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In New Yorker doc ‘Nina & Irena,’ a director helps his grandmother open up about the Holocaust
(JTA) — Daniel Lombroso sees “Nina & Irena,” his documentary short film about his grandmother, a Holocaust survivor, as a coda to his 2020 documentary “White Noise,” in which he followed leaders in the “alt-right” movement.
For the four years during the making of “White Noise,” he was surrounded by neo-Nazis, who were on the cusp of a resurgence around the 2016 presidential race. “I never thought about my own connection to the material in any detail, and then I realized the reason I cared so much about this story before anyone else in the country was because of my grandparents,” he told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “It was the stories that I grew up with that made me vigilant about extremism and curious and concerned.”
In “Nina & Irena,” which will be released through The New Yorker on the magazine’s digital channels on Wednesday, Lambroso’s Polish-born grandmother Nina Gottlieb — 90 during filming and 91 now — opens up after eight decades about her experiences during the Holocaust, when she lost about 25 members of her family, including her sister, Irena. Only she and her parents survived.
The New Yorker Studios film relates Gottlieb’s tale through on-camera interviews with Gottlieb that are interspersed with archival footage. Much of the film depicts simple moments of joy with her family, such as doing Zoom yoga with her grandson and her 90th birthday party surrounded by her children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren. Gottlieb is fully independent, lives alone in Long Island and still has an active lifestyle.
“The film is about the richness of her life,” Lombroso said. “There’s a lot of what they call Holocaust fatigue that we all grew up watching a lot of Holocaust films and hearing from survivors and you expect certain things. You expect the train tracks and you expect Auschwitz and smoke and it was very important for me to not necessarily avoid the horrors — you have to understand the horrors — but also balance them with the comedy of her life. She’s so funny.”
The film has been a success on the festival circuit, including winning best short film at the Mountainfilm Festival in Telluride. The documentary festival DOC NYC included it among its “Short Lists” predictions for top contenders for Oscars and other awards.
Growing up in New Rochelle, New York, Lombroso knew that his grandmother was a Holocaust survivor, but she never spoke about her experiences during the war. She thought her stories were too horrible for her children and grandchildren when they were young. She always thought she would tell them later, but later never came. Lombroso realized that now was his chance to finally ask, before it was too late.
In the film, Gottlieb talks about her childhood in Kielce, Poland, and her relationship with her sister, spying on Irena and tattling to their mother. Even when discussing her sister’s disappearance, she has a matter-of-fact way of telling these stories, accepting what happened and not dwelling on the past.
Lombroso said her testimony helped him avoid the cliches of documentary filmmaking. Too often, he explained, “you’ve gotten your main subject to pour themselves out in front of the camera like it’s a therapy session. My grandmother doesn’t go there,” he said. “At first, I thought that would be a problem.” However, “with distance and going through screenings, I realized that’s what makes the film so different and special. Her message is one that you don’t hear much: Keep going in life. Don’t feel sorry for yourself. And if someone like her doesn’t feel sorry for herself [after] losing upwards of 20 family members, then I certainly can’t.”
Another surprising aspect of the documentary is Gottlieb’s compassion for her tormentors. Having been evacuated to Prague, she saw the liberated Czechs pour tar on German officers and burn them alive. She was horrified.
“One of the worst moments of the Holocaust for her was watching a German officer be burned alive by Czech bystanders. She says, ‘You don’t do that to other people. We’re all born little adorable children. What happens to us?” Lombroso said. “The person she has sympathy for is her perpetrator and I just find that so rare in this day and age.”
In order to get this level of honesty from his grandmother, Lombroso approached this project, his first personal film, like his previous work at The New Yorker, where he is a staff filmmaker, and before that at The Atlantic.
“I’m used to embedding myself with people who I disagree with. I always try to understand subjects in the same way. Even when I was dealing with Richard Spencer, who is a famous white nationalist, I was trying to understand the root of his ideology and how he became who he is today,” he said. “I wanted to understand how someone becomes that f–ked up. We went skiing together and I met his mother. That’s the kind of reporting I just love doing and I think people open up to me because I don’t feel judgmental towards them. I just want to understand.”
And despite his love for his grandmother, he tried to keep a certain creative distance. “My grandmother had no editorial control,” Lombroso said. “She saw the film for the first time a few days before it premiered, and I told her you cannot change anything. And sure, there’s a tenderness in the film that comes through because I love her and feel close to her, but it was important to me not to compromise my practice in any way with her story.”
The one time he did let her weigh in is when he showed her a synopsis of the film that mentioned survivor’s guilt. She was furious.
“She said, ‘I don’t feel guilty about anything,’” Lombroso said. “I think it’s important to see someone like her and that’s what makes her so inspiring.”
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The post In New Yorker doc ‘Nina & Irena,’ a director helps his grandmother open up about the Holocaust appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Israel Says Brazil’s Exit From IHRA Shows ‘a Profound Moral Failure’
Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva reacts after meeting with Brazilian citizens, who were repatriated from the Gaza Strip, upon arrival at the Air Force base of Brasilia, Brazil, Nov. 13, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Ueslei Marcelino
The Brazilian government has not yet confirmed its reported decision to withdraw from the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), however both Brazilian media and the Jewish state have have done so.
On Thursday, Israel’s Foreign Ministry stated on X that “Brazil’s decision to join the legal offensive against Israel at the ICJ [International Court of Justice] while withdrawing from the IHRA, is a demonstration of a profound moral failure. At a time when Israel is fighting for its very existence, turning against the Jewish state and abandoning the global consensus against antisemitism is both reckless and shameful.”
On Wednesday, reports emerged of Brazil’s plans to join South Africa in charging Israel with genocide at the International Court of Justice (ICJ). South Africa has argued the case against Israel since December 2023.
The Combat Antisemitism Movement’s Shay Salamon, Director of Hispanic Affairs, condemned Brazil’s withdrawal from IHRA in a Friday statement.
“The Brazilian government’s move is not only irresponsible, but also deeply alarming at a time of rising antisemitism worldwide,” Salamon said. “Denying the importance of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) and abandoning its Working Definition of Antisemitism minimizes the Holocaust and disregards the history of a people who have been victimized by hatred for ages.”
Salamon stated that “Brazil is home to the second-largest Jewish community in Latin America, including many descendants of Holocaust survivors, and Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has now turned his back on them. This decision, on top of his constant attacks on Israel, further confirms what was already clear — President Lula has normalized antisemitism in his official discourse. His approach represents neither neutrality nor diplomacy — rather, it’s complicity.”
Fernando Lottenberg, who serves as Organization of American States (OAS) Commissioner for Monitoring and Combating Anti-Semitism, offered his analysis of Lula’s move in a thread of posts on X, saying that “this is a step in the wrong direction.”
“Although Brazil has not adopted the [IHRA antisemitism] definition nationally, it has been adopted in 12 Brazilian states so far, as well as in the cities of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo,” Lottenberg wrote. “The IHRA’s working definition of antisemitism is an important tool that, although not legally binding, has been adopted by more than 45 countries and 2,000 institutions around the world to help inform, identify, and combat antisemitism.”
The post Israel Says Brazil’s Exit From IHRA Shows ‘a Profound Moral Failure’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Jewish Father and Son Verbally Assaulted in Italy Over Child’s Kippah
Demonstrators participate in a pro-Palestinian protest in Piazza Duomo in Milan, Italy, on November 23, 2024 (Photo by Alessandro Bremec/NurPhoto)
A Jewish man from France and his child were verbally assaulted at a gas station near Milan in Italy this week by a group of pro-Palestinian supporters — an incident that has triggered strong condemnation from the country’s Jewish community.
On Monday, a group of pro-Palestinian individuals shouted antisemitic slurs at a Jewish man and his son after spotting the child wearing a kippah, hurling phrases like “Free Palestine” and “murderers” as they passed by.
The incident was captured and widely shared on social media, showing the father shouting “Am Yisrael Chai” — Hebrew for “The people of Israel live” — in response to the antisemitic insults, while his child appeared visibly upset.
Amid a growing wave of antisemitic hate crimes, this latest incident has sparked widespread outrage on social media, with activists and the local Jewish community calling for urgent and decisive measures to combat the increasing anti-Jewish hatred across Europe.
Yossi Spitzky, a French-Jewish public relations activist, denounced the incident on social media, calling the surge in antisemitism “completely unbearable.”
“A Jewish man stopped at a gas station on a highway in Italy and was targeted with chants of ‘Free Palestine’ just because his son was wearing a kippah. He’s French — this has nothing to do with Israel,” he wrote in a post on social media.
“How far have we fallen? Don’t you think this has gone too far? In ten years, will we be saying ‘never again,’ or will we choose to stand up against this hatred now?” he continued.
The incident comes amid a surge in antisemitism and anti-Israel sentiment across Europe and around the world since the Hamas-led invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
In Italy, Jewish individuals have been facing a surge in hostility and targeted attacks, including vandalism of murals and businesses, as well as physical assaults. Community leaders warn that such incidents are becoming more frequent amid growing tensions related to the war in Gaza.
Last month, a masked individual targeted a synagogue in Rome, spray-painting a swastika and antisemitic slogans — “Sieg Heil” (“Hail Victory”) and “Juden Raus” (“Jews Out”) — on a sign near the entrance.
In May, a restaurant in Naples forced an Israeli family to leave, telling them, “Zionists are not welcome here.”
Earlier this year, a homeless Egyptian man in Rome attacked a Jewish boy and injured a shopkeeper who tried to intervene. In a separate incident, anti-Israel protesters defaced a synagogue with graffiti reading “Justice for a Free Gaza.”
Last year, a hotel manager in Rome canceled an Israeli couple’s reservation just one day before their trip, accusing them of genocide and telling them the hotel would “be happy to grant free cancellation.”
“We inform you that the Israeli people as those responsible for genocide are not welcome customers in our structure,” the hotel manager told the Israeli couple.
The post Jewish Father and Son Verbally Assaulted in Italy Over Child’s Kippah first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Beyond Borders: Why American Security Depends on Hamas’ Demise
Palestinian children compelled to participate in a Hamas military parade. Photo: Twitter.
The October 7 Hamas attack on Israel was a global wake-up call, directly threatening American national security. This calculated act of international terrorism, claiming nearly 1,200 lives and approximately 250 hostages from more than 40 nations, shattered any illusion of contained threats.
Hamas, a US-designated foreign terrorist organization and a core component of Iran’s “axis of resistance,” poses a direct imperative for American security. Its persistence sets a dangerous precedent, endangering US interests and citizens worldwide.
Hamas is an Islamist militant organization, an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, explicitly committed to Israel’s destruction and the murder of Jews through jihadist violence. The October 7 attack, a chilling tactical shift, showcased its depraved disregard for human life. A core Hamas strategy is the cynical exploitation of civilian life: it deliberately embeds military assets — weapons, rockets, and extensive terror tunnels — within densely populated areas, using human shields. This calculated tactic weaponizes civilian casualties for propaganda, creating a perverse global incentive for terror groups.
Iran, Hamas’ critical benefactor, provides substantial financial, military, and political support, making Hamas integral to Iran’s “axis of resistance” against Israel and US interests. Hamas’ actions and perceived resilience serve as a dangerous template for global terror networks. Under Hamas, Gaza became a radical Islamic entity and a haven for global jihadist organizations, with ideological convergence and operational crossovers evident with groups like Al-Qaeda. Its ability to execute large-scale assaults and survive creates an “operational success” narrative, and inspires emulation and recruitment. Innovative tactics, like using commercial drones and bulldozers to breach borders, demonstrate dangerous adaptability.
The Israel-Hamas war has profoundly reshaped the global terrorist threat, directly impacting the United States. Hamas’ brutal October 7 assault, driven by its radical Islamist ideology, has been seized upon by jihadist groups worldwide as a call to action. This perceived operational success and the group’s Islamist narrative, are actively exploited by international and domestic extremists to radicalize and recruit individuals across the United States, leveraging social media for unprecedented virtual access.
The Islamist ideology espoused by Hamas, fundamentally rejecting Western democratic ideals, directly fuels antisemitic and anti-Israel sentiment. This translates into tangible plots targeting Jewish communities, pro-Israel organizations, and US government and military interests.
Foreign Terrorist Organizations, including Hamas itself and Iran-backed Hezbollah — a critical partner in Iran’s axis of resistance — have explicitly called for violence against US assets and personnel globally. Hezbollah, with its established global criminal-financial network, has actively attempted to seed operatives within the United States, posing a direct and grave danger to American lives and interests.
Beyond direct violence, the threat extends significantly into the cyber domain, identified as one of the fastest growing dangers to US national and economic security. Pro-Iranian hacktivists and state-affiliated cyber actors, often linked to the same networks supporting groups like Hamas, may conduct disruptive attacks against US networks and critical infrastructure. The broader destabilization caused by persistent terror groups like Hamas and their state sponsors imposes a significant strain on US resources, diverting funding, increasing geopolitical risk, and fueling inflation, with long-term implications for economic stability and increased defense spending.
History warns against the dangers of persistent terror groups, and unresolved conflicts fuel tension and crises. While Hamas’ ideology may persist, its capacity for violence can be constrained, turning it from a major threat to a marginal irritant.
Eliminating Hamas is a self-interested imperative for US national security. Its military capabilities pose an enduring threat, allowing it to shape political reality. Hamas has historically reconstituted after attempted defeat, emerging scarred but triumphant from security vacuums. US counterterrorism strategy mandates persistent pressure to prevent reemergence. Denying Hamas its capacity for violence, dismantling its infrastructure, and severing its funding is a necessary, pragmatic step to secure America’s long-term interests and prevent future, more costly interventions.
America must therefore act decisively, leveraging its full national power — military, intelligence, diplomatic, and financial — to ensure the complete dismantling of Hamas’ operational capabilities and infrastructure. This pragmatic, self-interested approach is essential to safeguard the nation, protect American lives, and secure a stable future against the pervasive dangers of global terrorism. To tolerate Hamas’ continued existence is to accept a world perpetually menaced by those who reject peace and embrace violence
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 Beyond Borders: Why American Security Depends on Hamas’ Demise first appeared on Algemeiner.com.