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Hedda Kleinfeld Schachter, Holocaust survivor and bridal empire builder, dies at 99
(JTA) — Before “Say Yes to the Dress” brought Kleinfeld Bridal to the attention of more than 1.5 million households across America every week, a Holocaust survivor named Hedda Kleinfeld revolutionized the bridal industry, bringing it to life with European designer gowns.
The iconic bridal store, which today boasts about 200 employees, began as an offshoot of Kleinfeld’s father Isidor’s Viennese fur business. Starting in the late 1960s and for the next several decades, Hedda ran Kleinfeld Bridal with her husband Jack Schachter, a talented fur cutter employed by her father.
Nicknamed “Miss Hedda,” Kleinfeld’s foresight to shift the family business away from fur and simple special occasion wear to exclusively carrying wedding gowns transformed the small Bay Ridge, Brooklyn storefront into a multi-million dollar empire.
“She really built Kleinfeld not only as an iconic name but she left an incredible mark on the whole industry with her vision,” Mara Urshel, one of the current co-owners of Kleinfeld, told WWD.
Hedda Kleinfeld Schachter died in Manhattan on March 29. She was 99.
Hedda Kleinfeld was born in Vienna in 1924 to an upper-middle class secular Jewish family. She had a younger sister, Liane. After her father was released from the Dachau concentration camp, where he had been imprisoned for trying to cross the border into Belgium with his brother, the family decided to emigrate, initially with fake visas meant to secure passage to Shanghai. But those papers came in too late, so the family headed to Havana, Cuba, where Hedda and Liane spent their teenage years.
Family photos of the Kleinfeld family in Vienna. In the group photo, Hedda is seen in front at right, with, from left, her mother Regina, her father Isidor, her sister Liane and their nanny. (Courtesy United States Holocaust Memorial Museum/Design by Jackie Hajdenberg)
That’s where the teenage boys of her youth flirted with her and taught her how to dance — a skill she brought with her all the way to Central Park in 2018 when, on the way to a Park Conservancy gala as her granddaughter’s guest, she danced to a local band playing under the shade of the iconic Wisteria Walk, her granddaughter Ilana Schachter recalled.
Though those early memories of Vienna and her escape to Havana shaped much of her life, she never spoke about them much, even with her family.
“She really tried to suppress those memories and box them up and say that was a past life,” Schachter told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “She did not share a lot of experiences from that time period, but she did have happy memories of being a teenager in Havana, which I can only imagine was quite a trip.”
About 10 years ago, Schachter and her grandmother visited Havana and the places of Kleinfeld’s teenage years, including the home she once lived in and the town square where she used to dance.
Hedda Kleinfeld Schachter and granddaughter Ilana Schachter visit Hedda’s teenage home in Havana, Cuba. (Courtesy Ilana Schachter)
It’s fitting, then, that her grandmother chose a career centered on weddings.
“I think she appreciated being a part of an industry that was about celebration,” Schachter said.
Beginning in the 1990s, the Kleinfeld company changed hands a few times, according to a company history, and in 2004 construction began on a 35,000-square-foot store on West 20th St. That’s the location frequently featured in the popular TLC show “Say Yes to the Dress” — in which experts help brides find their perfect gown. The show brought the store’s name into millions of homes. But one home that it never made its way into was that of Hedda Kleinfeld.
“She never saw one episode,” Schachter recalled while laughing. “She had no interest. But she wasn’t bothered by it.”
Another “never” that Schachter says her grandmother couldn’t quite get into, despite being quite computer savvy (she was an early adopter of AOL Instant Messenger), was online shopping.
Hedda Kleinfeld Schachter dances under the shade of the Wisteria Walk in New York’s Central Park in 2018. (Courtesy Ilana Schachter)
“Online shopping was never going to happen for her,” she explained. “You bought things in the store, you felt them in your hands, you assessed the quality and you had to see what it looked like on your body. And then imagine buying something and not putting it on your body.”
Clothing was “sacred” to Kleinfeld.
“There was a sacred act in designing clothing and wearing clothing and honoring the clothing as you wore it,” Schachter said. “And she brought that into her work but also that’s just the way she saw the world.”
Kleinfeld’s husband Jack died in 2008. She is survived by their sons, Ronald and Robert.
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US Hits Military Targets on Iran’s Kharg Island, Vance Says No Change to Strategy
US Vice President JD Vance delivers remarks at the Wilshire Federal Building in Los Angeles, California, US, June 20, 2025. Phone: REUTERS/Daniel Cole
US strikes on Iran’s Kharg Island do not represent a change in American strategy, US Vice President JD Vance said on Tuesday as a US official separately told Reuters the additional strikes on military targets did not impact oil infrastructure.
The official, who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity, described at least some of the strikes as targeting sites that had been previously struck before and said the attack occurred in the early morning hours of Tuesday.
Vance, speaking separately in Budapest, said the strikes were not a change in US strategy, with the Trump administration confident that it can get a response from Iran by 8 pm (0001 Wednesday GMT) in negotiations to end the conflict. US President Donald Trump is demanding Iran forswear nuclear weapons and reopen the Strait of Hormuz, a critical oil transit waterway.
“We were going to strike some military targets on Kharg Island, and I believe we have done so,” Vance said.
“We’re not going to strike energy and infrastructure targets until the Iranians either make a proposal that we can get behind or don’t make a proposal,” he added. “I don’t think the news in Kharg Island … represents a change in strategy, or represents any change from the President of the United States.”
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French Nationals Leave Iran After Three and a Half Years Amid Softer France Tone on War
A woman walks past posters with the portraits of Cecile Kohler and Jacques Paris, two French citizens held in Iran, on the day of support rallies to mark their three-year detention and to demand their release, in front of the National Assembly in Paris, France, May 7, 2025. The slogan reads “Freedom for Cecile Kohler and Jacques Paris.” Photo: REUTERS/Abdul Saboor
Two French nationals were heading home on Tuesday after Iran allowed them to leave the country following three and a half years in detention, a surprise move that came as Paris sought to distance itself from the war in the region.
Cecile Kohler and Jacques Paris had been confined to France‘s embassy in Tehran since November, after being held since 2022 in the notorious Evin prison on spying charges that France has said were unfounded.
“This is a relief for all of us and obviously for their families,” President Emmanuel Macron said in a post on X. “Thank you to the Omani authorities for their mediation efforts.”
Neither the French presidency nor the foreign ministry responded to requests for comment on what had been agreed between the two sides to ensure their release.
Iran‘s official news agency IRNA said the couple were freed following an understanding under which France would in turn release Mahdieh Esfandiari, an Iranian student living in the French city of Lyon, and withdraw a complaint against Iran at the International Court of Justice.
However, both assertions were unclear. Esfandiari, who was convicted at the end of February for glorifying terrorism in social media posts, was released after serving almost a year in prison but has appealed the conviction.
It was not clear whether she had left the country, as ordered by the February ruling. France dropped the ICJ complaint last September.
Iran‘s Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi spoke with his French counterpart Jean-Noel Barrot on Sunday, confirming the pair’s imminent release.
Macron has criticized US President Donald Trump’s approach to the US-Israeli war on Iran and said France would only help restore freedom of navigation to the Strait of Hormuz once there is a ceasefire and after consultations with Tehran.
France last week refused Israel permission to transfer weapons through French airspace for the war and has led efforts to water down a draft UN Security Council resolution that could have opened the door to forceful action in the strait.
A French official briefing reporters after the release denied that France had a softer position towards Iran and said Paris had warned the Iranians about the safety of their citizens given the escalation in the war.
“I think the Iranians rightly considered that if anything happened to our compatriots, the reactions here would have been extremely catastrophic,” the official said, declining to comment on the details of the negotiation.
French officials have also refused to comment on why a container ship belonging to French shipping group CMA CGM was able to pass through the Strait of Hormuz, a sign that Iran may not consider France to be a hostile nation.
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Gunfight Outside Israeli Consulate in Istanbul Leaves One Attacker Dead
A drone view shows police officers and medics standing at the scene, after a gunfire was heard near the building housing the Israeli consulate, according to a witness, in Istanbul, Turkey, April 7, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Mehmet Emin Caliskan
One attacker was killed and two others were wounded in an extended gun battle with police outside the tower building housing the Israeli consulate in Istanbul on Tuesday.
Footage showed the backpack-wearing attackers firing with automatic rifles and handguns, and police officers returning fire and seeking cover, as they maneuvered among parked white police buses near a checkpoint. One body lay on the street.
Shots rang out for at least 10 minutes among the glass towers in Turkey’s main financial district, Reuters witnesses said. One person was seen covered in blood.
No Israeli staff were at the consulate, which occupies a floor in one of the towers, at the time of the attack, Turkish and Israeli authorities said.
Israeli diplomats had left Turkey shortly after the Hamas-Israel war in Gaza began in late 2023, a conflict that prompted large pro-Palestinian protests outside the consulate and across the country, and a deep chill in Turkish-Israeli diplomatic ties.
US ENVOY SAYS CONSULATE WAS TARGET
The three attackers had links to an organization that “exploits religion,” Interior Minister Mustafa Ciftci said, without giving any name. Two of them were brothers, and they had traveled in a rented car from the city of Izmit, he added.
While Turkish authorities did not say what motivated the attackers, Tom Barrack, the US ambassador to Turkey, said on X that it was an attack on the Israeli consulate and he condemned it.
President Tayyip Erdogan said the “heinous terrorist attack” would not dent Turkey’s trust and security. Israel’s foreign ministry said it appreciated Turkish security forces’ “swift action in thwarting this attack.”
Two police officers were also lightly wounded, Istanbul Governor Davut Gul told reporters at the scene of the midday incident, which occurred next to a major motorway as thousands of nearby workers were breaking for lunch.
DIPLOMATIC CHILL AMID GAZA WAR
Turkey, a fierce critic of Israel’s military operations in Gaza as well as in Lebanon and Iran, had recalled its ambassador from Israel in November 2023, and diplomatic relations have been effectively frozen since then.
At the same time that year, Israeli diplomats left Turkey due to security concerns, including the protests. Since then, heavily armed police and armored vehicles have been stationed in a broad area surrounding the consulate.
Militant violence has mostly subsided in Turkey in recent years after a violent spate from 2015 to 2016 when Islamic, Kurdish, and leftist militants carried out attacks amid the spillover from the Syrian civil war.
The latest incident was late last year when three Turkish police officers and six Islamic State terrorists were killed in a gunfight in the town of Yalova in northwest Turkey, amid raids on militant cells believed to be planning Christmas and New Year attacks.