RSS
Flirting with danger: A play based on the true story of 3 Dutch women who lured Nazis to their deaths premieres in NYC

(New York Jewish Week) — During World War II, three young women formed a small legion of the Dutch underground resistance, fighting Nazis with the most powerful weapons at their disposal: their youth, their gender and their sexuality.
They were sisters Freddie and Truus Oversteegen and Hannie Schaft, who, in 1940 were 14, 16 and 20, respectively. While they, along with other resistance fighters, used dynamite to destroy bridges and railroads, and helped hide Jewish children and smuggled Jews out of the country, the very young women also would go to bars and pick up Nazi soldiers. They would ask the men to go for a walk in the forest under the pretense of romance or sex — and then shoot and kill them. Their story was told in a 2019 book, “Seducing and Killing Nazis,” by the Dutch author and activist Sophie Poldermans.
Now, a new play based on their actions, “The Moss Maidens,” is one of eight plays selected from 300 submissions showing at the SheNYC Festival at the Connelly Theater (220 East 4th St.) this week.
“In my communities, both young women and Jewish people, I feel like there’s a lot of rage right now,” New York-based playwright S. Dylan Zwickel, 30, told the New York Jewish Week. “I think it will be both exciting and cathartic for people to get to see these girls raging and behaving badly and fighting systems that don’t work for them, and don’t work for people they care about, on stage.”
“The Moss Maidens” has already sold out three performances at the annual festival, which features plays written and created by people of “marginalized genders,” including ciswomen, trans and non-binary people. SheNYC chooses its submissions based on representation and how well its themes grapple with current events, Eh-den Perlove, one of the festival’s organizers said.
Due to the demand for “The Moss Maidens,” a fourth performance has been added, a first in the festival’s eight-year history. “Part of the reason ‘The Moss Maidens’ has resonated so much is that we’re having renewed discussions around white supremacy,” Perlove said. “It’s always been there, but it’s so relevant to how we’re kind of reacting in our day-to-day, to white supremacy, to Nazism, to neo-Nazism. It helps us ask ourselves, as a group who are maybe being persecuted or who see persecution, ‘What can you do to kind of stand up against that?’”
Ahead of the play’s opening on Wednesday, the New York Jewish Week caught up with Zwickel to discuss her inspiration for the show and why she felt the story was so relevant and necessary to tell.
This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
S. Dylan Zwickel is the Jewish playwright of “The Moss Maidens.” (Yekaterina Gyadu, design by Grace Yagel)
What was the inspiration for this play?
The play is based on a true story of the young Dutch women that did this, which was my initial impetus for writing the show. In addition to doing all of this active resistance work by actually murdering Nazis, one of them was hiding Jews in her home. I first read about it a few years ago in a random article — I don’t even remember where — and as soon as I read it, I was like, “I have to tell this story.” Then I read a great book about these girls: “Seducing and Killing Nazis,” which is written from several firsthand accounts of what happened. The author had access to a lot of people who knew them, and even some of the women themselves — two that lived to be 92 and died in 2016 and 2018, which is really remarkable.
I ultimately decided not to make my story exactly that of the true story and just made my play inspired by that story. That book provided great research so I could come up with my own characters and plot based on their experience; it was really exciting having the creative license of making them my own characters, and being able to sort of dive into aspects of it that may not have been included in the original story. But there’s always that layer there that people really did make this choice. People really did do these things.
Why is it important to tell this story in 2023?
There is a certain catharsis getting to watch these young girls fight back against the people who feel that way [about Jews]. For me, amidst the rising tides of antisemitism that are happening right now, it feels very easy to react by wanting to remember how badly things have gone in the past. I do think that is extremely important, but it’s also important to think about how that instinct can be fought. The story that, as a Jewish person, you’re expected to tell about World War II, is details of the Holocaust and people suffering. It’s so important to remember all of that, but I also needed the catharsis of people fighting back. I would rather write about and live in this world of people killing Nazis rather than my people being killed. That’s what I wanted to focus on.
The story is still so relevant. A couple of weeks ago, I was on my way to see “Camelot” at Lincoln Center and there was this guy shouting antisemitic conspiracies and he had posters with antisemitic cartoons. I went into rehearsal the next day, and there’s a line in the play where a Nazi is talking about the Final Solution. I got so nauseous that I had to leave the room — having just seen this guy on the street the day before, I became so aware that there are still people who feel this way and it’s so much closer than we think.
One of the books that I read for research, “The Diary Keepers” by Nina Siegal, uses testimony from the thousands of diary entries written in the Netherlands during World War II. Siegal combed through them, translated them and published a book using these diaries. She included perspectives of Jews, perspectives of resistance fighters, perspectives of citizens who were not involved at all and just kept our heads down — which was most people — and also perspectives of Nazis and Nazi collaborators. It was really interesting reading that, especially reading about the beginning of the war and just feeling how close we are to how it did start. It was alarming, but also enlightening.
Why is it important to give these young Dutch women a voice?
Pretty much all of my writing features young women. That is an area of focus for me. I think of everything that I write as “a superhero origin story.” It’s all about girls stepping into their power. That’s true across everything I write, but this is kind of the best and biggest example of it, which is one of the reasons I’ve so enjoyed working on it — it just feels like the most major, distilled and exciting version of that.
It is just so remarkable that during that time there were these girls who, despite everything they were being told by society, had the awareness to make a different choice. There’s a lot of discussion in the play about the choice to be doing this and how easy it would have been to make a different choice. I hope that this play can help inspire young women to ask themselves, “Could I be one of these girls? Is this how I would respond in a situation like this?”
As you were writing and researching the play, was there anything unexpected that you learned about yourself or about the story?
Well, it was interesting because I initially wasn’t thinking of the play as that Jewish because the characters are not Jewish — one is half-Jewish. I didn’t want to make any of them Jewish “just because,” for two reasons. One, historically, they would have had to either be in hiding or have escaped already, so they wouldn’t have been able to be doing the activities they were doing. The other reason is I was really interested in the idea of these girls fighting to protect not themselves but other people. For the most part, the girls say they don’t even know any Jews, so they’re really not fighting for any friends of theirs, just for belief in the rights and humanity of all people.
The more we’ve worked on it, the more I’ve realized how Jewish the sense of morality and the cultural values in the play are. Even though these are not written as Jewish girls, they bear a lot of resemblance to Jewish girls and women that I know. I’ve written them as loud and brave and bold and opinionated — all of these things that I associate as being Jewish cultural values. So I think even though I didn’t write them as Jewish characters, I was surprised to discover how much of my own Jewish culture embedded itself in there anyway.
“The Moss Maidens” will be performed at the Connelly Theater (220 East 4th St.) four times this week. A digital version of the show will be available for purchase for $5 and will be available to stream from August 4-6. Find tickets and information about the SheNYC Festival here.
—
The post Flirting with danger: A play based on the true story of 3 Dutch women who lured Nazis to their deaths premieres in NYC appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
RSS
Colorado Attack Suspect Charged with Assault, Use of Explosives

FILE PHOTO: Boulder attack suspect Mohamed Sabry Soliman poses for a jail booking photograph after his arrest in Boulder, Colorado, U.S. June 2, 2025. Photo: Boulder Police Department/Handout via REUTERS
A suspect in an attack on a pro-Israeli rally in Colorado that injured eight people was being held on Monday on an array of charges, including assault and the use of explosives, in lieu of a $10-million bail, according to Boulder County records.
The posted list of felony charges against suspect Mohamed Sabry Soliman, 45, in the attack on Sunday also includes charges of murder in the first degree, although police in the city of Boulder have said on social media that no victims died in the attack. Authorities could not be reached immediately to clarify.
Witnesses reported the suspect used a makeshift flamethrower and threw an incendiary device into the crowd. He was heard to yell “Free Palestine” during the attack, according to the FBI, in what the agency called a “targeted terror attack.”
Four women and four men between 52 and 88 years of age were transported to hospitals after the attack, Boulder Police said.
The attack took place on the Pearl Street Mall, a popular pedestrian shopping district near the University of Colorado, during an event organized by Run for Their Lives, an organization devoted to drawing attention to the hostages seized in the aftermath of Hamas’ 2023 attack on Israel.
Rabbi Yisroel Wilhelm, the Chabad director at the University of Colorado, Boulder, told CBS Colorado that the 88-year-old victim was a Holocaust refugee who fled Europe.
A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said Soliman had entered the country in August 2022 on a tourist visa that expired in February 2023. He filed for asylum in September 2022. “The suspect, Mohamed Soliman, is illegally in our country,” the spokesperson said.
The FBI raided and searched Soliman’s home in El Paso County, Colorado, the agency said on social media. “As this is an ongoing investigation, no additional information is available at this time.”
The attack in Boulder was the latest act of violence aimed at Jewish Americans linked to outrage over Israel’s escalating military offensive in Gaza. It followed the fatal shooting of two Israel Embassy aides that took place outside Washington’s Capital Jewish Museum last month.
Ron Halber, CEO of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington, said after the shooting there was a question of how far security perimeters outside Jewish institutions should extend.
Boulder Police said they would hold a press conference later on Monday to discuss details of the Colorado attack.
The Denver office of the FBI, which is handling the case, did not immediately respond to emails or phone calls seeking clarification on the homicide charges or other details in the case.
Officials from the Boulder County Jail, Boulder Police and Boulder County Sheriff’s Office did not immediately respond to inquiries.
The post Colorado Attack Suspect Charged with Assault, Use of Explosives first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Iran Poised to Dismiss US Nuclear Proposal, Iranian Diplomat Says

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi attends a press conference following a meeting with Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Moscow, Russia, April 18, 2025. Photo: Tatyana Makeyeva/Pool via REUTERS
Iran is poised to reject a US proposal to end a decades-old nuclear dispute, an Iranian diplomat said on Monday, dismissing it as a “non-starter” that fails to address Tehran’s interests or soften Washington’s stance on uranium enrichment.
“Iran is drafting a negative response to the US proposal, which could be interpreted as a rejection of the US offer,” the senior diplomat, who is close to Iran’s negotiating team, told Reuters.
The US proposal for a new nuclear deal was presented to Iran on Saturday by Omani Foreign Minister Sayyid Badr Albusaidi, who was on a short visit to Tehran and has been mediating talks between Tehran and Washington.
After five rounds of discussions between Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi and President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, several obstacles remain.
Among them are Iran’s rejection of a US demand that it commit to scrapping uranium enrichment and its refusal to ship abroad its entire existing stockpile of highly enriched uranium – possible raw material for nuclear bombs.
Tehran says it wants to master nuclear technology for peaceful purposes and has long denied accusations by Western powers that it is seeking to develop nuclear weapons.
“In this proposal, the US stance on enrichment on Iranian soil remains unchanged, and there is no clear explanation regarding the lifting of sanctions,” said the diplomat, who declined to be identified due to the sensitivity of the matter.
Araqchi said Tehran would formally respond to the proposal soon.
Tehran demands the immediate removal of all US-imposed curbs that impair its oil-based economy. But the US says nuclear-related sanctions should be removed in phases.
Dozens of institutions vital to Iran’s economy, including its central bank and national oil company, have been blacklisted since 2018 for, according to Washington, “supporting terrorism or weapons proliferation.”
Trump’s revival of “maximum pressure” against Tehran since his return to the White House in January has included tightening sanctions and threatening to bomb Iran if the negotiations yield no deal.
During his first term in 2018, Trump ditched Tehran’s 2015 nuclear pact with six powers and reimposed sanctions that have crippled Iran’s economy. Iran responded by escalating enrichment far beyond the pact’s limits.
Under the deal, Iran had until 2018 curbed its sensitive nuclear work in return for relief from US, EU and U.N. economic sanctions.
The diplomat said the assessment of “Iran’s nuclear negotiations committee,” under the supervision of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was that the US proposal was “completely one-sided” and could not serve Tehran’s interests.
Therefore, the diplomat said, Tehran considers this proposal a “non-starter” and believes it unilaterally attempts to impose a “bad deal” on Iran through excessive demands.
NUCLEAR STANDOFF RAISES MIDDLE EAST TENSIONS
The stakes are high for both sides. Trump wants to curtail Tehran’s potential to produce a nuclear weapon that could trigger a regional nuclear arms race and perhaps threaten Israel. Iran’s clerical establishment, for its part, wants to be rid of the devastating sanctions.
Iran says it is ready to accept some limits on enrichment, but needs watertight guarantees that Washington would not renege on a future nuclear accord.
Two Iranian officials told Reuters last week that Iran could pause uranium enrichment if the US released frozen Iranian funds and recognized Tehran’s right to refine uranium for civilian use under a “political deal” that could lead to a broader nuclear accord.
Iran’s arch-foe Israel sees Iran’s nuclear program as an existential threat and says it would never allow Tehran to obtain nuclear weapons.
Araqchi, in a joint news conference with his Egyptian counterpart in Cairo, said: “I do not think Israel will commit such a mistake as to attack Iran.”
Tehran’s regional influence has meanwhile been diminished by military setbacks suffered by its forces and those of its allies in the Shi’ite-dominated “Axis of Resistance,” which include Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis in Yemen, and Iraqi militias.
In April, Saudi Arabia’s defence minister delivered a blunt message to Iranian officials to take Trump’s offer of a new deal seriously as a way to avoid the risk of war with Israel.
The post Iran Poised to Dismiss US Nuclear Proposal, Iranian Diplomat Says first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
The Islamist Crescent: A New Syrian Danger

Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa speaks during a joint press conference with French President Emmanuel Macron after a meeting at the Elysee Palace in Paris, France, May 7, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Stephanie Lecocq/Pool
The dramatic fall of the Assad regime in Syria has undeniably reshaped the Middle East, yet the emerging power dynamics, particularly the alignment between Saudi Arabia and Turkey, warrant profound scrutiny from those committed to American and Israeli security. While superficially presented as a united front against Iranian influence, this new Sunni axis carries a dangerous undercurrent of Islamism and regional ambition that could ultimately undermine, rather than serve, the long-term interests of Washington and Jerusalem.
For too long, Syria under Bashar al-Assad served as a critical conduit for Iran’s destabilizing agenda, facilitating arms transfers to Hezbollah and projecting Tehran’s power across the Levant. The removal of this linchpin is, on the surface, a strategic victory. However, the nature of the new Syrian government, led by Ahmed al-Sharaa — a figure Israeli officials continue to view with deep suspicion due to his past as a former Al-Qaeda-linked commander — raises immediate red flags. This is not merely a change of guard; it is a shift that introduces a new set of complex challenges, particularly given Turkey’s historical support for the Muslim Brotherhood, an organization deemed a terror group by Saudi Arabia and many other regional states.
Israel’s strategic calculus in Syria has always been clear: to degrade Iran’s military presence, prevent Hezbollah from acquiring advanced weaponry, and maintain operational freedom in Syrian airspace. Crucially, Israel has historically thought it best to have a decentralized, weak, and fragmented Syria, with reports that it has actively worked against the resurgence of a robust central authority. This preference stems from a pragmatic understanding that a strong, unified Syria, especially one under the tutelage of an ambitious regional power like Turkey, could pose much more of a threat than the Assad regime ever did. Indeed, Israeli defense officials privately express concern at Turkey’s assertive moves, accusing Ankara of attempting to transform post-war Syria into a Turkish protectorate under Islamist tutelage. This concern is not unfounded; Turkey’s ambitious, arguably expansionist, objectives — and its perceived undue dominance in Arab lands — are viewed by Israel as warily as Iran’s previous influence.
The notion that an “Ottoman Crescent” is now replacing the “Shiite Crescent” should not be celebrated as a net positive. While it may diminish Iranian power, it introduces a new form of regional hegemony, one driven by an ideology that has historically been antithetical to Western values and stability. The European Union’s recent imposition of sanctions on Turkish-backed Syrian army commanders for human rights abuses, including arbitrary killings and torture, further underscores the problematic nature of some elements within this new Syrian landscape. The fact that al-Sharaa has allowed such individuals to operate with impunity and even promoted them to high-ranking positions should give Washington pause.
From an American perspective, while the Trump administration has pragmatically engaged with the new Syrian government, lifting sanctions and urging normalization with Israel, this engagement must be tempered with extreme caution. The core American interests in the Middle East — counterterrorism, containment of Iran, and regional stability — are not served by empowering Islamist-leaning factions or by enabling a regional power, like Turkey, whose actions have sometimes undermined the broader fight against ISIS. Washington must demand that Damascus demonstrate a genuine commitment to taking over the counter-ISIS mission and managing detention facilities, and unequivocally insist that Turkey cease actions that risk an ISIS resurgence.
The argument that Saudi Arabia and Turkey, despite their own complex internal dynamics, are simply pragmatic actors countering Iran overlooks the ideological underpinnings that concern many conservatives. Turkey’s ruling party, rooted in political Islam, and its historical ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, present a fundamental challenge to the vision of a stable, secular, and pro-Western Middle East. While Saudi Arabia has designated the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization, its alignment with Turkey in Syria, and its own internal human rights record, means that this “new front” is far from a clean solution.
The Saudi-Turkey alignment in Syria is a double-edged sword. While it may indeed serve to counter Iran’s immediate regional ambitions, it simultaneously risks empowering actors whose long-term objectives and ideological leanings are deeply problematic for American, Israeli, and Western interests. Washington and Jerusalem must approach this new dynamic with extreme vigilance, prioritizing the containment of all forms of radicalism — whether Shiite or Sunni — and ensuring that any strategic gains against Iran do not inadvertently pave the way for a new, equally dangerous, Islamist crescent to rise in the heart of the Levant.
Amine Ayoub, a fellow at the Middle East Forum, is a policy analyst and writer based in Morocco. Follow him on X: @amineayoubx
The post The Islamist Crescent: A New Syrian Danger first appeared on Algemeiner.com.