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Actor Danny Burstein dishes on his latest Jewish role on Broadway
(New York Jewish Week) – In “Pictures from Home,” a new Broadway play, a photographer takes on a nearly 10-year project to chronicle the lives of his aging parents. As the son snaps pictures and interrogates his parents in their Southern California home, the three offer very different versions of their shared past and spar about the very meaning of “truth.”
“Loads of emotions came up during the show,” said Broadway veteran Danny Burstein, who plays the son, Larry. “Larry’s desire and passion to know more and to not just look at others critically but himself critically as well is inspiring to me. It’s a beautiful story.”
Written by Sharr White and directed by Bartlett Sherr, the play is based on the 1992 photo-memoir by Larry Sultan, an acclaimed photographer who died in 2009. Nathan Lane plays the father, Irving, a Brooklyn-born Jew who struggled as a salesman but eventually became a vice president at Schick, the razor company. Acclaimed British actress Zoë Wanamaker plays the mom, a real estate agent who sometimes feels underappreciated as a breadwinner following Irving’s early (or was it forced?) retirement. Irving, raised in part in a Jewish orphanage, bitterly recalls the antisemitism he faced – and swallowed – on his way up the shaky ladder of success.
And father and son clash not only over the project, but Larry’s career. Irv can’t quite understand how his son actually makes a living as a photographer and asks: “Where’s the rigor?”
Throughout the play, real recordings, home videos and the blown-up photos of his parents that appeared in Sultan’s photo-memoir are projected on the set behind the actors.
Burstein, 58, was nominated for a Tony Award for his portrayal of Tevye in the most recent Broadway production of “Fiddler on the Roof.” A week after the opening of “Pictures,” he spoke to the New York Jewish Week about the Jewishness of the show and how it has impacted him so far.
This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Danny Burstein, who plays photographer Larry Sultan, won the 2020 Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Musical for his role at Harold Zilder in “Moulin Rouge!” (Courtesy)
New York Jewish Week: The concept of the show is a bit challenging to describe — it’s a play based on a memoir based on a series of photographs. How would you describe what the play is about?
Danny Burstein: It’s based on the beautiful book by the same title, which has incredible pictures in it but also contains the memoir of his time with his parents. It’s all a bit convoluted, but it comes together in a beautiful way. A play has not been told in this particular way before and it is quite unique. So it’s different, and you have to let people know that it is different from anything they’ve ever seen before, as far as the storytelling goes. It is a story of family and it’s also the story of the creation of art — sometimes it’s quiet, sometimes it’s passionate and volatile. Sometimes it’s extremely funny. It’s all those things when you’re making a piece of art.
You “feel all the feels” in other words. That’s the beautiful thing about the play. Larry winds up discovering things about himself and about his history and his parents.
Were you familiar with Larry’s work before the show or did playing him bring you closer to who he was?
I was not familiar with his work at all before the play, but at the same time now I feel very, very connected to the work and to who he was. One of the things that I’m very grateful for is that Larry’s [widow], Kelly, provided us with some of the actual tapes and recordings of conversations with his parents, so I got to listen to them actually talking. It was all of a sudden a very different kind of animal.
It’s dramatized for our show and there was sometimes volatility, but mostly it was a lot of the two of them just sitting down and loving one another and chatting and reminiscing and hearing their origin stories, like how the family got to California from Brooklyn. It’s really a beautiful story and there’s a lot of love in the family. I also love Larry’s artistic pursuits and his artistic sensibility in finding several different meanings in one picture, maybe hundreds of meanings. He believed each person subjectively finds their own meaning in a piece of art and I love that about him.
Nathan Lane (Irving Sultan) and Danny Burstein (Larry Sultan) in “Pictures From Home.” (Julieta Cervantes)
How do you think the family’s Jewishness impacted the way they interacted with the world and with each other?
It [their Jewishness] absolutely affects the way they exist in the world. I always think of [Larry’s] artistic journey as being very Talmudic — it seems to me that he’s constantly asking questions and trying to get to the heart of the matter. That’s fundamentally Jewish. That practice of always questioning, and bringing that questioning not just to religion but to everyday life and to art is also fundamentally Jewish. I don’t want to make it sound like only Jews are exceptional intellectually, but that that level of intellectual pursuit is part of the Jewish culture.
So Larry’s Jewishness certainly informed his intellectual and artistic pursuits. How do you think your Jewish background informed the way you approached this character and characters you’ve played in the past?
I was raised in a certain way: to question things. I can see a lot of my own relationship with my own father in the relationship between Larry and Irv. I’m sure I drove my father crazy. When I told my parents I wanted to be an actor, they were not dismissive of it. They didn’t say, “you’re wasting your life,” but they weren’t exactly supportive, either. They remained very neutral and said: “If this is what you want to do, then you’re going to have to work your ass off in order to make your dream come true.” So it wasn’t so much about the pursuit of financial success, the way Irv says, but it was about them worrying whether I could actually make a living at it and survive.
I guess it’s the same kind of fear that any parent would have. My younger son is a musician and my older son is a first [assistant director] on films. Those are not exactly the kinds of things you’re going to go into to make a lot of money. They’re pursuits of passion. I guess I felt the same way, I was worried for them. But knowing my own journey and knowing my father’s journey, who wanted to be a writer — he studied with Philip Roth at the University of Iowa — and then decided to leave all that to to pursue a career in ancient Greek philosophy. So I guess he understood, too, the way I did. I guess it all comes full circle. So, I did not run up against the kind of wall that Larry ran up against, where basically Irv would call him a loser, as he does in the show, because he was not more of a financial success.
Pictures from Home is currently playing at Studio 54 (254 W. 54th St.) through April 30, 2023. Tickets and informationh here.
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The post Actor Danny Burstein dishes on his latest Jewish role on Broadway appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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He stormed the Capitol wearing a Camp Auschwitz sweatshirt 5 years ago. Where is he now?
A joint session of Congress peacefully certified President Donald Trump’s election victory last year on the date federally mandated: Jan. 6. But five years ago, after President Joe Biden won, the U.S. Capitol was overrun with people aiming to prevent a smooth transition of power.
Standing out among the mob of rioters was a long-haired, bearded man in a black hoodie with the words “Camp Auschwitz” emblazoned across the front.
Who was the ‘Camp Auschwitz’ rioter?
Robert Keith Packer, a former pipefitter and unlicensed plumber from Newport News, Virginia, gained national attention for wearing the sweatshirt. It had “STAFF” printed on the back, and a drawing of a skull and the phrase “Work Brings Freedom,” a translation of the slogan at the entrance of the Auschwitz concentration camp, on the front. The hoodie drew widespread condemnation.
“Why the instant notoriety?” asked the Forward’s Irene Katz Connelly the day after the attack. “The ‘Camp Auschwitz’ sweatshirt isn’t covetable or beautiful in any way. Even in the midst of a day full of shocks, it immediately stood out. But it is the absurd endpoint of extremism that disguises itself in styles we enjoy.”
Packer, who spent 36 minutes inside the Capitol, was arrested a week after the riot. When the FBI interviewed him about the outfit, he said he wore it because he was cold. Underneath the sweatshirt, he was wearing a “Schutzstaffel” shirt, referring to Adolf Hitler’s SS paramilitary unit.
The sweatshirt was indicative of a larger trend
Packer’s shirt stood out for its audacity, but it was not the only antisemitic symbol on display that day. Some people were also marching with a flag of Kekistan, a fake country created by members of the alt-right. The flag resembles a Nazi swastika. There was also imagery of Pepe the Frog, a cartoon amphibian which was co-opted by extremist groups and which the Anti-Defamation League labeled a hate symbol.
In the weeks leading up to the riot, the ADL reported on a Washington, D.C., demonstration of the Proud Boys, a far-right militant group, who were wearing T-shirts emblazoned with the initials 6MWE, short for “Six Million Wasn’t Enough.”
The nooses displayed on Jan. 6 evoke the “Day of the Rope,” described in the 1978 white supremacist novel The Turner Diaries by William Luther Pierce. The book is often regarded as a blueprint for far-right extremists and antisemites, and has been cited as an inspiration for various acts of violence — including the bombing of a federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995 and the 1984 murder of Alan Berg, a Jewish radio host.
How was Packer charged?
Packer, who was 56 at the time of the riot, was arrested and charged with unlawfully entering the Capitol and engaging in disorderly conduct. Federal police who conducted a search of his home found a whole host of Nazi and other white supremacist material, including “swastika artwork” and an “image of Hitler.”
Prosecutors said Packer was a “habitual criminal offender for 25 years with 21 convictions for mostly drunk driving, but also for larceny, drug possession, and forgery.”
Hoping for lenient sentencing, Packer’s sister said you can’t “judge a book by its cover.” Packer’s lawyer, Stephen Brennwald, compared his client to Forrest Gump, “a man who went through life almost as if he was outside of his body and mind, looking in.” Brennwald also argued that Packer’s sentence should be set by his actions, not his attire.
In Sep. 2022, a federal judge sentenced Packer to 75 days in jail and ordered him to pay $500 in restitution.
Where is Packer now?
Packer was pardoned last year by President Trump, along with about 1,500 other people charged with crimes related to Jan. 6.
Since then, Packer was arrested for an animal attack in Newport News. The September dog attack left four people hospitalized and requiring surgery, according to local reports.
Packer’s dogs were taken by animal control and Packer was taken to jail then released, but faces several charges, including a felony that could bring a five-year prison sentence, according to documents described by The Virginian-Pilot. At the time of the September attack, he also had charges pending from a separate May dog attack.
A hearing in Packer’s case is scheduled for Jan. 7.
The last time the Department of Justice updated their case file on Packer was in June 2023, when he tried to appeal his sentence, arguing that the “court erroneously considered the offensive T-shirt in fashioning the prison sentence.” The judge ruled it “moot” since Packer had already completed his prison term.
Are Camp Auschwitz sweatshirts still around?
Yes and no.
Packer may have brought the Camp Auschwitz sweatshirt to the public’s attention, but it has been around for over a decade, according to an extremism expert at the ADL. Copycat versions popped up online shortly after Packer wore it, but were taken down after complaints. A search today on Amazon, eBay, Etsy, Walmart and Zazzle found none available. A couple of off-brand sites are still offering Camp Auschwitz attire — including a tank top and a baby onesie.
The post He stormed the Capitol wearing a Camp Auschwitz sweatshirt 5 years ago. Where is he now? appeared first on The Forward.
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Trump Threatens to Hit Iran ‘Very Hard’ if More Protesters Killed as Supreme Leader Said to Be Prepared to Flee
Protesters march in downtown Tehran, Iran, Dec. 29, 2025. Photo: Screenshot
US President Donald Trump on Sunday evening warned Iran that it will get “hit very hard” if the regime kills more protesters, as anti-government demonstrations enter a second week and the Iranian Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is reportedly preparing an escape amid rising domestic unrest.
“We’re watching [the situation] very closely. If they start killing people like they have in the past, I think they’re going to get hit very hard by the United States,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One.
Trump’s latest threat comes after he warned last week that Washington will intervene if Iran “violently kills peaceful protesters.”
Sparked by a shopkeepers’ strike in Tehran last week, protests have swept the country, sparked by the soaring cost of living, a worsening economic crisis, and the rial — Iran’s currency — plunging to record lows in the wake of renewed United Nations sanctions.
For more than one week, anti-regime protests have shaken Iran, with violent clashes between demonstrators and security forces escalating amid intensifying domestic crises.
On Saturday, Khamenei accused “enemies of the Islamic Republic” of stoking unrest and warned that “rioters should be put in their place,” Iranian media reported.
Iran’s judiciary chief, Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei, also said that while citizens have a right to protest, the government will show no leniency toward “rioters.”
According to the US-based Human Rights Activists in Iran (HRAI), protests have spread to at least 78 cities, with the regime killing 20 people — including three children — arresting nearly 1,000, and detaining more than 40 minors.
Amid a deepening economic crisis worsened by a 12-day June war with Israel and the US that struck several of Iran’s nuclear sites, the regime has ramped up its crackdown on protesters and opposition figures trying to maintain stability.
Media reports indicate that anti-riot forces — including the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the Basij militia, local police, and the army — have used violent tactics such as live fire, tear gas, and water cannons to suppress demonstrations.
In widely circulated social media videos, protesters can be heard chanting slogans such as “Death to the dictator” and “Khamenei will be toppled this year,” while also calling for Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian to step down.
Videos sent to Iran International show security forces confronting protesting shopkeepers in central Tehran on Monday, with riot police deployed around the Grand Bazaar and tear gas used on Jomhouri Street near the Hafez underpass. pic.twitter.com/OyhQlyUJaN
— Iran International English (@IranIntl_En) December 29, 2025
Meanwhile, Khamenei reportedly has a backup plan to flee the country if his security forces fail to suppress protests or begin to desert, according to The Times.
“The ‘plan B’ is for Khamenei and his very close circle of associates and family, including his son and nominated heir apparent, Mojtaba,” an intelligence source told the British newspaper.
Khamenei would reportedly flee to Moscow, following the path of ousted Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in December 2024.
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Pro-Hamas Arson Attack Targets Home of Antisemitism Commissioner in Germany
An image of arson and vandalism near the home of Andreas Büttner, commissioner for combating antisemitism in the German state of Brandenburg. Photo: Screenshot
Investigators in Germany have started reviewing an arson attack on Sunday against the home of Andreas Büttner, commissioner for combating antisemitism in the state of Brandenburg, where assailants set fire to a shed at his property in Templin — a town located approximately 43 miles north of Berlin — and spray-painted an inverted red triangle, the symbol of support for the Islamist terrorist group Hamas.
“My thoughts are with Andreas Büttner and his family,” Israeli Ambassador to Germany Ron Prosor posted on X. “Knowing him as I do, after this attack he will only stand up even more resolutely against antisemitism. For the radical part of the ‘Palestine solidarity’ movement is not only antisemitic, but terrorist.”
Prosor explained the significance of the red triangle, writing, “Attacks on those who think differently and attempted murder: That is what the Hamas triangle stands for — in Gaza as in Brandenburg. And the hatred of Israel goes hand in hand with hatred of our democracy. The rule of law must smash these terrorist organizations — and indeed, before they strike again.”
The red triangle vandalism appeared “on the neighboring house’s door entrance,” according to Germany’s DW media.
The home of Germany’s antisemitism commissioner, Andreas Büttner, was set on fire overnight in a targeted attack.
His family was inside the house at the time.
This is the second attack against Büttner in the past 16 months. His car was previously vandalized with swastikas. This… pic.twitter.com/cAbFnMIwQ7
— Combat Antisemitism Movement (@CombatASemitism) January 5, 2026
“The symbol speaks a clear language. The red Hamas triangle is an internationally known sign of jihadist violence and antisemitic incitement,” Büttner said. “Anyone who uses such a thing wants to intimidate and glorify terror. This is not a protest, it is a threat.”
According to Büttner, his family was inside the house at the time of the arson, the second attack against him in the past 16 months. His car was previously vandalized with swastikas.
Büttner released a statement on X.
“This attack represents a massive escalation,” he wrote. “It is directed against me personally, against my family, and against my home. At the same time, it is an expression of hatred and intimidation. I will not be intimidated by this. Anyone who believes that they can achieve something through violence, arson, or threats is mistaken. Such acts do not lead to me becoming quieter or questioning my commitment — they strengthen me in what I do. I ask that you give us the necessary peace today and refrain from further inquiries at the present time.”
Brandenburg’s Prime Minister Dietmar Woidke also condemned the violence, saying that “violence against people or things is and remains absolutely unacceptable. The police have started the investigation, and I hope that the perpetrator or perpetrators will be caught quickly.”
Jochen Feilcke, chairman of the German-Israeli Society Berlin and Brandenburg, described the attack “as where Hamas’s terrorism was applied on a small scale, including the Hamas triangle, in order to ultimately intimidate all people who defend themselves against increasing antisemitism in Berlin and Brandenburg.”
“Especially the parties of the left camp have every reason to deal with it, because they tolerate this mood or still fuel it,” Feilcke told Tagesspiegel. “They are so jointly responsible for when debates turn into violence.””
The Jewish Virtual Library describes how the inverted red triangle symbol was originally used by the Nazis to designate political prisoners.
“According to Holocaust historians, this triangle was part of a dehumanizing classification system, where each prisoner was identified by different colored triangles depending on their ‘crime,’” writes Or Shaked, deputy director of the Jewish Virtual Library. “The red triangle identified political dissidents, including socialists and communists. After World War II, the survivors of Nazi persecution and their families reclaimed the red triangle as a symbol of resistance to fascism.”
Shaked explains the revival of the symbol in recent years, noting that following Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, the symbol began appearing in Hamas-produced propaganda, marking Israeli military targets. Its use spread to anti-Israel protests, particularly on college campuses and social media, where demonstrators use it to show solidarity with Palestinians.