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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 Palestinian Authority Condemns Iran’s Attacks on Arab States — But Not Israel
Emergency personnel work at the site of an Iranian strike, after Iran launched missile barrages following attacks by the US and Israel on Saturday, in Beit Shemesh, Israel, March 1, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Ammar Awad
Other than a few informative reports, the Palestinian Authority (PA) is almost silent about the Israeli-American war with Iran.
So far, the PA has limited itself to condemning Iran’s attacks on other Arab states and requesting “an emergency meeting of Arab foreign ministers and for a session of the UN Security Council.”
The PA has neither condemned the Israeli-American attack on Iran, nor has it said anything positive about the Iranian missiles launched against Israel:
The State of Palestine strongly condemned the Iranian attacks on several Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, and Iraq, stressing its full rejection of any violation of their sovereignty or aggression against them by any party.
It described the attacks as a blatant violation of the UN Charter and principles of international law…
It also reaffirmed its consistent position against resorting to violence and war, calling for dialogue as the means to resolve disputes … and for adherence to international law to strengthen regional and international peace and security.
President Mahmoud Abbas called for an emergency meeting of Arab foreign ministers and for a session of the UN Security Council to address the serious challenges facing the region, its countries, and their sovereignty. [emphasis added]
[WAFA, official PA news agency, English edition, Feb. 28, 2026]
Vice President of the State of Palestine Hussein Al-Sheikh on Saturday reaffirmed Palestine’s rejection and condemnation of the Iranian attacks on several Arab sister states … and conveyed Palestine’s solidarity with the Arab states and support for any measures they deem appropriate in response.
Al-Sheikh stressed that the State of Palestine and its leadership firmly reject any violation of the sovereignty of Arab states or aggression against them by any party, describing the attacks as a blatant violation of the UN Charter and the principles of international law.
[WAFA, official PA news agency, English edition, Feb. 28, 2026]
Although the PA has not openly applauded the joint US and Israeli attack on Iran, there is reason to believe they silently appreciate the development.
Palestinian Media Watch has exposed that the PA blamed Iran for making Hamas launch the devastating Oct. 7 war to “serve its Iranian masters” and accused Iran of supporting Hamas to “destroy the Palestinian national project,” thereby enabling it to replace the PLO as “the sole representative of the Palestinian people”:
PLO National Council member Muwaffaq Matar: “There is no clearer proof [than Iranian leader Khamenei’s speech] of Hamas’ subordination to this Iranian regime. In this speech there is nothing new for us, because we have already understood how much this regime controls Hamas, has given it its blessing, supported it, and aided it to destroy the Palestinian national project completely, so that it [Hamas] and also its partners who follow Iran will be the artificial alternative to the PLO.”
[Fatah Commission of Information and Culture, Facebook page, June 3, 2024]
This claim was reiterated recently by PLO Central Council member and regular columnist for the official PA daily, Omar Hilmi Al-Ghoul:
[Hamas] began to move according to the direction of the wind, based on the Muslim Brotherhood’s principle of taqiyya. Nothing is constant for [Hamas] except to continue serving as a paid pawn in the hands of the enemies, in order to sabotage the national project, dissolve it, incite against the legitimate leadership. [emphasis added]
[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Feb. 18, 2026]
Following the Israeli-American attack, former spokesman of the PA Security Forces Adnan Al-Damiri even mocked both Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and Iran.
Al-Damiri prophesized that the Iranian people won’t reach for their freedom made possible by Netanyahu (and Trump) but will continue to “support the regime.” Iran’s attack on several neighboring Arab states, many of which host US military bases, was ridiculed by Al-Damiri as “stupidity and malice”:
Posted text: “The Iranian people are not a plaything to accede to [Israeli Prime Minister] Netanyahu, even if it is against the regime. Netanyahu’s appeal to the Iranian people will fail, and the people will set out to support the regime. The war will last a long time to complete the mission of toppling the [Iranian] fundamentalist regime…
Iran, out of stupidity and malice, attacked its [Arab] neighbors who opposed the war. It weakened itself by directly involving its neighbors.
This will open the possibility of ground military activity from the territories of its neighbors and with their participation. The war will last weeks, perhaps months.”
[Former Official Spokesman of the PA Security Forces Adnan Al-Damiri, Facebook page, Feb. 28, 2026]
So far, only the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) has openly mourned the death of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei with a poster and text calling the Israeli-American attack “a cowardly assassination operation committed by the Zionist and American treachery.”
Note: On June 3, 2024, then Iranian leader Khamenei gave a speech in which he praised Hamas’ terror attack on Israel on Oct. 7, stating that:
An army that claimed to be one of the strongest armies in the world has been defeated inside its own land. Who has defeated it? Was it a powerful government? No, it was defeated by Resistance groups like Hamas and Hezbollah. It was defeated by these [groups]. This is what Al-Aqsa Flood did.
He neither mentioned the PA nor the PLO at all but only the “Resistance” and the “Palestinian people.”
The author is a contributor to Palestinian Media Watch, where a version of this story first appeared.
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Purim and Lion’s Roar: From Sinai to Shushan to Sovereignty
A woman holds a poster with the picture of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as people gather after Khamenei was killed in Israeli and U.S. strikes on Saturday, in Tehran, Iran, March 1, 2026. Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
I am writing this from Israel. Since roughly 8:10 a.m. on Saturday morning, my family and I — including my grandchildren — have been moving in and out of our apartment’s mamad (safe room) as sirens sound and alerts flash across our phones.
This is not symbolic. For more than two and a half years, it has been part of our routine, largely because an Islamist tyranny that controls modern Persia has made clear its intention to destroy the world’s only Jewish state and confront what it calls the “decadent West.”
Purim begins this Monday night. It is one of the most joyful holidays on the Jewish calendar. We commemorate events roughly 2,300 years ago, when the Jews of the Persian Empire thwarted the genocidal plan of Haman, a Persian vizier who sought to eliminate every Jew under ancient Persian rule.
The connection between then and now is not only rhetorical. It is theological.
The Jewish sages distinguish between two moments of covenant in Jewish history. At Mount Sinai, the Jewish people accepted the Torah amid overwhelming miracles and revelation. The Midrash (the rabbinic interpretive tradition) describes G-d holding the mountain over them “like a barrel.” The Talmud asks whether a covenant accepted under such circumstances can truly be considered voluntary.
Centuries later, in Shushan (the royal capital of the Persian Empire), the Jewish people accepted the covenant again — this time by choice. Megillat Esther (the Book of Esther) states, “The Jews upheld and accepted.” The Talmud understands this as a reaffirmation of Sinai, but now without thunder, seas splitting, plagues, or other spectacular and clearly divine miracles.
A royal Persian decree had set a date for annihilation. The Jews organized, fasted, lobbied the king, and prepared to defend themselves. According to our sages, it was at that moment that the covenant became fully embraced.
Sinai represents a covenant formed through revelation. Purim represents a covenant embraced through responsibility. That distinction matters.
The Book of Esther never mentions G-d explicitly. Unlike the Exodus narrative in the Passover Haggadah, which foregrounds Divine intervention, the Book of Esther reads like statecraft. A Persian official secures authority to eliminate a minority population. The decree circulates through an imperial bureaucracy. The Jewish community must decide how to respond.
“Gather the Jews,” Mordechai tells Esther. This is strategic, not mythical, language.
The Jews of Shushan survived because they took responsibility for their fate and they acted.
That pattern has a modern parallel.
For decades, the Iranian regime has funded, armed, and directed groups that target Israelis and Americans — whom it labels the “little Satan” and the “big Satan.” From Beirut to Buenos Aires, from sustained support for Hamas, the Houthis, and Hezbollah, Tehran has made proxy warfare against America and Israel a central instrument of state policy.
At the same time, Iran has advanced uranium enrichment and ballistic missile programs while engaging in negotiations designed to preserve those capabilities.
Days before Purim this year, Israel and the United States launched Operation Lion’s Roar, referred to in Washington as Epic Fury.
Iranian leadership assumed hesitation would prevail — that Western debate would slow or negate response, that deterrence would erode, and that proxy pressure, escalating threats, and negotiations designed to buy time would delay decisive action. They were wrong. Once again, Israel directly responded to threats against it.
History offers important perspective.
In 1948, roughly 650,000 Jews declared independence, while five Arab armies responded by trying to destroy it, including the British-trained and armed Arab Legion. The new state lacked air power, heavy artillery, and strategic depth. Many predicted its total annihilation. But Israel fought, won the war, and secured its independence.
In 1967, Gamal Abdel Nasser closed the Straits of Tiran, expelled UN forces from Sinai, and massed Soviet-armed Egyptian divisions along Israel’s border. Syrian artillery shelled the north. Jordanian forces controlled the high ground overlooking central Israel. At its narrowest point, the country measured nine miles across, with a population of barely 2.5 million facing neighboring states with a combined population of roughly 40 million.
Israelis feared catastrophe; thousands of graves were prepared. Six days later, Israel won the war and dramatically altered the map of the Middle East.
In October 1973, on Yom Kippur, fewer than 200 Israeli tanks faced roughly 1,400 Syrian tanks on the Golan Heights. Reinforcements were hours away. A breakthrough would have exposed the Galilee and major civilian centers. The line held. Syrian armored forces suffered heavy losses.
In Sinai during that same war, Egypt’s surprise assault initially overwhelmed Israeli positions. Weeks later, Israeli forces crossed the Suez Canal, encircled Egypt’s Third Army, and advanced to within roughly sixty miles of Cairo.
In 2024, Israeli intelligence penetrated Hezbollah’s communications networks, disrupted command structures, and eliminated most of its senior leadership. Analysts who insisted Hezbollah was effectively unbeatable without catastrophic Israeli losses were forced to watch its capabilities steadily collapse.
None of these episodes suspended natural law. They reflected decisions made under tremendous pressure. And this is where the story of Purim becomes essential: when open miracles are absent, G-d works through human agency.
For centuries in exile, Jewish communities survived, often barely, without sovereignty. Waiting was frequently the only option. But Purim established a different principle: divine providence does not remove human agency; it operates through it.
Political Zionism functioned in that mode. No prophet guaranteed success. No spectacular miracle cleared its path. Zionist leaders organized congresses, negotiated with empires, purchased land, built institutions, and formed defense forces. They acted.
Sovereignty eliminates the option of passivity. It requires decisions, risk, and accountability.
As I write this, the sirens keep sounding. As usual, Israelis will gather our children and move into reinforced spaces. We will follow Home Front Command instructions. When the all-clear comes, we will return to our lives as citizens of a sovereign Jewish state.
Some clearly prefer the image of Jews as permanent victims — admired or to some degree tolerated because they are powerless. Purim rejects that model. When we gather, mobilize, defend, and take responsibility — whether on the Golan in 1973, in intelligence and military operations against Hezbollah, or in confronting nuclear and missile threats from Tehran — we act in the spirit clarified in Shushan.
Jewish survival in the modern age rests on agency — on the willingness to participate in history rather than endure it. May this be the last Purim in which a tyrannical regime in Persia threatens the Jewish people and the free world. Next year (and hopefully much sooner), we hope Iran will be free of its oppressors — and at peace with Israel.
Micha Danzig is an attorney, former IDF soldier, and former NYPD officer. He writes widely on Israel, Zionism, antisemitism, and Jewish history. He serves on the board of Herut North America.
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If the Ayatollahs Are Overthrown, What Is Next for Israel and Iran?
Israel and Iran flags are seen in this illustration taken June 18, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration
If the Iranian regime does fall — what happens next? Will Iran return to the peaceful history of its past, or will more chaos ensue?
History offers both warning and hope.
In ancient Persia under King Ahasuerus, a decree was issued by Haman to annihilate the Jewish people. Haman’s hatred was not casual prejudice. It was genocidal policy. Yet through courage, strategy, and unity, Queen Esther exposed the plot. The Jews were granted the right to defend themselves and survived what was meant to be their destruction. Purim became a celebration not only of survival, but of clarity in the face of existential threat.
Israel’s modern reality is not ancient Persia, but the echoes are unmistakable. Since 1979, the Islamic Republic of Iran has built its regional strategy around encircling Israel with armed proxies. Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Gaza, Shiite militias in Syria and Iraq, and the Houthis in Yemen have all received Iranian funding, training, and weaponry. Tehran’s leaders have repeatedly called for Israel’s elimination while advancing a nuclear program that has alarmed the international community for decades.
A regime change in Iran would therefore reverberate far beyond Tehran. But we must be realistic. Regimes can fall quickly. Narratives do not.
Decades of indoctrination inside Iran have portrayed Israel as a cosmic enemy. Beyond Iran, global discourse has increasingly cast Israel as uniquely malevolent, often divorced from context. Social media accelerates outrage while compressing history into slogans. Complex security dilemmas are flattened into caricature. Millions form hardened opinions about a country they have never visited, about a conflict they have never studied in depth.
A post revolutionary Iran would not automatically translate into pro-Israel sentiment. Prejudice rarely evaporates with a leadership change. If peace between the two countries is to be more than a pause between conflicts, it must be built deliberately.
So what are the realistic pathways?
First, intellectual honesty about history. The Jewish connection to the land of Israel is ancient and continuous. Archaeology, historical texts, and liturgy testify to a people whose national and spiritual identity is rooted in Jerusalem and the broader land. Recognizing Jewish indigeneity reframes the debate from colonial accusation to national self determination. Education systems across the region would need to replace erasure with acknowledgment. That is not a concession. It is a prerequisite for coexistence.
Second, regional integration based on shared interests. The Abraham Accords demonstrated that longstanding hostility is not immutable. Economic cooperation, technological exchange, and security coordination between Israel and several Arab states have already produced tangible benefits. Trade has expanded. Tourism has grown. Joint ventures in renewable energy, water technology, and cyber defense are underway. A future Iran that abandons revolutionary maximalism could, in theory, plug into the same architecture of mutual benefit.
Third, economic normalization as a stabilizing force. Iran possesses immense human capital, natural resources, and strategic geography. Israel is a global leader in innovation, from agricultural technology to medical research and cybersecurity. Interdependence raises the cost of conflict. When prosperity is tied to stability, the incentive structure shifts away from confrontation.
Fourth, people to people engagement. Hatred thrives in abstraction. It weakens in proximity. Academic exchanges, cultural dialogue, and civil society partnerships can humanize what propaganda has dehumanized. The Iranian people have repeatedly demonstrated courage in protesting repression. Many distinguish between political opposition to their rulers and personal animosity toward Jews. Those spaces of nuance must be widened.
And yet, realism demands humility. Human nature contains rivalry as well as compassion. The 20th century, despite unprecedented technological progress, produced unparalleled destruction. The hope that humanity will transcend conflict entirely has so far proven elusive. Peace may not be an eternal state. It may be episodic and fragile.
That does not render it meaningless.
Israel does not aspire to endless war. It aspires to secure sovereignty in its ancestral homeland. It aspires to raise children without air raid sirens and to innovate without existential distraction.
If change comes in Tehran, it will open a door. Whether that door leads to durable coexistence depends on choices made not only by leaders, but by societies willing to confront myths and abandon absolutism.
Peace may never be permanent. But it can be extended. It can be strengthened. And in a region too accustomed to despair, even incremental light after darkness is worth striving for.
Sabine Sterk is the CEO of Time To Stand Up For Israel.