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When a Jewish paperboy played Santa — and the journalist who never forgot him
On a blizzardy Chicago night in December 1967, a reporter named Leonard Fisher happened upon a 10-year-old boy dragging a newspaper sack and buying an item at a Magnificent Mile gift shop.
“Looks like you’re playing Santa Claus this Christmas,” Fisher said to the youngster.
“No, this is for my mom,” the boy replied. “She’s Jewish — it’s a Hanukkah present. I’m Jewish too. See, if your mom is Jewish, you are too.”
The boy went on to explain that his father wasn’t Jewish, so he bought him a Christmas present, as well as gifts for other members of his interfaith family. He also had a present from a customer on his newspaper route, and a pocketful of holiday tips.
I know that story well because I was that kid.
I also know details I may have otherwise forgotten because of the article Fisher wrote about our encounter for United Press International. It ran in newspapers nationwide, under headlines like “Jewish Boy Becomes 10-Year-Old Santa Claus.”
The response was overwhelming, with readers across the country sending me cards and checks. I picked them up at the UPI office, and visited Fisher a few times after that.
Eventually, however, we lost touch — until 2017, 50 years later.
While searching online, I came across my name in The East Hampton Star, a community paper near Fisher’s Long Island home. After retirement, he’d rewritten the story, calling it one of the most memorable of his career.
By then, I too had become a journalist, and Fisher’s son, Ari, found my byline in The Boston Globe.
There weren’t many Lenny Fishers listed on Long Island. I called the first one I found.
“Hello, I’m looking for Leonard Fisher,” I said.
“This is he.”
“This is Robin Washington.”
“Oh, you’re kidding! I’ve been meaning to call you to see if you were the same guy. You fit all the descriptions and that kind of stuff. You’re the same guy, yes?”
“I’m the same guy.”
“Incredible. Fifty years later!”
Fisher recalled our first meeting.
“I watched you walk down the street that day,” he said, recalling my 4-foot-4 frame braving the elements. “The wind was howling. And I said to myself, you know, ‘If ever” — and I’m Jewish — “if ever there was a Santa Claus, man, there he goes, right there.”
He also said he was blown away by the mail that came in. “I’ve never seen such a response. For people to send money in on a story, you know, a lot of people were moved by it.”
A large part of that was in the way Fisher told it: Describing every detail, capturing me perfectly, as in this exchange:
“Is there anything special you want Santa to bring you?” the man asked.
The boy smiled: “I’m Jewish, remember?”
“Well, is there any one thing you wish for, or do you want a lot of things?”
“I wish people would stop having wars.”
That had to strike a nerve in 1967.
Fisher’s wife Susanna said the story stayed with him because it broke from the corruption and calamity more typical of his career, most of it at the Newark Star-Ledger.
“He covered 9-11, but he was really kind of shell-shocked by that. Couldn’t stand loud noises and stuff,” she said. “The story about you was a really positive thing. And, as you know, in the news business, there aren’t a lot of really positive stories.”
He framed a copy, which his daughter Rachel has on her apartment wall.
“He had particular stories that he would tell us as kids over and over again,” Rachel said. “It was like a holiday movie. I could really just picture it.”
Fisher asked if he influenced me in going into the business. I usually answer that I had few mentors, but if there was anyone, it was him. Those visits to the UPI office were formative, and as paperboys, I said, “we always felt we were in the newspaper business. You didn’t disabuse me of that notion.”
And making up for a half-century, we swapped journalism tales, including stories we both covered and people we both knew in the business. Most importantly, we planned to meet in person.
We never did.
Lenny Fisher died in 2024. A tree-planting and celebration at his favorite restaurant in the Village was planned for his yahrtzeit last June, but postponed; I’m sure it’ll happen in due time.
Because we were both journalists, we knew to record the call, by the way.
“Go ahead, record,” he said. “This is the perfect Christmas/Hanukkah story,” he said. “You can’t make this up.”
The post When a Jewish paperboy played Santa — and the journalist who never forgot him appeared first on The Forward.
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Ukraine, Russia Swap 193 Prisoners of War Each in US, UAE-Facilitated Exchange
Ukrainian prisoners of war (POWs) react after a swap, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, at an unknown location in Ukraine, April 24, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Anatolii Stepanov
Ukraine and Russia conducted a prisoner of war swap on Friday, sending back 193 captured personnel each in an exchange both sides said was facilitated by the United States and the United Arab Emirates.
“It is important that there are exchanges and that our people are returning home,” said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in a post on Telegram.
His chief of staff, Kyrylo Budanov, and Russia‘s defence ministry said the US and the UAE had assisted with the exchange.
Russia and Ukraine have conducted many prisoner swaps over four years of war, exchanging thousands of captives in total.
Zelenskiy said some of the returned captives, who included soldiers, border guards, and police, had injuries, while others had faced criminal charges in Russia.
In Ukraine, returning captives streamed off buses, many draped in their country’s flag and overwhelmed with emotion.
“It still hasn’t sunk in that I’m home, I was in captivity for three years … our Ukrainian sky, our trees — this is happiness,” said Serhiy, a soldier, who gave only his first name.
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Main Suspect in Syria’s Tadamon Massacre Arrested, Ministry Says
Residents gather in a street after Friday prayers to celebrate the arrest of Amjad Yousef, a key suspect in the 2013 Tadamon massacre, in Tadamon, Syria, April 24, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Khalil Ashawi
Syria’s Interior Ministry said on Friday it had arrested the main suspect in the 2013 Tadamon massacre, one of the worst acts of violence attributed to the former government of Bashar al-Assad, in which 288 civilians were killed.
The ministry released footage of Amjad Yousef’s arrest in the Al-Ghab Plain area of Hama province in western Syria, near his hometown. Yousef had been hiding there since the overthrow of Assad at the end of 2024, a security source told Reuters.
US Special Envoy for Syria Tom Barrack welcomed the arrest in a post on X, calling it an important step towards accountability for atrocities committed during Syria’s war.
DOCUMENTING THE MASSACRE
Yousef, 40, a former member of military intelligence under Assad, was thrust into the spotlight in April 2022 when the UK’s Guardian newspaper published videos provided by two academics that they said showed him forcing blindfolded civilians to run towards a pit in the Tadamon neighborhood of southern Damascus before shooting them.
Annsar Shahoud, a researcher at the University of Amsterdam Holocaust and Genocide Center and one of the academics, spent four years documenting the massacre.
Posing as an online fangirl, Shahoud gained Yousef’s trust and ultimately obtained his confessions both on video and audio recording.
Reuters was unable to reach Yousef for comment as he has been taken into custody.
The massacre is one of the most egregious documented incidents of violence attributed to the Assad government during the 14-year bloody war that began in 2011.
After Assad’s fall at the end of 2024, civilians, media outlets and international organizations went to the site of the massacre to inspect it and interview witnesses. Locals refer to the site as “Amjad Yousef’s Pit.” It has been marked on Google Maps as “The Site of the Tadamon Massacre.”
Ahmed Adra, a Tadamon resident and a member of the neighborhood committee, said victims’ families had been celebrating in the streets since morning.
“We will take white roses and plant them at the site of the massacre and tell the victims that their memory is alive and that justice is being served,” he told Reuters.
Shahoud said she now felt safe with Yousef in custody, but added the path to justice in Syria was unclear and did not include all perpetrators.
“I feel safe now, despite the distance, because I always felt for years that this person was after me,” she told Reuters.
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Merz Floats Sanctions Relief for Iran Peace Deal, Other EU Leaders Cautious
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz speaks during a cabinet meeting at the Chancellery in Berlin, Germany, Feb. 4, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Liesa Johannssen
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz suggested on Friday that the European Union could ease sanctions on Tehran as part of a comprehensive deal that would end the Iran war, but other EU leaders struck a more cautious note.
The 27-nation EU has imposed sanctions on Iran for years, including travel bans and asset freezes for senior officials and entities, in response to human rights violations, nuclear activities, and military support for Russia.
US officials have suggested a comprehensive deal covering Iran‘s nuclear and missile programs and the re-opening of the Strait of Hormuz could bring a lasting end to the US-Israeli war with Tehran, beyond the current ceasefire.
After an EU summit in Cyprus, Merz said the bloc could gradually ease sanctions on Iran in the event that a comprehensive agreement was reached.
European leaders have been largely sidelined in the current Middle East conflict but some European officials see the bloc’s sanctions as a possible way for the EU to be involved in a diplomatic solution.
“The easing of sanctions can be part of a process,” Merz told reporters after the Nicosia summit.
“No one has objected to that,” he said of the summit deliberations. “It is, so to speak, part of the contribution we can make to advance this process and, hopefully, lead to a permanent ceasefire.”
But European Council President Antonio Costa, the chair of the summit, told a press conference after the end of the meeting: “It is too early to talk about relieving any kind of sanctions.”
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said sanctions relief could only come after clear evidence of fundamental changes of course from Iran.
“We believe that sanctions relief should be conditional on verification of de-escalation, particularly on progress on the international effort to contain its nuclear threat, and on a change to the repression of its own people,” she told the same press conference.