its history closely tracking both the growth of the city and the persistence of a small but visible Jewish community in Mississippi’s capital.
Founded in the early 1860s, the congregation built Mississippi’s first synagogue — a modest structure on South State Street that doubled as a schoolhouse. It burned in an 1874 fire, a common fate of 19th century wooden buildings, though the cause of the fire is not recorded. The congregation built a new brick structure on the same site, dedicated in 1875.
As Jewish families moved within Jackson, Beth Israel moved with them, relocating first to Woodrow Wilson Avenue and, in the 1960s, to its current home in northeast Jackson.
By the mid-20th century, Beth Israel had become the largest Jewish congregation in the state and a familiar civic presence in a predominantly Christian city — a visibility that brought both belonging and risk.
In September 1967, Ku Klux Klan members bombed the synagogue just weeks after the building was dedicated, damaging the rabbi’s office and library. The home of Rabbi Perry Nussbaum, a vocal supporter of the civil rights movement who had helped the Freedom Riders, was also bombed shortly afterward. No one was injured, and the congregation held High Holiday services in the building that same year.
Rabbi Valerie Cohen, who led Beth Israel from 2003 to 2014 and is now at Temple Emanuel Sinai in Worcester, Massachusetts, said the echoes between past and present were impossible to miss.
“The majority of the damage is in the same place as the bombing,” said Cohen, 54.
The fire felt especially disorienting, she said, because she had been inside the building just days earlier.
“That made this moment sad and surreal and awful,” Cohen said. “I was just there last Shabbat, officiating at a wedding for one of my bar mitzvah students from there that is all grown up now. I participated in the Torah study on Saturday morning in the library, led by their current spiritual leader.”
Cohen described Beth Israel as “very resilient throughout the years” and “very integral” to the Jackson community, noting that many non-Jewish residents know the synagogue through its longtime preschool and annual bazaar.
Despite the damage, congregants say Jewish life in Jackson will continue.
Tamar Sharp, 67, a member of Beth Israel since 2006, is scheduled to celebrate her adult bat mitzvah this coming Shabbat — even if it must be held in a borrowed space with a borrowed Torah.
“Absolutely,” Sharp said. “The show must go on.”
The post Fire at Mississippi’s largest synagogue under federal investigation after arrest appeared first on The Forward.