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My ‘transgressive’ Holocaust novel is still stirring debate, 20 years later
(JTA) — Recently, I opened my email and found a link to an article in a scholarly publication, The Journal of Jewish Identities, published by Johns Hopkins. Puzzled, I clicked and discovered the following: “‘I was a prisoner. Jew. Whore’: Inherited Sexualized Trauma in Sonia Pilcer’s ‘The Holocaust Kid’ by Alex M. Anderson and Lucas F. W. Wilson.”
I read the headline and gasped. “The Holocaust Kid” is a novel of interconnected stories I published in 2001. In it, I explored the psychological and existential perspective of being the daughter of Holocaust survivors, but not reverentially. (Hence the title.)
Sure, it is semi-autobiographical. And yes, I was scarred by my history. But had I really “inherited sexualized trauma”?
I began writing ”The Holocaust Kid” in the early 1980s. It was written in an edgy style, used in my first novel “Teen Angel,” that a New York Times reviewer described as “tough and sweet, rude, loud and hilariously filthy.” I worked on much of the book in Israel, wanting to live in a country of survivors. But I hadn’t realized how uncomfortable the subject was, almost taboo, until I gave a reading in Jerusalem to a room filled with young writers and journalists. After I finished, there was hostile silence. One listener finally asked, “Why write this? And why are you reading it here?” I answered, “Because I’m a writer.” I had stories I wanted to tell, and believed that my take on the Big H, as my protagonist Zosha calls the Holocaust, needed to be heard. But the question should have alerted me to the difficulties my manuscript would face.
I didn’t know, nor did my agent Carl Brandt, who had sold my two previous novels, that it would take 20 years, over 40 rejections, countless rewrites and several more agents to sell this book. It was treated as nasty and unseemly — and I, an untouchable — by editors, many of whom were Jewish. Perhaps the editors were offended by the language. Or was I making fun of the Holocaust, as some editors suggested?
I suppose I am interested in the transgressive, but I had no intention of being disrespectful. A good joke, I thought, is the best way to deliver a devastating blow. I learned that from the survivors.
In lieu of living family, my parents belonged to a large network of Polish Jews. All were survivors. The women played canasta and men, poker. As they tossed their bright plastic chips and picked up cards, blue numbers flashed on the insides of their arms. Their stories were profoundly and terrifyingly cynical about human nature. Yet often funny, and extremely dark.
“You remember Yola? She was the not bad-looking one with crooked teeth, who went with the German. He gave her crabs.” Laughter. “If Bolek hadn’t shared his piece of bread, I wouldn’t be here. Lucky me, I was dealt three queens!”
I was born in a German DP camp, but I was raised on the streets of Brooklyn and Washington Heights, where I attended tough public schools. I rebelled against my Jewish/Holocaust background and joined a girls street gang. It is a complex matter to write about the Holocaust and its inheritors. I realize the subject was inviolable. And I admit that my take on survivors and their children is troubling, but that’s what I meant to do: to give it a raw, provocative slant, growing out of my experiences.
The book was finally sold by Gareth Esersky to a small, courageous press, Persea Books, and editor Karen Braziller. The pub date was September 2001, right before the tragedy of 9/11. The book was mostly ignored, but I did get an email from the husband of a well known therapist and filmmaker who is a Second Generation descendant of survivors, or “2G.” (In 1987, I believe I introduced the term “2G,” in a short-lived New York magazine called Seven Days.) He wrote that ”The Holocaust Kid” was a travesty, that I insulted the memory of the dead and should seek psychological help.
The almost universal rejection by the Jewish literary community was painful. But I carried on, kept writing and published other books.
Twenty-one years later, I was contacted by Lucas Wilson, who was writing his doctoral dissertation about Second Generation writers. His subjects included Art Spiegelman, Helen Epstein, several others and me. I had watched on Zoom as he defended his thesis. End of story, I thought.
A year or so later, I received the email with a link to an article by him and another graduate student, Alex Anderson. The scholars focused on the most controversial story in the collection, “Shoah Casanova.” This story involves a sexual encounter between Zosha and Uly Oppenheim, a Jewish Holocaust professor, who like Zosha, is 2G.
As they begin their lovemaking, he takes off his tie and begins to snake it around her. “He was the master. Ubermensch. Superman. So powerful,”” she thinks. “It was 1942. I was a prisoner. Jew. Whore. … If I made him love me, he’d take me through the war. I would survive.” As he is about to climax, he says, “I’ve got something for you, my little refugee. This comes all the way from Oswiecim.” Oswiecim is the Polish word for Auschwitz.
The scholars wrote, “The protagonist, Zosha Palovsky, engages in Nazi-Jewess erotic fantasy and role play as a way of addressing, albeit obliquely, her inherited sexualized trauma… [I]t gives voice and, as it were, body to what she imagines her mother to have gone through.” They continue: “Inherited sexualized trauma can thus be defined as the second generation’s adopted psychic and affective wounds that stem from what they imagine to be their parents’ experiences of sexualized violence during the Holocaust.”
Whoa! When I wrote ”Shoah Casanova,” I wasn’t thinking about my mother’s trauma, nor my own. I was trying to describe my character’s attraction/repulsion to Uly, and to their master/slave game. This is one more variation on the theme of how the Holocaust plays out in both of their lives. So it was weird to have the language of trauma applied to my story and, by implication, to me.
While he was writing his dissertation, Wilson and his mentor, Alan Berger, questioned me more than once about the identity of Uly Oppenheim, the kinky Holocaust professor, but I refused to reveal it. Why? Because I made him up, just as I made up his book about female survivors forced to work in brothels, titled “Our Bodies, Not Our Souls.” To me, this is the pleasure of creativity — making things up.
I cannot deny that the book contains episodes from my life. But I take refuge in what Carl Brandt told me when I was starting out: “There’s no way for anyone to know what actually happened and what’s fictionalized.” And I recall Philip Roth’s remark: “I say to my imagination: ‘This is what really happened. Can you top this?’”
After I sent a few friends the Wilson/Anderson article, they asked with concern, “How do you feel about this?”
If I am honest, at first, I felt thrilled to have my work read at all, after so long, and analyzed by scholars. Then I began to wonder: How much truth is in their thesis?
I remember a story my mother once told me. She worked at a munitions factory in a forced labor camp. Once she returned after curfew. A soldier caught her. He forced her to take off her dress and clean the street with it. Then he laughed and walked away. For the rest of her life, my mother remained frightened of men in uniforms. I once saw her grovel before the mailman, but I do not think this was not sexualized trauma.
The desire for domination is hardly limited to the Jewish/Nazi dynamic. Many women and men run fetishistic scenarios in their minds. You don’t have to be Jewish to enjoy humiliation, at least in your fantasies. Besides, they’re just playing. And dead serious.
Yet there is something deeply embedded in our culture’s collective unconscious that feeds on the notion of Holocaust “sexualized trauma.” It’s in the ether. Consider the films “The Night Porter,” “The Pawnbroker,” “Sophie’s Choice” and “Schindler’s List.” All of them feature scenes of terrified, naked women.
Twenty years after my book came out, and 80 years after the Holocaust, writers and filmmakers are finding new ways to tell the story. Some are breaking taboos about whose stories should be told, some are using humor and others have focused on the children and grandchildren of survivors and victims. A recent film, “The Zone of Interest,” written and directed by Jonathan Glazer, captures the horror from the point of view of Nazi commandant Rudolf Höss and his family, who live in an idyllic house. It shares a wall with Auschwitz. We see their lush gardens, parties with children jumping in a swimming pool. But in the background, there’s the insistent sounds of gunfire and screaming. And no one notices.
“We’ve become desensitized,” Glazer has said. “It’s impossible to show what happened inside those walls. “And in my opinion, one shouldn’t try.” Instead his interest was in creating “ambient evil.” The effect is powerfully haunting.
Although I did not agree with the scholars’ thesis, they gave me a reason to go back to a novel I began many years ago. My hardest one to write. The most difficult to sell. My most personal book. “The Holocaust Kid” lives on.
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Brooklyn Nets Select Israeli Basketball Players Ben Saraf, Danny Wolf in NBA Draft

The opening tip between the Brooklyn Nets and Washington Wizards, at Barclays Center, in Brooklyn, New York, Dec. 13, 2020. Photo: Wendell Cruz-USA TODAY Sports via Reuters Connect
In a landmark night for Israeli basketball, Ben Saraf and Danny Wolf were selected in the first round of the 2025 NBA Draft by the Brooklyn Nets, marking the first time two Israeli players have been drafted in the same year.
Saraf, a 19-year-old guard known for his explosive athleticism and creative playmaking, was taken with the 26th pick. A standout with Maccabi Rishon LeZion and a rising star on Israel’s youth national teams, Saraf gained international attention with his electrifying scoring and commanding court presence.
With the 27th pick, the Nets selected 7-foot center Danny Wolf out of the University of Michigan. Wolf, who holds dual US-Israeli citizenship and represented Israel at the U-20 level, brings a versatile skill set, including sharp passing, perimeter shooting, and a strong feel for the game. After his name was called, Wolf grew emotional in an on-air interview, crediting his family for helping him reach the moment.
“I have the two greatest brothers in the world; I have an unbelievable sister who I love,” Wolf said. “They all helped me get to where I am today, and they’re going to help me get to where I am going to go in this league.”
The historic double-pick adds to the growing wave of Israeli presence on the NBA stage, led by Portland Trail Blazers forward Deni Avdija, who just completed a breakout 2024–25 season. After being traded to Portland last summer, Avdija thrived as a starter, averaging 16.9 points, 7.2 rebounds, and 3.8 assists. In March alone, he posted 23.4 points, 9.8 rebounds, and 5.2 assists per game, including two triple-doubles.
“I don’t think I’ve played like this before … I knew I had it in me. But I’m not really thinking about it. I’m just playing. I’m just free,” Avdija told reporters in March
With Saraf and Wolf joining Avdija, Israel’s basketball pipeline has reached unprecedented visibility. Israeli President Isaac Herzog called the moment “a national celebration for sports and youth,” and Israeli sports commentators widely hailed the night as “historic.”
Both Saraf and Wolf are expected to suit up for the Nets’ Summer League team in July. As the two rookies begin their NBA journey, they join a growing generation of Israeli athletes proving that their game belongs on basketball’s biggest stage.
The post Brooklyn Nets Select Israeli Basketball Players Ben Saraf, Danny Wolf in NBA Draft first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Iran Denies Any Meeting With US Next Week, Foreign Minister 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 currently has no plan to meet with the United States, Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said on Thursday in an interview on state TV, contradicting US President Donald Trump’s statement that Washington planned to have talks with Iran next week.
The Iranian foreign minister said Tehran was assessing whether talks with the US were in its interest, following five previous rounds of negotiations that were cut short by Israel and the US attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities.
The US and Israel said the strikes were meant to curb Iran’s ability to create nuclear weapons, while Iran says its nuclear program is solely geared toward civilian use.
Araqchi said the damages to nuclear sites “were not little” and that relevant authorities were figuring out the new realities of Iran’s nuclear program, which he said would inform Iran’s future diplomatic stance.
The post Iran Denies Any Meeting With US Next Week, Foreign Minister Says first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Ireland Becomes First European Nation to Advance Ban on Trade With Israeli Settlements

A pro-Hamas demonstration in Ireland led by nationalist party Sinn Fein. Photo: Reuters/Clodagh Kilcoyne
Ireland has become the first European nation to push forward legislation banning trade with Israeli communities in the West Bank and East Jerusalem — an effort officials say is meant “to address the horrifying situation” in the Gaza Strip.
On Wednesday, Irish Foreign Affairs and Trade Minister Simon Harris announced that the legislation has already been approved by the government and will now move to the parliamentary Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade for pre-legislative scrutiny.
“Ireland is speaking up and speaking out against the genocidal activity in Gaza,” Harris said during a press conference.
The Irish diplomat also told reporters he hopes the “real benefit” of the legislation will be to encourage other countries to follow suit, “because it is important that every country uses every lever at its disposal.”
Today Ireland becomes the first country in Europe to bring forward legislation to ban trade with the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
Ireland is speaking up and speaking out against the genocidal activity in Gaza.
Every country must pull every lever at its disposal. pic.twitter.com/Z4RTjqntEY— Simon Harris TD (@SimonHarrisTD) June 24, 2025
Joining a growing number of EU member states aiming to curb Israel’s defensive campaign against the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, Ireland’s decision comes after a 2024 advisory opinion by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) declared Israel’s presence in the West Bank and East Jerusalem illegal.
The ICJ ruled that third countries must avoid trade or investment that supports “the illegal situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.”
Once implemented, the law will criminalize the importation of goods from Israeli settlements into Ireland, empowering customs officials to inspect, seize, and confiscate any such shipments.
“The situation in Palestine remains a matter of deep public concern,” Harris said. “I have made it consistently clear that this government will use all levers at its disposal to address the horrifying situation on the ground and to contribute to long-term efforts to achieve a sustainable peace on the basis of the two-state solution.”
“Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory are illegal and threaten the viability of the two-state solution,” the Irish diplomat continued. “This is the longstanding position of the European Union and our international partners. Furthermore, this is the clear position under international law.”
Harris also urged the EU to comply with the ICJ’s ruling by taking a more decisive and “adequate response” regarding imports from Israeli settlements.
“This is an issue that I will continue to press at EU level, and I reiterated my call for concrete proposals from the European Commission at the Foreign Affairs Council this week,” he said.
Last week, Ireland and eight other EU member states — Finland, Belgium, Luxembourg, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, and Sweden — called on the European Commission to draft proposals for how EU countries can halt trade and imports with Israeli settlements, in line with obligations set out by the ICJ.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar condemned the latest move by European countries, calling it “shameful” and a misguided attempt to undermine Israel while it faces “existential” threats from Iran and its proxies, including Hamas.
“It is regrettable that even when Israel is fighting an existential threat which is in Europe’s vital interest — there are those who can’t resist their anti-Israeli obsession,” the top Israeli diplomat said in a post on X.
It is regrettable that even when Israel fighting an existential threat which is in Europe vital interest – there are those who can’t resist their anti-Israeli obsession.
Shameful! https://t.co/lxm9qm8sM1— Gideon Sa’ar | גדעון סער (@gidonsaar) June 19, 2025
The post Ireland Becomes First European Nation to Advance Ban on Trade With Israeli Settlements first appeared on Algemeiner.com.