Features
Holocaust survivor – and great boxer, Harry Haft
By MARTIN ZEILIG Harry Haft Survivor of Auschwitz, Challenger of Rocky Marciano by Alan Scott Haft is the firsthand testimony of the author’s father, Harry Haft , “a Holocaust survivor with a singular story of endurance, desperation, and unrequited love,” noted an earlier commentary on the book.
“Harry Haft was a sixteen-year-old Polish Jew when he entered a concentration camp in 1944,” says online material about Haft. “Forced to fight other Jews in bare-knuckle bouts for the perverse entertainment of SS officers, Haft quickly learned that his own survival depended on his ability to fight and win. Ultimately escaping the camp, Haft left an embittered and pugnacious young man. Determined to find freedom, Haft traveled to America and began a career as a professional boxer, quickly finding success using his sharp instincts and fierce confidence.
“In a historic battle, Haft fights in a match with Rocky Marciano, the future undefeated heavyweight champion of the world. Haft’s boxing career takes him into the world of such boxing legends as Rocky Graziano, Roland La Starza, and Artie Levine, and he reveals new details about the rampant corruption at all levels of the sport. Harry Haft is an embattled survivor, challenging the reader’s capacity to understand suffering and find compassion for an antihero whose will to survive threatens his own humanity. Haft’s account, at once dispassionate and deeply absorbing, is an extraordinary story and an invaluable contribution to Holocaust literature.”
Now, the story has been made into a major motion picture.
The biographical movie, Harry Haft, is directed by Barry Levinson (Rain Man, Wag the Dog, and numerous other movies), and stars Ben Foster as the title character. The cast also includes Danny DeVito, Vicky Krieps, Peter Sarsgaard, and John Leguizamo, notes Wikipedia and the Internet Movie Database. The movie will be released sometime this year on a streaming service.
Alan Haft, a retired lawyer in Albuquerque New Mexico, agreed to conduct an interview with The Jewish Post & News about his father, the book and the upcoming movie. It was done via email.
JP&N: What prompted you to write the book about your father?
Alan Haft: Ever since I was a college student, my father had been asking me to write the story of his life. I did not want to. I did not want to hear any of his excuses for his abusive behavior, experienced by me, my brother and sister, and mother.
But, in 2003, he was diagnosed with lung cancer – and he expressed genuine remorse for his treatment of his family. Although his memory was slipping, I felt it was the last opportunity to learn what made him who he was.
It took several weeks to record his story, and months to write. It reads like a journal, hampered by his inability to express himself and failing memory.
JP&N: What was your relationship like with your father?
AH: My relationship with my father was torturous. As a boy I was forced to work at an early age at his fruit and vegetable stand (pushcarts) on Blake Ave. in Brooklyn, then in various fruit and vegetable stores he had in African American neighborhoods.
My mother was American, and my father was a “refugee”. He could not read or write, so he could not help me with my homework, or throw a baseball and have a catch. My discipline was brutal beatings, and the belt was fast to come off his pants.
I was under constant pressure to get good grades, without any help – and since he was known in our neighborhood as ‘Harry the Fighter,’ all the other kids took pleasure in beating me up. If I lost a fight, even with someone years older, I’d get beat up again by him at home. My mother also suffered physical and emotional abuse. He was always out at night, either gambling or chasing women. I often slept with a bottle under my pillow in case he came back drunk and wanted to hurt me.
He had terrible nightmares, and a raging temper which was easy to set off. He threatened suicide all the time, scaring me half to death, forcing me to cry and beg him not to.
JP&N: I guess, then, that your father wasn’t a religious man?
AH: He lost his faith in God in the camps, and although he grew up in a Hassidic household, he always expressed his disdain for religion. Strangely enough, I never went to Hebrew school, but a Bar Mitzvah was important, so I read the English transliteration of the Torah.
JP&N: Writing the book must have been an emotionally wrenching experience?
AH: I learned about what his life was like as a boy in Poland before the war. What surprised me about his Holocaust experience was the number of civilians, in addition to the other fighters, that he had to kill to survive.
When my mother died I wrote him this letter, but I had no place to mail it to.
September 30, 2019
Dear Popsie,
You’ve been gone nearly 12 years, and I miss not having a father. Growing up, you beat me, for my childish misbehavior. The rage you had inside, you often took out on me. I feared your very presence. You broke furniture and punched out windows – abused mom to no end. Despite the abuse, mom always protected you – excused your behavior because of your “background.” I could not excuse you, until I learned what that background was. I was ashamed of you. You could not read or write. You spoke broken English with a thick accent – and had those green numbers on your arm.
I wish I knew then what I know now. You suffered terribly at the hands of the Nazis. You saw horror, and were forced to participate in it. After you told me all about your ordeal, what you had to do just to live another day, it helped me understand why you were who you were and are who you are. I now see how sorry you are for the abuse –
How can anyone judge you? They call you a holocaust survivor – but does anyone really survive. It has been said that the Nazi’s murdered your soul.
Popsie, I have spent my later years trying to make the world better for you. Your story was published by Syracuse University Press, you were inducted into the Jewish Sports Hall of Fame, there is now a major motion picture about your life; I know that you would have been happy that I made you famous.
Despite the physical and psychological abuse – I would want you to know I forgive you. Mom died this summer. She was the angel sent by God to care for you.
Now it’s your turn to take care of her.
Love,
Alan
JP&N: What was the public’s reaction when the hardcopy version of your book was released some years ago?
AH: After the book was published in 2006 his story took on a life of its own. Strangers were putting “movie teasers” on the internet. It was republished in Germany. Reinhard Kleist, a renowned German artist, turned it into a Graphic Novel.
It has been translated into German, Italian, English, Bulgarian, Portuguese, French, Greek, Indonesian, Czech, Serbian, Hebrew, Spanish, Chinese and Macedonian. In 2017 an award winning screenplay was written by Justine Gillmer, and it attracted the attention of Barry Levinson.
I read the screenplay and loved it. But aside from approving the treatment, I had no role in the production.
JP&N: Is there anything else you’d like to share with our readers?
AH: I have not seen the movie, but I was shown a 5 minute clip and it was awesome. Ben Foster, had to play my father from age 16 – late 30’s. He lost 60 pounds to play the role in the Camps, had to buff up to fight Roland La Starza and Rocky Marciano, then play my father as an out of shape late 30’s.
Filming was completed last summer, and was to open in theaters this winter, but COVID- 19 has forced them to sell it to a streaming service, like Netflix or Amazon. It should be available this year.
Harry Haft Survivor of Auschwitz, Challenger of Rocky Marciano , 208 pages, is published by Syracuse University Press, and is available in paperback for $14.95 US.
Features
Rabbi Gary Zweig’s new book provides humorous and moving accounts of making minyans in unlikely circumstances
By MYRON LOVE The recitation of the kaddish is a central tenet of Jewish religious life. Even members of our community who are largely secular will likely recite the words of the kaddish for a parent, sibling or spouse at some point in their lives – even if only at the grave site.
The kaddish can only be recited publicly in the presence of a minyan – a gathering of ten (men in the Orthodox tradition. The number, as explained by Rabbi Gedalia (Gary Zweig), stems from the number of spies – as written in the Torah – whom Moshe rabbenu sent into the promised land and who came back with negative reports as compared to the two spies – one of whom was Joshua – who said that the land was flowing with milk and honey.
It is this challenge of putting together minyans for a mourner to recite the kaddish in different locales and circumstances – when a minyan in a shul is not possible – that is the subject of Zweig’a newly released book, “Kaddish Around the World” – a 90-plus page compilation of short stories – some humourous, some heartwarming – of successful efforts to recruit enough daveners for a kaddish minyan, ranging in time and space from a Super Bowl game in San Diego to the middle of a game reserve in South Africa to a Jewish museum in Cordoba in Spain – in a city largely devoid of Jews.
Zweig, who hails from Toronto, was in Winnipeg over Yom Tov to lead services – along with Toronto-based Chazan Manny Aptowitser – at the Chavurat Tefila Talmud Torah Synagogue. On the Tuesday just before Yom Kippur, the synagogue hosted an evening to provide the rabbi with a venue to discuss his new book – a sequel to his first book, “Living Kaddish,” which he released in 2007 (and has been translated into Russian and Spanish).
Zweig is one of the original Aish Hatorah-trained rabbis – having attained his smicha in 1982 from Rabbi Noah Weinberg, the founder of Aish Hatorah. He (Zweig) is much travelled, himself having led Yom Tov services in such exotic locales as Bermuda, Barbados and Curacao in the Caribbean, Mexico and Sweden.
Zweig noted that he was inspired to write “Living Kaddish” after his mother passed away in 2002 when, on one occasion, he was not able to find a minyan so that he could say kaddish.
In his presentation at the Chavurat Tefila, he observed that the first Jew to mention kaddish is purported to be Rueven – about 3,500 years ago – on the passing of his father, Yaacov (Israel). About 900 C.E., Zweig continued, kaddish became part of the liturgy and, 200 years later, was included in the siddur.
It is interesting, he noted, that kaddish is said not for the deceased, but, rather, the living. There is no mention of the Lord in the kaddish either. Kaddish is actually a prayer for hope and the future.
For a parent, one is required to say kaddish three times a day – morning, afternoon and evening – for 11 months. For a sibling, child (God forbid), relative or others, the requirement is just 30 days.
One of the stories in “Kaddish Around the World” tells of one of Zweig’s own experiences – after his father died in 20201 at the age of 101. The author happened to be at a family bar mitzvah in Orlando several months later. He fully expected that in a city with a Jewish population the size of Orlando, he wouldn’t have any trouble putting together a minyan for a Sunday morning. He felt even more confident when he noticed that an AMOR Rabbis convention was being held at the same hotel. On inquiring which sort of rabbis these were, he learned that AMOR stood for “Association of Messianic Rabbis”.
Come Sunday morning, most of the bar mitzvah guests had gone home. He could only muster eight for the minyan. He thought he could try the messianic group in the hope that some of them may have been born Jewish. Four of the group offered to help. A Chabad rabbi suggested that Zweig ascertain that each had two Jewish parents. Two qualified.
Zweig quoted one of the two messianic rabbis who said, after the service that ”this was the most moving service I have ever experienced.”
“Maybe Hashem brought me to that particular hotel at that particular time so that I could provide them with little spark of what Judaism is about,” Zweig said.
Another of the stories in the book concerns a shopkeeper in an American mall where many of the other store owners were also Jewish. The individual, Yossi, needed a minyan for mincha (the afternoon prayer) but couldn’t afford to close his business. He figured he could round up enough of the other store keepers to form a minyan. Everyone he approached was willing to come if he were to be the tenth. (In my own years organizing minyans, that was something I heard often enough – “call me if I will be the tenth”). Yossi’s solution was to assure each one he asked that, yes, he would be the tenth.
“Kaddish Around the World” is available on Amazon and also in digital ebook format and as an audio book.
In addition to being a rabbi and author, Zweig also is a singer/songwriter working in his own genre – Jewish rock and roll. He has a band called “The Kiddush Club,” and a CD called “TOYS.” In addition, he has recently launched a YouTube channel called “Living Kaddish”.
Features
The Gaza Peace Plan is not a Done Deal, but an Opening
By HENRY SREBRNIK (Oct. 23, 2025) The idea that Hamas will voluntarily disarm, that international forces will deploy in the Gaza Strip, and that the process of building a Palestinian government by people like former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, in which a disarmed Hamas does not participate, are false hopes, if not fantasies. But does this mean U.S. President Donald Trump’s peace plan was useless? Of course not.
Trump understood the necessity of bringing the war to an end. But he also believed that endless debate among experts or, worse, historian and lawyers, would never produce an agreement. He presented an offer – actually, an ultimatum – to Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas that neither could refuse: immediate, unconditional and complete release of all hostages and missing persons, something the Israeli public longed for, in exchange for a final end to the war, which a humbled Hamas needed.
Two years of war has left Hamas weaker than it had been in decades. Israeli bombardments had shattered the group’s military capabilities and depleted its arsenals. In many neighborhoods, control had drifted to local clan networks and tribal councils. This hinted at something that could one day replace Hamas’s iron grip. To prevent this, Hamas has been ruthlessly murdering all potential rivals in the areas of Gaza it controls since the ceasefire went into effect.
Despite the severe degradation of its military capabilities during the war, Hamas still has more soldiers and weapons than all its rival factions in Gaza combined. Hamas has managed to redeploy approximately 7,000 militants to reassert control over the territory. They have publicized photographs and videos of their forces murdering and torturing; the victims include women and children.
The ceasefire is a temporary reprieve for Hamas: a chance to regroup, rearm, and prepare for the next round of fighting. In Islamist political thought there’s a word for it, hudna — a temporary truce with non-Muslim adversaries that can be discarded as soon as the balance of power shifts. Then the time for jihad will arrive again. Hamas was established in 1987 and isn’t going to disappear.
In fact Hamas also says it expects an interim International Transitional Authority to hire 40,000 Hamas employees, and Hamas spokesman Basem Naim says he expects its fighters to be integrated into a post-transition Palestinian state.
Still, Trump has succeeded in ending the current war in Gaza, where Joe Biden failed. Biden’s national security team, drawn almost entirely from his supposed expert class, didn’t even see the crisis coming. Just five days before the attack, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan had published an article in Foreign Affairs in which he wrote that “the region is quieter than it has been for decades.”
Biden also had insulted the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, by publicly condemning the 2018 murder of Saudi dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi. And, of course, there was Biden’s poor relationship with Netanyahu, and his chronic inability to get the Israeli prime minister to do what he wanted.
By contrast, Trump returned to office with substantially more influence in both the Gulf and Israel, based on his first-term successes in the Middle East, especially the Abraham Accords (for which he’s never been praised by his political enemies).
Four Arab countries formally recognized Israel, beginning with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, followed by Sudan and Morocco. The next stage was intended to include Saudi Arabia. One motive put forward by some analysts for the October 7 attacks was that they were intended to provoke Israel into a response that would derail Saudi Arabia’s admission.
Instead of sitting Israelis and Arabs in a room and expecting them to negotiate an outcome, Trump’s approach has been to exert leverage through other players in the region, especially, Egypt, Turkey, and – most importantly – Qatar.
In Jerusalem, they call Qatar “the spoiler state.” Israelis describe the emirate as two trains running behind the same engine. One, led by the Qatari ruler’s mother and brother, supports the Muslim Brotherhood and is an unmistakable hater of Israel. The other, led by the prime minister, Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani and several other senior figures, seeks rapprochement with the West.
The Qataris were shocked when Israeli jets on Sept. 9 conducted an airstrike in Doha targeting the leadership of Hamas. They then signed onto Trump’s peace plan at a meeting in New York Sept. 23, hosted by Trump and Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim Ibn Hamad Al Thani, and attended by the leaders of eight Arab states, along with members of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation.
Netanyahu was then browbeaten into accepting the plan (and also forced to apologize to the Emir for the airstrike). It was somewhat ironic that the airstrike made the peace plan possible. As well, Trump’s attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities in June gave this negotiation some very sharp teeth.
“If you would rather leave peacemaking to the historians and diplomats, then you may wait a long time for wars to end,” suggested Niall Ferguson of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, in an Oct. 15 Free Press article. His advice? Go to the “deal guys: They get the job done.”
In a sense, both Israel and Hamas had accomplished their goals. Israel had broken the Iranian axis of terror by eliminating Hezbollah and Hamas as a fighting force, along with the Iranian nuclear threat. Hamas had succeeded in luring Israel into a trap that led it to become hated and isolated around the world. This included the labelling of Israel as genocidal and the global call for a Palestinian state.
The rest of the 20-point peace plan will be addressed in a step-by-step fashion. Meanwhile, Israel must ensure that it retains freedom of action in Gaza, by decisive action against any attempt by Hamas to rebuild its army, its rockets, its battalions and its divisions.
Henry Srebrnik is a professor of political science at the University of Prince Edward Island.
Features
Why Fitness Routines Fall Apart — and How to Rebuild Yours
Every spring, gyms see a flood of hopeful faces. New shoes, fresh playlists, unwavering intentions, by mid-summer? Half of them vanish into the fog of abandoned routines. The story repeats year after year until it starts to feel almost scripted. Why does enthusiasm evaporate? The easy answer involves willpower but that explanation misses the point. Habits don’t fail because people are weak. Life stress, boredom, and monotony ruin routines. Timely lever pulls can change narratives. The hardest part is persevering when motivation wanes.
Mistaking Motivation for Momentum
Most chase that opening surge, the lightning strike of motivation, but then stop searching once enthusiasm fizzles. A scroll through sites like PUR Pharma (pur-pharma.is/) or a glimpse of an influencer’s progress triggers a burst of action: new workout gear ordered, plans scribbled in planners destined for dusty drawers. Yet momentum fades when small setbacks pop up (a late meeting here, rainy weather there). Real progress comes from building systems stronger than any fleeting pep talk. Those who frame fitness as something owed to motivation end up back at square one every time life interrupts, which it always does.
Overcomplicating Everything
It’s tempting to turn wellness into a science fair project with spreadsheets and specialized equipment lined up on day one. This is the allure of complexity disguised as seriousness, a new diet paired with seven types of supplements and four color-coded bottles. Simplicity gets lost in the noise almost instantly. Most successful routines rely on two principles: keep it simple and keep showing up even when everything else is chaos outside those gym walls. Anyone insisting that perfection is required before taking step one has already constructed an excuse not to begin at all.
Forgetting Fun Completely
Who decided exercise must hurt or look like punishment? Somewhere along the line, fun got swapped out for grind culture and “no pain, no gain.” That isn’t just unappealing, it’s unsustainable over months or years. If sessions feel like torture devices borrowed from medieval times, nobody should be surprised when commitment falters fast. Seek activities that actually spark some joy or curiosity, a dance class instead of yet another treadmill session, maybe, or play a pickup game rather than slogging through solo circuits again and again.
Ignoring Recovery (and Reality)
Sleep deprivation, disguised as discipline, fools anyone, except perhaps uncritical Instagram followers. Ignoring recovery turns ambition into tiredness faster than any missed session. Because bodies break without rest, routines must breathe with owners. Cycling, real leisure, and honest self-checks regarding weekly goals build endurance, not continual pushing.
Conclusion
Change rarely arrives by force alone but usually grows quietly from patterns repeated imperfectly over time, even if last month looked nothing like this week so far. Drop the hunt for nonstop inspiration. Instead of breaking behaviors at the first hint of stress or boredom, build habits that last. People who rebuild methodically after every stumble or detour make progress, not those who peak and then fall.