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No longer a ‘Real Housewife,’ Orthodox influencer Lizzy Savetsky turns to fighting antisemitism
(New York Jewish Week) — Lizzy Savetsky’s life has been turned upside down and inside out over the past eight months.
The 37-year-old social media influencer, who identifies as “a proud Orthodox Jewish woman,” became practically a household name this summer when she was announced as a cast member for the 14th season of “The Real Housewives of New York.” Having recently relocated from Texas to the Upper East Side, the mom of three kids (Stella, 10, Juliet, 8 and Ollie, 2) was thrust into the spotlight alongside six other New York City-based socialites, including fashion designer (and “Girls” guest star) Jenna Lyons and Israeli real estate agent Erin Lichy.
But then, in mid-November, after just weeks of filming, Savetsky left the show. At the time, she said it was due to antisemitism she experienced in online forums. In the aftermath of her departure, there were unsubstantiated reports that she clashed with other cast members, and that her husband had been heard using a racial slur.
In a recent interview with the New York Jewish Week, Savetsky declined to comment on those reports. Instead, she spoke about something she considers exceedingly more important: using the joy and light of Hanukkah — and, well, her social media reach of 225,000 Instagram followers — to fight antisemitism.
Though she’s no longer associated with the reality juggernaut, Savetsky has emerged as a famous Jewish New Yorker nonetheless. These days, she’s making public appearances to talk about community safety and antisemitism, and she even hosted a Hanukkah party at her home where she lit the menorah alongside Mayor Eric Adams.
This Festival of Lights, Savetsky is the face of the Friends of the Israeli Defense Forces’ “Live the Miracle” media campaign. Each night of Hanukkah, a different high-profile Jew lights a candle alongside an Israeli soldier, part of a video campaign intended to stand up against antisemitism while supporting the IDF. Also featured in the videos are stand-up comedian Modi Rosenfeld, Israeli actor and anti-antisemitism ambassador Noa Tishby and rapper Kosha Dillz.
Savetsky and her family lit the candle on the first night of Hanukkah alongside Shahar, a female naval combat sergeant currently serving in the IDF. Savetsky called Shahar “an amazing role model for her daughters” who showed them “you’re never too young or too small to contribute amazing things to the Jewish people.”
“It was really one of the most special experiences that we’ve had as a family,” Savetksy said of meeting Shahar and lighting the candles with her. “From a biblical sense, Hanukkah comes after a very dark time and it’s about bringing light to the darkness. To be able to celebrate this, in this moment, is a profound experience, and to be able to do that with a soldier from the IDF is something that means so much to me and my family and to be able to share that with the world is a really big deal.”
The FIDF campaign is only the latest move by Savetsky to showcase her Jewish pride. Though she calls herself an “accidental activist” — the NYU grad who grew up in Fort Worth first began her fashion blog, “Excessories Expert,” in the 2010s, and her media accounts then were mostly dedicated to fashion and lifestyle content — she has become well known for talking about Jewish traditions and customs, promoting Zionism and her love for the State of Israel and, perhaps most urgently of late, calling on others to help fight the scourge of antisemitism.
“I just saw how necessary it was,” Savetsky said of her shift to calling on others to help fight antisemitism. “I want to do everything I can for my people because I want to ensure a future for my children and their children. So I really made a conscious decision to shift my platform to not only fighting antisemitism, but to also share and educate about Judaism because I think a lot of hate is born out of fear.”
“It’s a privilege to stand in solidarity with these influential Jewish figures who will not let darkness prevail,” said Steve Weil, the chief executive officer of Friends of the IDF. “These are people, who, in the face of social media and all sorts of attacks, are standing up for morality, for dignity, and for these young men and young women who are literally at the front line of humanity.”
“I have always been unapologetic about my support for Israel and calling myself a Zionist,” Savetsky told the New York Jewish Week. “I want to put a face to what that means — it is like a wife and a mother and somebody who’s loving and hard-working.”
And yet, her beliefs and outspokenness have drawn the ire of many, especially when the “Real Housewives” cast was announced. Her Instagram handle proclaiming her a “proud Zionist” drew broadsides from pro-Palestinian activists, while some Jews on social media also criticized her for not dressing modestly despite being part of a Modern Orthodox Jewish community.
Savetsky said she and her family received hateful messages and even death threats. Even her husband, plastic surgeon Ira Savetsky, received a letter mailed to his office calling him a “kike” and an “arrogant piece of sh–.”
“I expected to receive negativity. I know that, unfortunately, Israel is a very polarizing topic and I have always been unapologetic about my support for Israel,” she said. “But the amount of hate and the fact that it was coming from all directions — from the far right, from the far left, from so many different groups of people — and the viciousness of it just it really broke my heart.”
The vitriol became overwhelming, Savetsky said. “For the first time I found myself really fearing for my safety and questioning my decision to put myself in this public position,” she said.
Ultimately, after only weeks of filming, Savetsky insists she decided to leave the show because of the antisemitism she faced. “It was definitely not the path for me and for my family,” Savetsky told the New York Jewish Week. “I have no regrets about going through the process because if anything, it shined a light on just how much hate there is out there.”
“I would rather know and understand the reality of it so that I can use my efforts to fight it,” she added. “The fear that I felt from experiencing all the hate I’ve gotten in the past few months really just motivated me to double down and fight even harder.”
Days after her announcement, Page Six, citing “production insiders,” reported that there was more to the story surrounding Savetsky’s departure — including that Savetsky declined to match a non-Jewish cast member up with a Jewish man, and that her husband repeated anti-Black slurs to a producer.
Savetsky declined to comment on these allegations, nor have the rumors been confirmed by Bravo or a named member of the cast. The show is set to air sometime in 2023.
And while she may not be a “Real Housewife,” Savetsky plans to stay in the city. “New York is the center of the universe,” she joked, citing the large and diverse Jewish community as a huge reason why she wanted to raise her kids here. Living on the Upper East Side, Savetsky’s daughters attend a Modern Orthodox day school, and the family is a member of the newly created Altneu congregation, helmed by Rabbi Benjamin Goldschmidt and his wife Avital Chizhik-Goldschmidt.
Despite leaving the show, Savetsky has no plans to be silent about antisemitism. Savetsky has gained more than 20,000 followers since the “Real Housewives” cast announcement, and the subsequent antisemitism she faced — as well as the rise in antisemitic incidents, in general — have only inspired her to be more outspoken about her Judaism and Zionism, she said.
“Everything has changed in the past few months — for me, personally, and I believe for the Jewish people and the world,” Savetsky said. “The world is waking up to the reality that antisemitism isn’t just this looming threat, but it’s real and it’s here and I think people are opening their eyes to that.”
She added: “I’ve never felt like my purpose was so clear as I do in this moment to be loud and proud and to stand up for my people.”
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Israelis pause for a different kind of siren: the one marking Holocaust memorial day
(JTA) — For the last six weeks, whenever Israelis have heard a siren, they were instructed to run to their nearest bomb shelter. On Tuesday, a siren instead brought them to a halt.
The two-minute siren was the one sounded annually on Yom HaShoah, Holocaust memorial day. In keeping with a national tradition, Israelis stopped whatever they were doing for a moment of silence to remember the 6 million Jews murdered in the Holocaust. Drivers exited their cars on the streets; shoppers froze in grocery store aisles; and people strolling the streets paused where they were.
Even for seasoned Israelis, the dissonance was strong this year. Hillel Fuld, an Israeli influencer, wrote that he was initially unnerved to see so many people failing to follow the guidance about what to do when a missile is incoming.
“I exited my car and was about to lie down when I realized, that’s not a siren warning of a missile. That’s a siren remembering the six million!” he wrote.
“I felt that emotional confusion that every Israeli knows too well. Sadness. Devastation. Hopelessness,” Fuld continued. “And at the same time, tremendous pride, optimism, and unity.”
This year’s Yom HaShoah is the first since all Israeli hostages taken on Oct. 7, 2023, were freed from Gaza. Some of the freed hostages, including Eli Sharabi, participated in small remembrance gatherings known as Zikaron Basalon. Others posted symbols of Jewish survival, including Sagui Dekel-Chen, whose wife posted pictures of him alongside his grandfather, a Holocaust survivor, and Elkana Bohbot, who with his wife announced that he is expecting a child.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Israelis pause for a different kind of siren: the one marking Holocaust memorial day appeared first on The Forward.
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Many children killed in the Holocaust had no one to say Kaddish for them. These Jews have stepped up.
(JTA) — As each week’s Shabbat morning service comes to a close at Temple Beth El in West Palm Beach, Florida, an unusual tradition unfolds as the congregation prepares to recite the Mourner’s Kaddish.
Rabbi Alan Bell asks to stand all those reciting the prayer on the anniversary of the death of a loved one. He also asks other congregants to stand, too: those who have taken it upon themselves to recite Kaddish for a child up to the age of 17 who was murdered in the Holocaust and for whom there are no living relatives to recite it.
The Conservative synagogue calls the program Remember a Child, and at least a third of members in the 150-family congregation participate. Most recite the mourner’s prayer on the date of the child’s burial as well as on Yizkor, the special memorial prayer for the departed recited in the synagogue four times a year.
But some recite the Mourner’s Kaddish far more often.
Bell and his wife Susan have “adopted” a girl named Renee Albersheim who was born in 1930 in Berlin. They do not know when she died, only that it was in the Kovno Ghetto in German-occupied Lithuania. As a result, Susan Bell said, they recite Kaddish for her each time Kaddish is recited — multiple times a day and sometimes multiple times in a single service.
It’s become a family tradition. “When each of our granddaughters became bat mitzvah we got each a child to show them that children their age were dying [in the Holocaust],” Susan Bell said.
“They were girls from different places in the world — one was from Greece and the other from Romania — and they had the same first name as my granddaughters,” she continued. “I wanted to show the girls how widespread the Holocaust was; it was a learning experience for them.”
The Nazis murdered an estimated 1.5 million Jewish children during the Holocaust, many of whom died alongside everyone else in their family. That left no one traditionally assumed by Jewish law to recite the Mourner’s Kaddish on their behalf — siblings, parents or, for adults, children and spouses.
Rabbi Alan Bell and his wife Susan Bell lead a Holocaust remembrance initiative at Temple Beth El in West Palm Beach, Florida. (Courtesy)
At Beth El, those who participate in Remember a Child think of themselves as having “adopted” a child who was murdered more than eight decades ago. Cheryl Finkelstein, who helmed the project for many years since it launched as a Men’s Club initiative about 40 years ago, said she found those who opted in tended to “take this very seriously” and grow deeply connected to the child they have committed to remembering.
“When I sent one woman a photo of the child she had ‘adopted,’ she wrapped her arms around it and waited until the paper was warm,” Finkelstein recalled. “It breaks your heart.”
The project has gained attention far beyond the synagogue’s walls, and elicited a range of mourning practices that go beyond reciting the traditional prayer.
“We had a number of people who are not Jewish who felt strongly that they wanted to be engaged in this,” Finkelstein added. “One of those women wrote a poem about her ‘child,’ imagining her as a little girl who chased butterflies, living in a world of innocence. And another woman purchased aging software and used it on a photo of the child she had adopted to see what the child would have looked like as an adult.”
Having taken over the initiative from Finkelstein, Susan Bell has sought to gather as much information as she can about roughly 15 of the children whom congregants have “adopted,” starting with a page of testimony assembled by Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Israel.
Ari Rabinovitch, head of Yad Vashem’s international media section, said the names of the children murdered in the Holocaust and for whom there is no one to say Kaddish are kept in the organization’s online names database, which has 587,226 names of children up to and including age 17.
Rabinovitch noted that Yad Vashem has prepared a list of names — both children and adults — with details about them for use in Holocaust name reading ceremonies. “It is not uncommon for groups to access lists of names on their own for memorial services,” he said. But the memorial does not track how they are used, or how many synagogues may have adopted a practice like Beth El’s.
Bell believes at least some have. A Beth El member promoted the project on business trips, she said.
“Several of those synagogues picked it up but I don’t know if any have continued it,” she said. “It takes a toll on you when you do the research and learn what happened to each of these children.”
Menachem Rosensaft, general counsel emeritus to the World Jewish Congress who was born in 1948 to survivors of Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen, is an outspoken advocate for such a commemoration. He believes every synagogue should incorporate some mention of the Holocaust during Shabbat services, to ensure that its legacy is woven into the ongoing fabric of Jewish life — and he sees the Kaddish for child victims at Beth El as one powerful way to do that.
“It’s important in whatever way to bring into our consciousness that we are not letting it become just another event in Jewish history, just another occurrence, just another tragedy, just another pogrom,” Rosensaft added. “Because if that happens, in another generation the Holocaust will be a statistic and basically a catchphrase for people to throw around.”
As Holocaust memory is increasingly contested in the public sphere and the trauma of the Holocaust is joined by other tragedies for the Jews, Rosensaft’s vision has grown uncertain. But Finkelstein said she knew of at least one case where Remember a Child is likely to have impact into the next generation.
One Beth El congregant who “adopted” a child murdered by the Nazis “put in his will that his son was to say Kaddish for the child after he dies,” she said. “He put the instructions in his safe deposit box so that his son would take them out along with the keys to his house.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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VIDEO: ’Love was there too:’ A Yom Hashoah commemoration in Yiddish
די פֿאַרגאַנגענע וואָך האָט דער „ייִדישפּיל“־טעאַטער אין תּל־אָבֿיבֿ אַרויסגעשטעלט אַ ווידעאָ פֿון אַ „יום־השואה“־אַקאַדעמיע וואָס די טרופּע האָט דורכגעפֿירט אין 2022. די טעמע פֿון דער פּראָגראַם איז געווען מאָמענטן פֿון ליבע בײַ ייִדן אין די געטאָס און קאָנצענטראַציע־לאַגערן.
אינעם ווידעאָ לייענען די אַקטיאָרן פֿאָר זכרונות פֿון לעבן געבליבענע ווי אויך ייִדישע לידער אָנגעשריבן בשעת דעם חורבן. זיי באַשרײַבן ווי אַזוי געליבטע פּאָרלעך האָבן זיך געטראָפֿן בשתּיקה; רירנדיקע מאָמענטן פֿון געזעגענען זיך און ווי די לעבן געבליבענע האָבן זיך באַמיט מיט אַלע כּוחות צו געפֿינען די געליבטע נאָך דער באַפֿרײַונג.
דער ווידעאָ הייבט זיך אָן מיט אַ באַגריסונג פֿונעם תּל־אָבֿיבֿער בירגערמײַסטער, רון חולדאי, אויף העברעיִש, אָבער די פּראָגראַם גופֿא איז אין גאַנצן אויף ייִדיש.
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