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A Holocaust survivor and her family saw ‘Leopoldstadt.’ The Broadway play told their story.
(New York Jewish Week) — On a Wednesday evening last month, three generations of a Jewish family made their way to their seats at the Longacre Theater to see “Leopoldstadt,” Tom Stoppard’s epic Broadway play about the tragedies that befall an extended Jewish family in the first half of the 20th century in Vienna.
The date of the family gathering was a significant one: Nov. 9, the 84th anniversary of the Nazi pogroms known as Kristallnacht. And in the audience was Fini Konstat, 96, who lived in the once thriving Jewish neighborhood after which the play is named, and witnessed the horrors it portrays first-hand. Alongside her were her daughter and her son-in-law, Renee and James Akers, and her oldest great-grandchild, Lexi Levin, 23.
When Konstat was a child, she lived in a “nice apartment” in Leopoldstadt. But exactly 84 years to the day of their theater date, “I was running with my father, seeing all the Jewish stores with all their windows broken,” she told Levin in a short video her great-granddaughter filmed before the curtain rose.
“It’s such a blessing for me to be here with you,” Levin said to her great-grandmother in response. “Ninety-six years old, survived a pandemic, at a Broadway show in New York City.”
Left: Fini as a child on the balcony of her apartment in Leopoldstadt. Right: Fini with her three children in front of the very same building, pictured in 2015. (Courtesy)
Since the beginning of its Broadway run in mid-September, “Leopoldstadt,” with its depiction of a prosperous Viennese family on the brink of destruction, has moved audiences to tears and inspired deep reflections on the Holocaust. Based on the celebrated playwright’s own family history — of which he was barely aware while growing up in England — it has provided a stark counterpoint to news about rising antisemitism and the celebrities who have been purveying it.
But for Konstat, the play was much more personal. “When I heard the word ‘Leopoldstadt,’ this alone gave me lots of thrills and memories,” Konstat, who is known in her family as Mimi, told the New York Jewish Week in accented English. She recalled how Levin, who recently moved to the city, invited her to fly to New York to see one of Broadway’s hottest tickets.
“Leopoldstadt,” she repeated, her voice breaking. “The second district. That’s where we lived.”
At the end of Stoppard’s five-act play, audiences learn that most of the Jewish characters had perished under the Nazis — of the four generations in the show, just three cousins survive to carry on the family’s legacy.
For Konstat too, she and her parents were among the very few in their extended family to survive the Holocaust. “Almost all of them went to Auschwitz or other camps,” Konstat said. “My mother was a twin and only the twins remained alive. [My mother’s] five other siblings and my grandmother perished.”
L-R: Renee Akers, James Akers, Lexi Levin and Fini Konstat at the Longacre Theater to see Tom Stoppard’s ‘Leopoldstadt on Broadway,’ Nov. 9, 2022. (Courtesy)
In a Zoom conversation held over Thanksgiving weekend, Konstat, surrounded by two of her daughters, two of her granddaughters and three of her great-granddaughters, shared what the play meant to her — and how her family has restored what she lost.
In the months after Kristallnacht in 1938, Konstat and her parents hid in a neighbor’s apartment; Konstat recalls hiding under the duvet when German soldiers showed up. Eventually the family fled to Turkey, and then to India, before settling down in Mexico City. There, the teenage Fini met her husband David, also a survivor who escaped Poland. The two of them began to write the rest of their story — starting with the birth of the first of their three children in 1948.
Unlike many Holocaust survivors, Fini and David Konstat were open about their experiences during the war, instilling a sense of pride and duty to remember in their children — something that eventually extended to their grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
“They were proud to speak about how they survived this,” said the Konstats’ middle child, Renee Konstat Akers. “Their life was an odyssey. They had the courage to do things that you would never think were possible. We grew up grateful knowing how our family survived in that incredible way.”
Each child moved to different places as they grew up and got married. Manuel, the oldest, stayed in Mexico. Renee married an American and moved to the Midwest, and Denise, the youngest, to Houston. Each became deeply involved in their Jewish communities, sending their children (Konstat’s grandchildren) to Jewish day schools, celebrating Jewish holidays and participating in synagogue life.
“The word ‘miracle’ really does not feel like an understatement in this scenario,” said Sherry Levin, one of Konstat’s grandchildren. “When we think about what it took for my grandmother and grandfather to survive and how they were able to intersect in Mexico, and such an amazing multi-generational family has come to fruition, it feels miraculous.”
Pictured here on their 40th anniversary, Fini and her husband David met in Mexico City after both had fled Europe. They were married 54 years before David died in 2001. (Courtesy)
Reviews of the show have ranged from rhapsodic to resistant, with some critics suggesting the play is simplistic and obvious in its story-telling or that it is less a well-crafted play than a well-meaning lesson on the Holocaust.
But just as the Merz family clashes and argues about everything from antisemitism to intermarriage to socialism in “Leopoldstadt,” each generation of the Konstat family that saw “Leopoldstadt” that night came away with something different — a reaction influenced by their age, their Jewish identity, their nationality and their relationship with their family.
For Konstat, the arc of “Leopoldstadt” was so familiar that it hardly stirred her. “It was just very happy watching it and enjoying it and enjoying my children with me, “ she told the New York Jewish Week. “I didn’t think about anybody else.”
Akers, too, felt an intense familiarity with the story, and, perhaps toughened by her own family history, didn’t experience an intense emotional reaction. Her own parents’ lives gave Akers a sense of purpose in her life — for example, in the 1990s, she was passionate about helping resettle Jews fleeing the former Soviet Union. With her own children, she instilled in them a strong sense of Jewish purpose in their work, their education and their family.
“I was a sandwich in between seeing my mother and my granddaughter,” she said of her “Leopoldstadt” experience. “I was emotional thinking of my mom who went through it, but I was more emotional about seeing my granddaughter be so moved. It really hit her at her core.”
Indeed, it was the youngest member of the family present that night who was most shaken by the play.
“It really felt like a gift to my family and to me, specifically, to be able to see what Mimi’s life looked like before the war,” Lexi Levin said, surmising that, as a fourth-generation survivor, she is among the first in her family to be able to start processing the loss on a grander scale.
“For the first time in my life, I really felt the magnitude of her loss,” she added. “I’ve known her story and I’ve been inspired by her story to be involved with my own Jewish causes, but I have never been able to access and truly empathize with her grief and what it meant that she lost the entire family she had before this one that she created.”
Turning to her great-grandmother, as if trying to make her understand the exact precision of the show, Levin explained, “It’s a play about generations and the family was large and then it was small.”
“You made it large again,” she said, referring to the generations of family that had assembled — in the Broadway theater and again over Thanksgiving weekend. “Look at this room.”
Pictured on her 90th birthday in 2017, Fini Konstat now has three children, ten grandchildren and twenty great-grandchildren. (Courtesy)
There was a coda for the family after the curtain went down. The day after the show, the family wanted to see the 1907 “Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I,” one of Gustav Klimt’s most famous paintings, which currently hangs at the Neue Galerie on the Upper East Side. A version of the portrait’s true story — how a painting of a socialite from a prominent Viennese Jewish family was looted by the Nazis and the family’s efforts to get it back — features in the plot of “Leopoldstadt.”
The gallery, however, was closed on the only day the family could visit. After a call to the management at the gallery, which showcases the German and Austrian art collections of Jewish philanthropist Ronald S. Lauder, the gallery’s director arranged a private tour.
“It felt like we were in a puzzle and everything was finally coming together,” said Akers. “It was an emotional, emotional time.”
When the week was over and the emotions were spent, Konstat and the Akers returned home with a reignited passion for their family story. But there was yet another twist: In addition to the whirlwind trip Levin planned for her grandparents and for Mimi, she had been undergoing the laborious process of applying for Austrian citizenship. Six members in Konstat’s large family have undertaken the process over the last two years.
“Part of the motivation was knowing Mimi’s story, and knowing that she survived because her mother had citizenship in Turkey,” Levin said. “That story was just inspirational to me, knowing that dual citizenship was what saved our family.” She convinced her brother and mother to apply for Austrian citizenship as well.
The day after her grandmother and great-grandmother left New York, Levin called them with news from her small apartment in Manhattan: An Austrian passport had arrived in the mail. The curtain was rising on another act.
Konstat was surprised at how interested her family was in getting Austrian citizenship. “I feel very good,” she said. “I’m very happy.”
“Does it make you emotional?” Levin asked her during the Zoom call with the New York Jewish Week.
“It does — of course it does. I used to love Austria,” she said. “I was sad to leave. I was disappointed. We never thought of coming back. I was happy to be able to escape. Thank God we made it out of hell.”
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The post A Holocaust survivor and her family saw ‘Leopoldstadt.’ The Broadway play told their story. appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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He may be country music royalty, but his heart belongs to Leonard Cohen
From the beginning of his career, Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter Rodney Crowell has been solidly ensconced in country music. He won a Grammy for Best Country Song for “After All This Time” in 1989, and one for Best Americana Album for Old Yellow Moon, a duet album recorded with his then ex-wife, Emmylou Harris, in 2014. And when Crowell married Rosanne Cash in 1979, he became a part of country music aristocracy; Rosanne’s father was the legendary country icon Johnny Cash, whose then-wife was June Carter of the “First Family of Country Music.”
The Carter family is widely regarded as having invented modern country music. Crowell brought his own considerable country-music bona fides along with him, and he and Rosanne Cash were considered the up-and-coming power couple of country over the course of their 13-year-marriage, which ended in divorce in 1992.
While strongly based in the country music tradition, Crowell was drawn to the alternative or “outlaw” country movement of the 1970s and 1980s, in which songwriters steered away from country music cliches and aspired more to the literate, poetic, confessional songwriting of folk- and pop-influenced writers like Bob Dylan and James Taylor. And with his latest single, “If I Could Speak to Leonard,” Crowell outs himself as a devotee of Canadian-Jewish singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen.
The new song will be included in Then Again — an album Crowell first recorded 20 years ago in 2006 but never released. The long-shelved project will finally be commercially available on June 26 from New West Records, featuring a newly recorded version of “If I Could Speak to Leonard,” which was originally written and recorded while Cohen was still alive.
The original album featured an all-star supporting cast of singers and musicians including Emmylou Harris, Lyle Lovett, Benmont Tench, and the late Guy Clark. By the time Crowell had recorded Then Again, which was intended to have been the third in a trilogy of albums, the singer-songwriter and Texas native had decided he was already moving on musically in other directions, and so he put it aside and with time it was nearly forgotten — until now.
“Who more than the rabbi poet, Buddhist monk, and sage,” sings Crowell, “defines the deep and holy text and song upon the page? ‘Be still,’ my comprehension cries, ‘there’s so much more than this,’ I’d love to speak to Leonard, could you put me on the list?”
“I’ve always acknowledged Leonard Cohen’s early work as a songwriter, particularly ‘Bird on a Wire’ and ‘Chelsea Hotel,’” Crowell told Magnet Magazine. “But once I heard the live version of ‘Waiting for the Miracle’ and the next few albums he’d release — especially Old Ideas and You Want It Darker — I came to believe he was the most important songwriter of our time. And I say that with all due respect for Bob Dylan and Tom Waits. Seeing him in concert after coming down from the mountain in California, I was convinced he was the most generous performer I’d ever witnessed.”
Throughout his career, Crowell has worked closely with many Jewish musicians and producers in the Nashville and New York scenes, including drummer Hal Blaine, singer-songwriter Marc Cohn, producer-guitarist John Leventhal, and Mickey Raphael, Willie Nelson’s harmonica player. Leventhal is married to Crowell’s ex-wife, Rosanne Cash. Crowell and Leventhal have frequently worked together on projects involving Cash, and Crowell has spoken warmly of their professional and personal relationship.
Much like Cohen’s, Crowell’s later work blurs the line between spiritual yearning and earthly, often gritty reality. Crowell’s ability to weave religious imagery with world-weariness is a direct reflection of the “Zen-monk-in-a-suit” archetype that Cohen perfected.
Crowell’s first big break came in 1975, when Emmylou Harris hired him to play rhythm guitar in her backup band, the Hot Band. In August 1978, Crowell released his debut album, Ain’t Living Long Like This. Crowell has recorded and performed several Bob Dylan songs over the years, including “Girl from the North Country,” “Like a Rolling Stone,” “Shelter from the Storm,” and “Simple Twist of Fate.”
But Crowell has never tried to tackle a Leonard Cohen song. The closest he has come is this tribute song. And to his credit, it kind of sounds like a Leonard Cohen song. Somewhere, the Bard of Montreal is looking down and listening and, one imagines, appreciating the recognition of yet another of the many dozens of singer-songwriters who have expressed their admiration for his work.
The post He may be country music royalty, but his heart belongs to Leonard Cohen appeared first on The Forward.
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Amid Jerusalem’s Flag March, police remove activists aiding Palestinians
Left-wing peace activists say they were forcibly removed by Israeli police while attempting to protect Palestinian residents in the Old City of Jerusalem during Israel’s annual Flag March on Thursday.
The march commemorates Jerusalem Day, a holiday marking Israel’s capture of East Jerusalem during the 1967 war. While the holiday has been celebrated in Israel for decades, in recent years, it has become known as a particularly volatile day, with violent confrontations taking place between nationalist Israelis and Palestinian residents.
Peace activists told the Forward that they witnessed Flag March participants — many of them young yeshiva students — chanting slogans such as “May your villages burn” and holding signs calling for territorial expansion. Anton Goodman, Director of Partnerships at Rabbis for Human Rights, said that he saw participants vandalizing Palestinian-owned businesses and homes.
“They went into Palestinian-owned shops, and smashed all the wares up in them, threw everything on the floor, and smashed plates. And whenever there was a Palestinian around, there was abuse.” In one instance, he observed Jewish Israeli students cutting up what appeared to be a prayer rug of a Palestinian resident as their teacher looked on.
Peace activists also noted that the Old City — usually bustling — was largely empty, as Palestinian shopkeepers closed their stores early in anticipation of the march. Merchants there had already been reeling from shutdowns during the Iran War.
Protective presence
This year, around 300 peace activists came to the Old City to informally patrol the area and show support for Palestinian residents, in what they described as a “protective presence.”
Rabbi Jill Jacobs, CEO of New York City-based T’ruah, told the Forward that when her group of eight left-wing activists approached the Damascus Gate — the main entry point for the parade — they were quickly targeted by participants.
“Some teenagers started dumping water on us and throwing their water bottles at us from above,” she said. Others shouted slurs at the group.
According to Jacobs, police responded by forcing the activists out of the area.
“They told us that the area was closed and we couldn’t be there. And we said, ‘What do you mean it’s closed? Obviously, there’s thousands and thousands of people coming in,’ They said, ‘it’s closed. You’re not allowed to be here.’ And they physically pushed us. I mean, we were not going to have a fight, so we were walking. They were escorting us, but they were also physically pushing us from behind.”
She said the group was pushed several blocks away from the area.
“I kept asking, you know, who’s allowed to go in? Who’s allowed to go in? But obviously he wasn’t going to answer, because the answer is obvious.”
In a separate incident, Goodman, with Rabbis for Human Rights, said he tried to help an elderly Palestinian man who was being harassed near Damascus Gate.
“There were groups of teenagers who were harassing residents. And there was an old man who was coming out, and they started spitting on him and screaming obscenities at him and trying to push him. And so I put my arm around him to help him get out.”
He said police then intervened.
“I was pulled aside violently by the border police, who said, you’re causing trouble and that I can’t be here. Then they grabbed hold of my bag, and they pushed me out of the area.”
Goodman said the incident is just one example of a larger pattern in how the Israeli police deal with left-wing activists.
“This is the conversation we always have with the police,” he said. “The police say that there’s a threat to public safety when there are left-wing people or activists around. Why? Because it can lead to the right-wing extremists coming and causing violence.”
Just last month, the Israeli police detained a 53-year-old Jewish man in Modiin for wearing a kippah embroidered with the Israeli and Palestinian flags and proceeded to cut it up.
The incidents come amid broader tensions around the Israeli police, with thousands of Jewish and Arab Israelis taking to the streets in joint protests this February. Demonstrators protested what they described as a failure by police to adequately protect Arab communities, particularly as violent crime has risen sharply in recent years.
At the Flag Day march, far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, who oversees the Israeli police, made a controversial appearance at the hilltop compound that includes the Al-Aqsa Mosque, Islam’s third-holiest site. Raising an Israeli flag, he declared, “the Temple Mount is in our hands,” a reference to a phrase associated with Israel’s capture of East Jerusalem in 1967.
The Israel Police did not respond to a request for comment.
The post Amid Jerusalem’s Flag March, police remove activists aiding Palestinians appeared first on The Forward.
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US Sen. Rand Paul’s Son Apologizes After Drunken Antisemitic Insults Against Catholic Congressman
US Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) is trailed by reporters as he arrives for the weekly Senate Republican caucus luncheon at the US Capitol in Washington, US, May 22, 2018. Photo: REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
William Paul, the adult son of frequent Israel critic US Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), has apologized following reports that he made antisemitic and homophobic statements while defending Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) to Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) at a Capitol Hill restaurant on Tuesday evening.
NOTUS reporter Reese Gorman witnessed the encounter at Tune Inn and wrote that the younger Paul, 33, sat a few seats down from Lawler at the bar when he introduced himself and told the congressman that if Massie lost in his upcoming primary, “your people” would be responsible.
Lawler, an Irish Catholic, asked, “My people?”
This prompted Paul to say, “Yeah, you Jews.”
Lawler then clarified his religious background, saying, “Do you think I’m Jewish? I’m not.”
Paul apologized for his error, replying, “Oh wow, I’m so sorry for calling you a Jew.”
Lawler later told reporters the comment was “just a remarkable statement in and of itself,” adding that “at one point, you know, said that he hates Jews and hates gays and doesn’t care if they die. And I think that’s f**king disgusting.”
Lawler told the New York Post that he responded to Paul mistakenly identifying him as a Jew with, “And even if I was, what’s the problem?”
“Then he got into the Middle East,” the lawmaker recounted. “And he was talking about, like, us trying to steal Iran’s land for the Jews and steal the West Bank, and I’m like, ‘What are you talking about?’”
Paul then reportedly proclaimed Jews were “un-American” and more loyal to Israel. Lawler argued back against Paul’s dual-loyalty accusations and accused him of being antisemitic.
“Paul Singer serves Israeli interests, not American interests,” Paul also said during the encounter, referring to the billionaire Republican donor and prominent Jewish supporter of pro-Israel causes.
Singer has supported Ed Gallrein, a retired Navy SEAL challenging Massie in Kentucky’s 4th Congressional District.
A new campaign ad that aired in Kentucky this week and was sponsored by Hold the Line PAC, a group backing Massie, characterized Singer as a “pro-trans billionaire” and featured a rainbow-colored Star of David behind his image while attacking Gallrein’s allies.
Critics condemned the imagery as antisemitic, arguing it invoked longstanding tropes about Jewish financial influence and used Jewish symbolism in a way designed to inflame cultural resentment.
Massie himself has been a fierce critic of Israel, condemning its military operations in Gaza and Lebanon and arguing that the Jewish state has targeted civilian infrastructure and should not receive assistance from the US.
US President Donald Trump has endorsed Gallrein and actively campaigned against Massie, who like Paul’s father is a libertarian-leaning Republican known for frequently breaking with party leadership and advocating an isolationist foreign policy.
During his outburst this week, the younger Paul also urged Lawler to watch far-right podcaster Tucker Carlson more and claimed that Massie and his father were the only legislators who care about America. In multiple postings on X, Paul promoted “Save the Republic Money Bomb” donations for Massie.
In December 2023, Massie sparked condemnation for posting a meme suggesting that Congress was more loyal to Zionism than “American patriotism.”
In recent years, meanwhile, Carlson has emerged as the leading anti-Israel commentator on the American political right, routinely advancing conspiracy theories condemning the Jewish state while heaping praise on Qatar, the longtime supporter of Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood.
Tuesday’s exchange concluded with Paul performing an obscene gesture.
Lawler responded by asking, “Did you just give me the middle finger?”
Paul replied, “I’m sorry, yeah, I did. I’m just really drunk. I’m going to leave.” He reportedly stumbled on his way leaving the bar.
Paul attempted to apologize on X on Wednesday from his @TastyBrew1776 account, writing, “Last night, I had too much to drink and said some things that don’t represent who I really am. I’m sorry and today I am seeking help for my drinking problem.” He has struggled with his alcohol use before, pleading guilty to a drunk driving charge in 2015.
Rabbi Uri Pilichowski responded to the apology.
“You don’t just have a drinking problem, you have a Jew-hating problem,” he posted. “The Jewish sages taught, ‘Wine goes in, and secrets come out.’ You need some Jewish friends so you can correct your image of Jews.”
Conservative columnist Bethany Mandel, an advocate for Jewish outreach to antisemites, responded with an invitation to Paul, asking him, “Care to come for Shabbat dinner sometime?”
Addressing the admission of excessive drinking, Lawler told reporters, “That’s not an excuse for that type of hatred and vitriol. It’s my fourth year in Washington; that was arguably the most shocking thing I’ve witnessed.”
Lawler explained how he saw the encounter in the context of today’s rising antisemitism.
“But I mean, look, I think it speaks to a larger issue, obviously, in society and what we’re seeing among young people and what we see online,” he said. “And this is the level of hatred and vitriol, frankly, that some of my Jewish colleagues experience, but many of my constituents experience.”
Paul’s father chose not to comment on his son’s antisemitic outburst, saying to reporters on Wednesday only, “I don’t have anything for you.”
He and Massie have both faced substantial criticism for their positions on Israel.
On numerous occasions, Massie voted as the lone Republican in the House opposing bills supporting Israel and denouncing antisemitism. In October 2023, he voted against House Resolution 771, which stated that Congress “stands with Israel as it defends itself against the barbaric war launched by Hamas and other terrorists” and “reaffirms the United States’ commitment to Israel’s security.” In September 2021 he was likewise the sole Republican to oppose the Iron Dome Supplemental Appropriations Act.
In May 2022, Massie earned the distinction of being the only member of Congress to oppose a resolution honoring Jewish Americans’ heritage and denouncing a rise in antisemitic violence. He also distinguished himself further on Nov. 28, 2023, as the only legislator to vote against a resolution reaffirming Israel’s right to exist.
In January 2024, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley condemned Massie as “the most anti-Israel Republican in Congress” and challenged her primary rival Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to denounce his support.
Paul has also faced opposition for his actions against the Jewish state. In November 2018, he blocked two bills to continue military funding of Israel. Then-Florida Sen. Marco Rubio said then that “at a time when Israel faces unprecedented threats, blocking a bipartisan bill that empowers the US to stand with Israel is inexplicable.” Paul claimed that he supported Israel and that his move was intended toward encouraging the Jewish state to support its own defense.
Former Texas Rep. Ron Paul — the father of Rand and grandfather of William — has faced accusations of bigotry for decades, originating in his decision to publish a series of 1980s newsletters bearing his name which promoted racism, antisemitism, homophobia, and conspiracy theories, including one since identified by analysts as disinformation deployed by the KGB accusing the United States of creating the AIDS virus.
According to former Cato President Ed Crane, Ron Paul once told him that “his best source of congressional campaign donations was the mailing list for the Spotlight, the conspiracy-mongering, antisemitic tabloid run by the Holocaust denier Willis Carto.”
Rand has previously spoken fondly about the influence of one of his father’s antisemitic mentors, Murray Rothbard, the founder of the anarcho-capitalist and paleo-libertarian traditions who frequented the Paul family’s dinner table. During his career, Rothbard promoted Holocaust deniers, used antisemitic slurs in private correspondence, called for abolishing the Constitution to return to the Articles of Confederation, and urged Republicans to support former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke.
“I have one of the largest Jewish populations anywhere in the country in my congressional district, and I’m not going to stop standing up for my constituents,” Lawler told reporters. “I’m going to stand up for the Judeo-Christian values that are at the core of our nation, our Constitution, and our rule of law, as I reminded Mr. Paul.”