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Can a Holocaust documentary have a happy ending? Should it?
(JTA) — Holocaust documentaries tend to sit along a scale from horrific to heartwarming. For every “Night Will Fall,” the rediscovered British film showing gruesome scenes from newly liberated Nazi concentration camps, there is a family-friendly film about a survivor, like “The Number on Great-Grandpa’s Arm.”
Some critics distrust Holocaust documentaries that have “happy” endings, or that focus on the second chance given to survivors, as if they betray the fate of the many more millions of Jews who died rather than survived. Raye Farr, the former director of the Steven Spielberg Film and Video Archive of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, once criticized Holocaust documentaries’ “increasing inclination to go for sentimentality.”
“How Saba Kept Singing,”a documentary airing on PBS on Tuesday in honor of Yom Hashoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, is firmly on the side of uplift. It’s about Cantor David Wisnia, whose unlikely survival tale was told in a memorable New York Times article in 2019. The film’s redemptive message is clear from its first line — “I’m a lover of life,” says Wisnia — to one of its last: “You are really the proof that Hitler did not win,” he tells his grandson.
Wisnia was a Polish Jew who survived Auschwitz by literally singing for his captors. Defying the perverse and inexplicable odds of the Final Solution, the former cantorial prodigy managed to live close to three years at the death camp and slave labor complex.
Perhaps as remarkable was his relationship with a fellow inmate, Helen “Tzippi” Spitzer, a similarly “privileged” prisoner who managed to stay in the Nazis’ good graces thanks to her skills as a graphic artist. Her assignments took her to places beyond the women’s barracks, where she met Wisnia, eight years her junior. Soon the two were arranging trysts in a loft where prisoners’ uniforms were stored. Fellow prisoners kept a helpful watch for guards.
Their death camp romance ended on the eve of liberation, when the Germans began emptying the camps and forced the prisoners on a series of death marches. Although David and Tzippi made plans to meet in Warsaw, life had other ideas. Wisnia eventually made it to America after the war, where he became a cantor at synagogues in Levittown, Pennsylvania, and Trenton, New Jersey. As for Tzippi, Wisnia wasn’t sure if she survived the war — and when he discovered the truth it set in motion the next remarkable chapter in their story.
The documentary recalls the horrors of the Holocaust — David speaks movingly about the murders of his parents and brothers in the Warsaw Ghetto, and having to stack bodies on a work detail at Auschwitz — but maintains a cautious distance. Writer and director Sara Taksler keeps the archive footage to a minimum, and when Wisnia relates his story of survival — with the help of Avi Wisnia, a singer-songwriter who accompanies his grandfather on a trip to Poland — it is usually over scenes of the camp as it looks today or black and white animation.
Still, “How Saba Kept Singing” is hardly saccharine. Grandfather and grandson are clear-eyed chroniclers of stories David told often (in 2015, he published a memoir, “One Voice, Two Lives: From Auschwitz Prisoner to 101st Airborne Trooper”). And David never takes his good luck for granted — the film is organized around his suspicion that there is a missing piece to his story of survival and that, as Avi says, “He could not have done it alone.”
About his time with Tzippi, David is both honest and discreet. “It was physical,” he admits. “She taught me everything. I knew nothing. I was a kid.”
Avi recounts the family’s shock when they first learned of their patriarch’s relationship with another prisoner at Auschwitz. “Even in the hell of a concentration camp you can still find some kind of a human connection,” says Avi.
Wisnia arrived in the United States in 1946 and lived with an aunt in the Bronx. He met his wife – the appropriately named Hope — and got work as an encyclopedia salesman and, for over 50 years, as a cantor. The couple would go on to have two sons, two daughters and six grandchildren.
As for Tzippi — it’s not giving away too much to say that she also survived the war and got married, to a bioengineering professor who eventually taught at New York University. Per the Times, the couple “devoted years of their lives to humanitarian causes.” She and David would meet again, in a reunion described in that 2019 New York Times story and heard in the documentary on audiotape. Suffice to say that David got an answer to the mystery that long nagged him: “How come I stayed in Auschwitz two and half years and never moved? How the hell can you explain it?”
The film is also saved from sentimentality by the knowledge that David is among the last living witnesses to the Holocaust, which he and Avi sadly acknowledge when discussing whether David would return to Auschwitz for the 75th anniversary of its liberation in 2020. Cantor Wisnia died June 15, 2021, at the age of 94; Tzippi died in 2018 at age 100.
Rabbi Isaac Nissenbaum, another victim of the Warsaw Ghetto, purportedly gave permission for the Nazis’ prey — and perhaps future filmmakers — to see their survival as a sanctification of life, not an occasion for guilt. “Today when the enemy demands the body, it is the Jew’s obligation to defend himself, to preserve his life,” he is reported to have said.
Avi Wisnia picks up this theme during a performance with his saba, Hebrew for grandfather.
“I honor the past, and we sing for the future,” he tells the audience. “The greatest act of defiance is to live.”
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The post Can a Holocaust documentary have a happy ending? Should it? appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Trump, on eve of new ceasefire talks: ‘Israel never talked me into the war with Iran’
(JTA) — President Donald Trump insisted that “Israel never talked me into the war with Iran” on his social network Monday, apparently seeking to tamp down a series of reports — including from members of his own administration — that the Israeli government had manipulated him into striking the Islamic Republic.
In the same post on Truth Social, Trump added that his own reaction to the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel contributed to his decision: “Israel never talked me into the war with Iran, the results of Oct. 7th, added to my lifelong opinion that IRAN CAN NEVER HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON, did.”
Trump is facing growing backlash to the Iran war that had been launched with joint U.S.-Israeli strikes, with members of his own party joining a chorus of voices opposing it. A key point of contention is to what degree Israeli pressure played a role in the president’s decision to go to war, with the GOP’s anti-Israel wing maintaining that Trump was manipulated by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio initially suggesting that Israel had forced the president’s hand.
Anti-war protesters have often linked the strikes either to Trump and Netanyahu equally, or portrayed Netanyahu as Trump’s puppet master.
A recent report in The New York Times also indicated that Trump had trusted Netanyahu’s assessment that regime change in Iran would be swift, rather than dissenting views among his own generals. The war has continued for nearly two months, with Iran’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz undercutting the world’s oil supply. The Trump administration is currently eyeing an exit ramp, with polls showing that Jewish Americans are largely opposed to the war even as they support its aims.
But in his new post, Trump continued to confidently declare that regime change in Iran was a possibility.
“Just like the results in Venezuela, which the media doesn’t like talking about, the results in Iran will be amazing,” the president wrote. “And if Iran’s new leaders (Regime Change!) are smart, Iran can have a great and prosperous future!”
Trump’s post comes days after another that appeared designed to combat the perception that he was not in full control. A day after announcing a truce in the Israel-Hezbollah fight in Lebanon, which reportedly surprised even members of Netanyahu’s cabinet, he posted, “Israel will not be bombing Lebanon any longer. They are PROHIBITED from doing so by the U.S.A. Enough is enough!!!” White House officials, responding to confusion from the Israelis, later clarified that the prohibition did not extended to strikes that are considered defensive.
The new post comes as Trump has sent competing signals about the future of the ceasefire, which is set to expire on Tuesday. Over the weekend, he both indicated that he believed the ceasefire would be extended and warned in a different post that the Iranians must comply with his demands or he would target the country’s civilian infrastructure.
“We’re offering a very fair and reasonable DEAL, and I hope they take it because, if they don’t, the United States is going to knock out every single Power Plant, and every single Bridge, in Iran,” Trump wrote. “NO MORE MR. NICE GUY!”
Iran has said it has “no plans” to attend talks meant to extend the ceasefire scheduled for Monday night in Islamabad, Pakistan. Netanyahu, meanwhile, told Israelis on Monday that he stands ready to return to war if needed.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Trump, on eve of new ceasefire talks: ‘Israel never talked me into the war with Iran’ appeared first on The Forward.
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If Iran Won’t Deal, Trump Must Make the Cost of Refusal Unbearable
A US Navy sailor signals an F/A-18E Super Hornet on the flight deck of the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln in support of the Operation Epic Fury attack on Iran at an undisclosed location, March 4, 2026. Photo: US Navy/Handout via REUTERS
The ceasefire with Iran is expiring. The talks collapsed after 21 hours in Islamabad. Iran has closed the Strait of Hormuz. Trump himself, speaking aboard Air Force One, put the choice plainly: “Maybe I won’t extend [the ceasefire]. So you have a blockade, and unfortunately, we’ll have to start dropping bombs again.”
That is the right instinct. But dropping bombs alone is not a strategy. It is a continuation of what has not worked. The question before the administration is not whether to apply pressure, but what kind of pressure actually changes Iran’s calculus. The answer requires being honest about what the war has so far failed to accomplish, and clear about what must follow.
Start with what the strikes achieved and what they did not. The United States and Israel killed Iran’s supreme leader, wiped out much of its senior military command, and damaged its nuclear facilities. These were historic accomplishments. But US intelligence assessments say Iran’s regime likely will remain in place for now, weakened but more hardline, with the Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) exerting greater control. As one analyst put it: “When President Trump says he has changed the regime in Iran, he’s right in one sense: he’s changed it to a much more radicalized regime.” The war shifted who holds power in Tehran, but it did not shift what that power wants.
The IRGC, which now runs Iran more openly than at any point since 1979, looks at the nuclear question through the lens of survival. Analysts say the IRGC will be looking toward the example of North Korea, noting that the country has not been subject to attacks precisely because it possesses a nuclear deterrent. Former Supreme Leader Khamenei’s fatwa banning a nuclear bomb died with him, and for any military whose conventional deterrence has been degraded, the ultimate deterrent is now “a very attractive prospect.”
This is the central strategic reality the Trump administration must accept: Iran’s incentive to acquire a nuclear weapon has increased, not decreased, as a result of the war. Bombing alone will not change that. Only a combination of measures that makes the pursuit of the bomb more costly than abandoning it can.
The first requirement is maintaining the naval blockade unconditionally, regardless of Iranian announcements about Hormuz openings. Iran has been selectively admitting ships from China, Turkey, Pakistan, and India under bilateral arrangements while blocking others, converting the strait into a political instrument rather than surrendering the leverage it provides. A blockade that can be circumvented through side deals is not a blockade. It is theater. CENTCOM must enforce the blockade against all sanctioned traffic without exceptions, including Chinese tankers, and Trump must be prepared to make that enforcement the hill his presidency stands on, economically and diplomatically.
The second requirement is activating European snap-back sanctions immediately. Secretary of State Marco Rubio urged European countries on April 18 to quickly reimpose sanctions, warning that Iran is approaching nuclear weapons capability. This call should not have been made publicly as a request. It should have been delivered as a condition. Washington has leverage over European access to American markets and defense cooperation that it has consistently refused to use in Iran policy. That reluctance must end. A European sanctions regime that closes off the money that the blockade does not reach, will give Iran no economic off-ramp that does not run through US terms.
The third requirement is the most uncomfortable to name. The Iranian people have already done the work the administration hoped bombing would do. Surveys conducted inside Iran show that Iranians believe protests, foreign pressure, and intervention are more likely to bring about political change than elections and reforms. The regime is militarily weakened, culturally weakened, and economically weakened, with a plummeting currency. Protests that began in December 2025 over economic conditions grew into nationwide demonstrations in all 31 provinces, with hundreds of thousands participating and calls shifting from economic grievances to the overthrow of the Islamic Republic itself. This is the most significant popular uprising Iran has seen since 1979, and it is happening right now, under the weight of the war and the blockade.
Trump called on the Iranian people to take their government at the outset of the war. He should not abandon that call as a diplomatic inconvenience. Materially supporting the opposition, providing Internet access to circumvent the regime’s blackout, and making unambiguous public commitments to the protesters that American pressure will not cease while the IRGC shoots demonstrators in the street are actions within the administration’s power. They cost nothing militarily and they impose a political cost on the regime that no bomb can replicate.
A deal that leaves Iran with a five-year enrichment window and underground missile cities under reconstruction is not a deal. It is a countdown. Trump knows what the alternative looks like. He should pursue it.
Amine Ayoub, a fellow at the Middle East Forum, is a policy analyst and writer based in Morocco. Follow him on X: @amineayoubx
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Podcast Hosts and Others Must Continue to Call Out Tucker Carlson for His Hatred
Tucker Carlson speaks on July 18, 2024, during the final day of the Republican National Convention at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Photo: Jasper Colt-USA TODAY via Reuters Connect
Patrick Bet-David, host of the PBD podcast, made an open video to Tucker Carlson in which he offered to have accountants check Bet-David’s finances as well as his wife’s, to see if Israel has given him money. At the same time, the accountants would look into Carlson and his wife to see if Qatar or other countries have given Carlson money.
Though Carlson will certainly not agree to it, it is a good step to put pressure on Carlson. Carlson’s goal is to turn Christians against Israel — and right now, against Trump. It’s not by chance that he falsely claimed Israeli President Isaac Herzog was on Epstein island. There’s no evidence of it, and Carlson made it up out of his desire to vilify Israel.
Bet-David did an interview with Netanyahu, and didn’t call him a genocider — which was tough for Carlson to handle. Carlson absurdly thought Netanyahu would sit for an interview with him. It will never happen because Carlson, whether motivated by money, revenge, or something we don’t know, has been on the warpath against Israel and Jews, obsessively speaking about these two topics. In addition, he is suddenly buddies with those on the far-left who also hate Israel. Known as the horseshoe effect, those on the far-right and far-left can disagree on everything under the sun, but unite in their hatred of Jews.
Carlson is charismatic and has great delivery, though I’m not sure why his absurd laugh hasn’t thrown people off. In this attention economy, it’s about starting conversations. Bet-David smartly put it out there for Carlson to show transparency, which he will not do. What makes this interesting is that when Carlson was first ousted from Fox News, Bet-David made it publicly known that he was offering Carlson a huge amount of money to work for him. This was before Carlson became anti-Israel.
Bet-David was born in Iran, and fled the country to come to America. Bet-David was also right to question why Carlson was downplaying the harms of Sharia law, and focusing on what Carlson thought were its benefits.
My hope is that this leads to Carlson coming on Bet-David’s show. I doubt he will, although there is a small chance because he may think Bet-David is not as intellectual as Douglas Murray or Ben Shapiro. While that’s true, Bet-David is charismatic, can make good points at times, and his experience seeing the evils of Iran firsthand would make for an interesting conversation with Carlson.
It is hard to understand why people believe the things that Carlson and Candace Owens say, though their personalities can be entertaining, and someone unaware of facts perhaps might think they were correct.
Irrespective of the outcome of the Iran war, Carlson is ready with the narrative that it is a disaster. He said that millions could die if America attacked Iran’s nuclear facilities before Trump took action last June. Of course, that didn’t happen. Being wrong has no consequences in Carlson’s mind; it’s about ratcheting up hatred of Israel and positioning it as an enemy of America. At times, it seems Carlson is the one standing against America. As Bet-David pointed out, Carlson said that Sharia law was leading the Muslim world to thrive, while it was declining under America. Carlson also had everyone believing that he was a big fan of President Donald Trump, until text messages revealed he hated him.
While I have my criticisms of Bet-David for not asking tougher questions to idiotic and Jew-hating guests, he deserves credit for calling out Carlson and outing him under the microscope. Because when that is done, what we find is quite ugly. Carlson, through charisma and absurdity, is trying to mainstream the idea that Israel is the enemy of America. He is hoping to reel people in on the lie that Israel bullied America into the war. That’s not the case — and everyone who knows that must continually question Tucker on it.
The author is a writer based in New York.