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Nechama Tec, survivor whose book about the Bielski partisans inspired the Daniel Craig film ‘Defiance,’ dies at 92
(JTA) — Nechama Tec, a Holocaust survivor and historian whose book about a group of Jews in Belarus who successfully defied the Nazis was made into the 2008 film “Defiance, “ died Aug. 3 in New York City, following an illness. She was 92.
Tec, a member of one of only three Jewish families from Lublin, Poland, to survive the Holocaust intact from a prewar population of some 40,000, was for decades on the sociology faculty at the University of Connecticut in Stamford. Her books included “Resilience and Courage: Women, Men, and the Holocaust” (2003) and “When Light Pierced the Darkness: Christian Rescue of Jews in Nazi-Occupied Poland” (1986).
Prior to the film adaptation of her 1993 book, “Defiance: The Bielski Partisans,” Tec was best known within the academic world and the tight-knit community of American Holocaust survivors.
The film version of “Defiance” was directed by Edward Zwick and starred Daniel Craig and Liev Schreiber as the Bielski brothers, Tuvia and Zus. Under the brothers’ leadership, Jewish partisans rescued Jews from extermination and fought the German occupiers and their collaborators in what is now western Belarus.
Historians had long known of uprisings at the Auschwitz and Treblinka camps, in addition to the better-known rebellion in the Warsaw Ghetto led by Mordecai Anielewicz, but the story of the Bielskis differed fundamentally in that it was successful.
When Tec set out to write a book about the Bielski brothers, she sought to fill in omissions and correct distortions created by their almost-total excision from historical accounts of the Holocaust.
“The omission is the conspicuous silence about Jews who, while themselves threatened by death, were saving others,” Tec wrote in the opening to “Defiance.” “The distortion is the common description of European Jews as victims who went passively to their death.”
Daniel Craig played one of the leaders of a successful Jewish uprising during World War II in the 2008 film “Defiance.” (Screen shot from YouTube)
In her five-decade career at the University of Connecticut, Tec received numerous awards for her publications, including a Pulitzer Prize nomination for “Resilience and Courage.” She was awarded the 1994 International Anne Frank Special Recognition prize for ”Defiance.” She was a member of the advisory council of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research in New York. In 2002, she was appointed by President George W. Bush to the council of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.
Born May 15, 1931, to Roman Bawnik and Esther (Hachamoff) Bawnik, Tec was 8 years old when the Germans arrived in Lublin. She and her sister survived three years by posing as the nieces of a Catholic family; her parents also survived the war by hiding in homes and evading German detection.
“An extra layer of secretiveness, combined with a fear of discovery, became part of my being,” she wrote of those years in her 1982 memoir, “Dry Tears: The Story of a Lost Childhood.” “All my life revolved around hiding; hiding thoughts, hiding feelings, hiding my activities, hiding information.”
After the war, Tec immigrated to Israel, where she married Leon Tec, a noted child psychiatrist. Later they moved to the United States, where she earned her bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees at Columbia University and served on the faculty there for a decade. She began teaching at Connecticut in 1974.
The couple had two children, one of whom — son Roland — co-produced the “Defiance” film. Her daughter, Leora Tec, is the founder and director of Bridge To Poland, an organization that aims to improve relations between Jews and non-Jewish Poles. Her husband died in 2013; both children survive her.
Tec met Tuvia Bielski only once, in Brooklyn, New York, just weeks before his death in 1987. In a 2009 interview with JTA, she recalled that Bielski’s legendary charisma was apparent, even though he was old and frail.
“He was whispering,” she recalled. “I thought that my tape recorder won’t get anything. And I was trying to have the information flow. And as he got into his past, he sort of just, before my eyes, he became the person that he was, this charismatic leader, that has this absolute power in the unit.”
She added, “When he came into the room, he filled it with himself.”
While Tec was gratified that the film offered a counterpoint to allegations of Jewish passivity during the Holocaust, she also resisted what she called an impulse to blame the victim.
“Antisemitism is with us; it is like a perpetual, chronic addiction of humanity,” she told JTA. “You cannot learn about antisemitism by examining what the antisemites tell us because this is not based on fact. It is based on their need to blame somebody for something that they have not done.”
A memorial service for Tec at Manhattan’s Plaza Memorial Chapel is planned for Oct. 1.
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The post Nechama Tec, survivor whose book about the Bielski partisans inspired the Daniel Craig film ‘Defiance,’ dies at 92 appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Ilhan Omar Slapped With Ethics Complaint From Conservative Watchdog Over Holding Rally With Ex-Somali PM
US Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) participates in a news conference, outside the US Capitol in Washington, DC, April 10, 2019. Photo: Reuters / Jim Bourg
US Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) has been slapped with an ethics complaint by the American Accountability Foundation (AAF), a conservative watchdog group, for holding an event with former Somali Prime Minister Hassan Ali Khaire.
Last weekend, Khaire took the stage with Omar in support of her reelection campaign. AAF argued Khaire’s presence at Omar’s campaign rally constituted a violation of the US Federal Election Campaign Act and demanded the congresswoman step down from office.
“We are deeply concerned by Ilhan Omar’s illegal campaign rally with the former prime minister of Somalia. Omar already has a long history of statements indicating her disdain for America and allegiance to Somalia, but this goes beyond statements,” the AAF wrote.
“Now her campaign has taken action to involve a foreign leader in an American election. She must resign immediately and return every dollar raised for her at this disgraceful rally,” the watchdog continued.
The organization argued Omar potentially committed two infractions against the Federal Election Campaign Act.
First, AAF alleged that the congresswoman “knowingly accepted former Somalia Prime Minister Hassan Ali Khaire’s services at her campaign events.” They asserted this action exceeded the “limited volunteer services permitted by a foreign national and involves impermissible decision-making.”
Second, the watchdog claimed that Khaire was possibly “compensated by a prohibited source.” The organization suggested that Ka Joog, a Minneapolis-based nonprofit that focuses on “empowering Somali American youth,” organized and funded Khaire’s trip to America. AAF argued that Omar likely “knowingly accepted a corporate contribution associated with Mr. Khaire’s travel and lodging costs” with the goal of boosting voter turnout among Minnesota’s Somali-American community.
During Omar’s campaign rally in Minnesota last weekend, Khaire gave an impassioned speech, urging the audience to vote for the congresswoman.
“Support her with your votes, tell your neighbors and friends, and anyone you know to come out and support Ilhan Omar,” Khaire said. “And knock on every door you can so that she can be re-elected.”
Khaire then added, “Ilhan’s interests aren’t those of Minnesota or the American people but those of Somalia.”
“No one is above the law — even members of the Squad” of far-left lawmakers in the US House, AAF president Thomas Jones wrote in a statement. “Not only were Khaire’s comments about Omar deeply disturbing, but the rally was also a blatant violation of US election laws. Omar must resign immediately and return every dollar raised by Khaire for her campaign.”
Omar’s campaign counsel David Mitrani denied that the congresswoman violated any elections laws.
“This ethics complaint is another attempt by the far-right to smear the congresswoman,” Mitrani told the New York Post.
“Congresswoman Omar’s campaign had absolutely no involvement in requesting, coordinating, or facilitating Mr Khaire’s appearance or his comments, and accordingly there was no violation of law,” he continued.
Khaire’s claim that Omar’s “interests” are with Somalia rather than the American people raised eyebrows, with critics pointing out that she has previously criticized the American Jewish community for supposedly maintaining “allegiance” to the government of Israel.
“I want to talk about the political influence in this country that says it is OK for people to push for allegiance to a foreign country,” Omar said during a 2019 speech in reference to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a lobbying organization aimed at fostering a closer US-Israel relationship.
“Accusing Jews of harboring dual loyalty has a long, violent, sordid history,” said Steve Hunegs, executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Minnesota and the Dakotas, in response to Omar’s comments.
During her five-year stretch as a US representative, Omar has emerged as one of Israel’s fiercest critics, repeatedly accusing the Jewish state of enacting “apartheid” and “ethnic cleansing” against Palestinians. She has supported the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel, an initiative which seeks to economically punish and isolate the Jewish state as the first step toward its elimination.
The congresswoman came under fire after waiting a whole two days to comment on Hamas’ Oct. 7 slaughter of over 1200 people across southern Israel. Despite slow-walking a condemnation of Hamas’ atrocities, she was one of the first congresspeople to call for Israel to implement a “ceasefire” in the Gaza strip.
Omar enraged both Democratic and Republican lawmakers after she referred to Jewish college students as being either “pro-genocide or anti-genocide” while visiting Columbia University in April.
The post Ilhan Omar Slapped With Ethics Complaint From Conservative Watchdog Over Holding Rally With Ex-Somali PM first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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California Jury Convicts Neo-Nazi Who Brutally Murdered Gay Jewish Teenager
Samuel Woodward, recently convicted of the hate crime murder of 19-year-old Blaze Bernstein, a gay Jewish teenager from California. Photo: Orange County Sheriff’s Office
A jury in Orange County, California on Wednesday convicted a neo-Nazi of the hate-crime murder of a gay Jewish teenager he lured to the woods under the false pretense of a furtive hook-up.
According to court documents, Samuel Woodward — a member of the Neo-Nazi group the Atomwaffen Division — stabbed 19-year-old University of Pennsylvania student Blaze Bernstein over two dozen times in 2018 after pretending in a series of Tinder messages to be interested in a first-time homosexual encounter.
Bernstein was unaware of Woodward’s paranoiac and hateful far-right ideology, however. The now 26-year-old Woodward had withdrawn from college to join the Atomwaffen Division — whose members have been linked to several other murders, including a young man who killed his ex-girlfriend’s parents — idolized Adolf Hitler, and would spend hours on Grindr searching for gay men to humiliate and “ghost,” ceasing all contact with them after posing as a coquettish “bicurious” Catholic.
“I tell sodomites that I’m bi-curious, which makes them want to ‘convert’ me,” Woodward said in his diary quoted by The Los Angeles Times. “Get them hooked by acting coy, maybe then send them a pic or two, beat around the bus and pretend to tell them that I like them and then kabam, I either un-friend them or tell them they have been pranked, ha ha.”
In another entry, Woodward wrote, “They think they are going to get hate crimed [sic] and it scares the s— out of them.”
On the day of the killing, Woodward agreed to drive Bernstein to Borrego Park in Foothill Ranch, where he stabbed him as many as 30 times and buried him in a “shallow grave,” according to various reports. He never denied his guilt, but in court his attorneys resorted to blaming the crime on his being diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome and feeling conflicted about his sexuality, LA Times reported. As the trial progressed, his attorneys also made multiple attempts to decouple Woodward’s Nazism from the murder, arguing that it was not a hate crime and that no mention of his trove of fascist paraphernalia and antisemitic and homophobic views should be uttered in court.
“No verdict can bring back Blaze. He was an amazing human and humanitarian and a person we were greatly looking forward to having in our lives, seeing wondrous things from him as his young life unfolded” the family of the victim, who has been described by all who knew him as amiable and talented, said in a statement shared by ABC News. “From this funny, articulate, kind, intelligent, caring, and brilliant scientist, artist, writer, chef, and son, there will never be anyone quite like him. His gifts will never be realized or shared now.”
With Wednesday’s guilty verdict, Woodward may never be free again. He faces life in prison without parole at his sentencing on Oct. 25.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post California Jury Convicts Neo-Nazi Who Brutally Murdered Gay Jewish Teenager first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Opinion: The folly of pro-Palestinian protesters screaming at Jewish teenage girls playing softball in Surrey, B.C.
Did the protesters even realize who would be on the field when they showed up?
The post Opinion: The folly of pro-Palestinian protesters screaming at Jewish teenage girls playing softball in Surrey, B.C. appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.