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Novel about Chinese rescuer of Jews raises questions about facts vs. fiction in Holocaust stories
TAIPEI (JTA) — Ho Feng-Shan, the Chinese diplomat stationed in Vienna who helped thousands of Jews escape from Europe during World War II, never met Adolf Eichmann.
But in “Night Angels,” a novel based on his life, Feng-Shan comes face to face with Eichmann several times — and his wife Grace’s Jewish tutor, Lola, tries to kill the architect of the Holocaust.
That detail is one of many that has spurred Ho Manli, Feng-Shan’s daughter, to speak out against “Night Angels,” the fourth novel by the Chinese-American author Weina Dai Randel. Manli says the book distorts elements of her father’s story, which was unknown before she spent decades documenting his heroic efforts to issue visas allowing Jews to escape to Shanghai.
“What I have found in doing this story is it’s very difficult to try to maintain the historical integrity of the facts,” Manli told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “Countless people … want to use this for their own means, whether it be commercial like this novelist, whether it be political, or whatever. So over the two decades that I have been doggedly trying to uncover more and more, I’ve been constantly fending off these sorts of opportunistic assaults.”
The dispute is casting a shadow over the novel, released this month, and reinvigorating longstanding debates over the importance of truth in historical fiction — particularly in stories about the Holocaust.
“Night Angels” follows Feng-Shan and his wife, Grace, as they risk their lives by issuing visas that allow thousands of Jews escape Germany and Austria to Shanghai. Grace, one of the novel’s narrators and main characters, is based on Feng-Shan’s real second wife with the same name who was no longer in Vienna after the Anschluss — Nazi Germany’s annexation of Austria in 1938, and the period in which the novel is set. By that time, Feng-Shan had already sent Grace away to Boston. She never witnessed Nazi rule or Feng-Shan’s efforts to save Jews, Manli writes.
Several other events in the book, including Grace’s friendship with a Jewish woman who attempts to assassinate Eichmann and her development of a morphine addiction, are fully fictional.
Manli first took aim at the book in a column last month in China Daily. The novel, she wrote, “exploits real names, real people, real events and places, in what is essentially a Holocaust-themed melodrama.”
“In online reviews, readers say that they are thrilled to learn of my father and this history — except of course, what they have learned is not really history, my father’s, or anyone else’s,” she wrote.
Randel and her publisher, Amazon Publishing, did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Randel dedicated the novel to “Ho Feng-Shan, his family, and all the angels in Vienna and beyond.” The book includes a disclaimer disclosing that its contents are a work of fiction and a product of the author’s imagination.
But that’s not satisfactory to some readers, including Tina Kanagaratnam, co-founder of the heritage group Historic Shanghai, whose book group read a previous Randel story set in Shanghai.
“If you’re talking about a historical character, you have to get the history right. Otherwise, just create a fictional character,” Kanagaratnam told JTA. “This is written for people who don’t know the history, but as Manli said, that’s dangerous, because then that’s what they remember. That’s what they take away.”
Ho Monto, left, and Ho Manli stand in front of the Righteous Among the Nations wall at the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem, Jan. 23, 2001. (Isaac Harari/AFP via Getty Images)
“Night Angels” has accumulated thousands of positive reviews on Amazon and has been promoted by Jewish organizations across the country. On Wednesday, the Jewish Book Council, in collaboration with Tablet Magazine and the Jewish Museum in New York City, will hold an event with Randel and journalist Jonathan Freedland that will explore “fact, fiction, and the sometimes blurred line between them.”
Randel’s book adds to a long list of Holocaust stories occupying that blurry territory, dating from the genre’s early days. Many readers believed, for example, that “The Painted Bird,” the pivotal work of Holocaust fiction from the 1960s, was based on author Jerzy Koszinski’s experience during the Holocaust; it was not. Scholars and booksellers have long agonized over whether to call Elie Wiesel’s “Night” a memoir or a novel, and whether the distinction matters when it is taught in American classrooms.
The fight has extended to questions over who can tell which stories from Holocaust. In 2014, Haaretz journalist Judy Maltz filed a lawsuit against Penguin Canada and author Jenny Witterick alleging that Witterick’s novel, “My Mother’s Secret,” copied Maltz’s documentary film about her family’s rescue during World War II. The court ruled in favor of Witterick on the grounds that copyright protection does not apply to historical events.
“An author is only ever responsible to their own fiction. They have creative license. And fictionalization of other people against their will is part of the history of literature,” said Helen Finch, a professor at the University of Leeds who studies representations of the Holocaust in German literature. “But that doesn’t absolve the writer from criticism.”
Manli — a journalist who has worked for the Boston Globe and helped found the China Daily, a state-backed media outlet, in 1981 — has made it her mission to set the record straight on Feng-Shan’s story. She began researching her father after his death in 1997, while writing his obituary. One line in his memoir from 1990 that recalled “saving who knows how many Jews” piqued her interest and led to a 25-year quest to document the extent of what her father did during the war.
His story of defying both his own government and the government of Germany to write Shanghai visas for thousands of persecuted Jews had been previously unknown, even to the refugees themselves — most of whom never met Feng-Shan.
Manli’s research led to Feng-Shan’s recognition by Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust museum and memorial authority, in 2000 as “Righteous Among the Nations,” an honor given to those who risked their own lives to help Jews during World War II. Since then, greater attention has been paid to his story, and memorials across the world, from Israel to China to Italy, bear his name today.
Manli said Randel reached out to her several times before her book was published but after it had already been written. According to Manli, Randel sought out her blessing on the book by phone and email, saying that “the Holocaust history and your father’s history is now being forgotten” and adding that she wanted to help spread that history. Manli, who is working on a book of her own about her father, said she refused to answer, “just from the tone of her letter and what she wanted.”
“I have been burned before by this,” Manli told JTA. “I knew immediately that this was not something that I wanted to participate in and certainly that I wasn’t going to endorse.”
In an email shared with JTA in response to Manli’s editorial, Randel wrote that she has “great respect for Dr. Ho Fenghan[sic] and his family. I’m surprised to hear such strong negative criticism. I’m puzzled to see my gesture of respect is viewed in such a hostile way. If Ms. Manli Ho wishes to speak to me, I’m here.”
Randel, according to a biography on her website, came to the United States from China at 24 and became “the first Asian American novelist who intertwined Chinese history with the Jewish diaspora in Shanghai during WWII.”
Her previous novel, “The Last Rose of Shanghai,” follows a Chinese woman who falls in love with a German Jewish refugee living in the Shanghai Ghetto, the restricted area in which over 20,000 displaced Jews lived during World War II, under brutal oversight by Japanese officials who occupied the area. In interviews before the book’s 2021 release, Randel recalled hearing about Jewish refugees while she was living near the district that housed the ghetto.
After moving to the United States, she married an American Jew and is raising her children with both cultures in Boston. She has said “The Last Rose of Shanghai” was inspired by her interest in the history she saw in Shanghai and a desire to pay homage to her Jewish side of the family.
“I think it’s apt to say the survival of Shanghai Jews is also a story of how we as different races and as human beings shine and triumph over war and adversity,” she said in a January 2022 interview with World Literature Today.
But other researchers and authors deeply familiar with Feng-Shan’s story and Jewish history in Shanghai told JTA that “The Last Rose of Shanghai” also contained historical inaccuracies, including misrepresentation of real people who appear as characters, such as Victor Sassoon, a Jewish businessman and member of the dynasty known as the “Rothschilds of the East,” and Laura Margolis, the first female Joint Distribution Committee representative.
The book also includes a character named Goya, described as “a shameless Jew … who somehow had won the Japanese’s trust.”
The Jewish character is based on the real Kanoh Ghoya, who was not Jewish, but a notoriously cruel Japanese officer who had dubbed himself “king of the Jews” and “was infamous for his inhumane treatment of ghetto inhabitants,” according to the USC Shoah Foundation.
According to Publisher’s Marketplace, “The Last Rose of Shanghai” was sold to Lake Union Publishing — an imprint of Amazon Publishing — in 2021 as half of a two-book deal worth between $100,000 and $250,000. It was a finalist for a Jewish National Book Award that year. (The Jewish Book Council, which confers those awards, did not respond to multiple requests for comments about the “Night Angels” event.)
Kanagaratnam said Historic Shanghai’s book group read “The Last Rose of Shanghai” in 2021 and hosted Randel for an event. The group was unsatisfied by Randel’s response when factual issues were brought to her attention, particularly the characterization of Ghoya as Jewish, Randel dismissed them, Kanagaratnam said.
Randel’s novel is only part of a growing consciousness among the general public of the Shanghai Jewish refugee story. In recent decades, especially following the normalization of Israel-China relations in 1992 and Feng-Shan’s recognition by Yad Vashem, both governments have promoted the history, sometimes distorting facts to push different narratives about their wartime past.
New books and other media adaptations about the Shanghai Jewish refugee story have proliferated, such as the musical “Shanghai Sonatas” (2022) and the novels “Someday We Will Fly” (2019),“The Lives Before Us” (2019), and “The World and All It Holds” (2023). Other films and books are forthcoming.
“The audience of people who are interested in, if you will, an ‘exotic’ Jewish story, I think has meant that we’re seeing more and more of these. Everyone’s heard the Holocaust story. But now here’s one in an exotic setting,” said Kanagaratnam. “I think authors need to take responsibility. But honestly, I also blame the publishing industry, because where are the fact-checkers? A lot of the stuff in this can be really easily googled.”
Finch said novels that are set during that period are “always a work of fiction about the present.”
“So the question is, why is this author writing this book now? What does that say about the current moment when she’s writing? And what is with Randel trying to reflect either consciously or unconsciously in contemporary politics as well?”
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Troy Jackson wins Maine Democratic Senate nomination, keeps mum on Israel, AIPAC
(JTA) — BANGOR, Maine – Troy Jackson accepted the Democratic nomination for Maine’s U.S. Senate race on Saturday with no mention of Israel, sidestepping an issue that has become a focal point for many Maine Jews as they assess the party’s new standard-bearer.
Jackson secured the nomination in a landslide 566 to 5 vote by delegates at the nominating convention. Saundra Pelletier, the only remaining challenger after the rest of the field dropped out in the days leading up to the gathering, picked up the handful of votes that didn’t go to the winner.
While Jackson took several shots during his acceptance address at Sen. Susan Collins, the incumbent Republican he will now face in the general election, it was Pelletier who used her remarks to specifically malign Collins’ voting record on Israel.
“She voted to increase federal funding in defensive arms for Iran, and did not vote to take moderate measures to hold Netanyahu accountable,” Pelletier said, receiving a chorus from the crowd.
The victory for Jackson came after the state’s former Democratic nominee, Graham Platner, a staunch Israel critic, left the race earlier this month amid a sexual assault allegation, which he has denied. The resulting scramble to replace him upended the Democratic primary and prompted fresh scrutiny from Jewish Mainers of Jackson’s recent evolution on Israel.
Jackson, a former state lawmaker and union advocate, had previously said little publicly about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict during his two-decade career in state legislature. However, during the race to replace Platner, he has embraced the term “genocide” to describe Israel’s war in Gaza and called for an end to U.S. military aid to Israel on his campaign website, both positions championed by Platner before his exit. Jackson also has said he wouldn’t accept any funding from AIPAC.
But on Saturday, as a sea of supporters sporting his campaign’s blue and yellow “Troy Jackson” t-shirts cheered their new nominee, Jackson omitted any mention of Israel from his remarks. Instead, Jackson reaffirmed his commitments to passing Medicare for all, supporting union rights and restoring abortion rights nationwide, among other issues.
During his address following the decisive victory, Jackson also offered a message to Maine voters who remain on the fence:
“Whether you supported me from the beginning, supported another candidate, or are still deciding what you think of this fifth-generation logger from Allagash,” Jackson said. “I’ve always known this, that your trust has to be earned, and so I want you to hear this directly from me. There is a place in this campaign for all of you. There is work for you in this movement, and I will spend every day, now through November, earning that trust because today we turn the page.”
Amy Fried, a professor emerita of political science at the University of Maine who attended Saturday’s conference as an alternate delegate but did not cast a ballot, said that while she believed Jackson had addressed Israel in the lead-up to Saturday because “a lot of people are interested in the topic,” his speech reflected the issues he had been “concerned about his whole political career.”
“Obviously, he’d have to take votes on foreign policy and funding when he’s in the Senate,” Fried said. “But I think that his main interest is always in issues that have to do with housing and healthcare, you know, all of the matters that are sort of more day-to-day kitchen table issues.”
While Jackson avoided revisiting his recent stances on Israel, which have raised concern among some Jewish voters in Maine, about a dozen pro-Palestinian protesters rallied outside the convention hall in support of his candidacy.
“It’s a really positive step that you have nominated Troy Jackson,” one protester shouted through a megaphone. “I think he’s going to be a strong voice for the kind of values that I believe in and the people of Palestine, the children of Iran, and all the other places the U.S. bombed.”
Ronna Lugosch, a 71-year-old Jewish grandmother and delegate from Round Pond, Maine, said that she was “more excited now than I was before” about Jackson’s candidacy.
Lugosch, who supports Jackson’s stances on Israel, said she hadn’t noticed he had left the topic out of his remarks. “Unfortunately, it’s a sensitive topic, so that’s my guess that maybe he didn’t bring that up because it was just too much,” Lugosch said. “You know, he was being careful.”
Still, Lugosch said that she was “really impressed with all his comments about working people and organizing.”
“I’m going to campaign for him because we need to get rid of Susan Collins,” Lugosch said. “Before it was more of a sort of a defensive stance, but now I’m supportive, and so I feel better about going out into the community.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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Maine Democratic Senate nominee Troy Jackson raises eyebrows in the Jewish community
(JTA) — BANGOR, Maine – Throughout his two-decade-long career as a state lawmaker in Maine, Troy Jackson built his political brand around labor and economic issues.
But as the former logger and state Senate president now seeks a seat in the U.S. Senate, Jackson has begun staking out positions on something new — Israel.
Facing one of the Democratic Party’s most divisive issues, Jackson has embraced the label “genocide” to describe Israel’s war in Gaza and called for an end to U.S. military aid to Israel.
“This is unconscionable. Anybody with eyes and a heart knows the Israeli government is committing genocide in Gaza. It has to end, and we as Americans have the power to end it,” Jackson wrote in a post on X on July 9, responding to reports of a Palestinian aid worker killed by Israeli strikes. “When I’m in the U.S. Senate, I’ll never vote in favor of US taxpayer-funded military aid to Israel.”
A week later, Jackson also inveighed against AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobby that has become a frequent target of progressives.
“I pledge to lead for Maine voters by rejecting attempts to buy influence through unlimited personal wealth and dark money,” Jackson wrote in a post on X. “That means rejecting all money from corporate PACs, AIPAC, and lobbyists from Big Oil and Big Pharma.”
For some Jews in Maine, Jackson’s emergence has prompted unease. Some worry that his embrace of the term “genocide” reflects a troubling shift in Democratic primaries across the country that many Jews have found alienating. Other Maine Jews, while somewhat hesitant, see the longtime Democrat as a pragmatic choice to represent the state and say they prefer him over Platner.
Jackson’s newfound efforts to speak out forcefully on Israel comes as he is likely to secure the Democratic nomination Saturday to take on Republican Sen. Susan Collins in a high-profile race that could determine control of the Senate.
His policy statements and comments about Israel have mirrored the broader evolution of the race since the collapse of Graham Platner’s campaign earlier this month. Platner, a staunch critic of Israel, bowed out of the race earlier this month following a sexual assault allegation that he has since denied. In the days that followed, some of the Democratic candidates who emerged to replace Platner but then dropped out, including Shenna Bellows and Jordan Wood, also began using the term “genocide” for the first time.
Jackson’s campaign did not respond to a Jewish Telegraphic Agency request for comment about his views on Israel.
For some Jews in Maine, Jackson’s sudden emphasis on Israel has raised questions about whether his positions reflect a deeply held conviction or an effort to win over Platner’s supporters.
“I do think that his rhetoric on Israel has been kind of like a ‘pick me’ appeal to the perception of what the Platner base is feeling about the whole thing,” said Brian Kresge, president of Congregation Beth Israel in Bangor, who said he largely votes for Democrats. “I don’t know whether it’s a closely held position because it’s not something he said much about during the gubernatorial race (Jackson came in third place in the governor’s race). It’s not something I’ve ever heard him talk about in his other forays in politics.”
Rabbi Bill Siemers, the leader of Beth Israel, Maine’s oldest active synagogue, said that he had found “no evidence” in Jackson’s “social media or in his talks that this was an issue for him before very recently, and it’s clear to me and to others that he brought this up so he could be the Senate nominee.”
“Now we know where we are. We know where we stand, that this, at least in the upper levels of the Maine Democratic Party, this is a requirement, and that’s not good,” Siemers said, referring to the label of genocide.
“I don’t think Jews want to have to go to the polls and vote on the basis of that, but they will,” he added.
Jackson’s rhetoric on Gaza earned praise from Our Revolution, the group formed by Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders to advance the progressive movement. Jackson has won endorsements from both Sanders and Our Revolution, as well as left-wing streamer Hasan Piker, California Rep. Ro Khanna and Maine’s Democratic Socialists of America chapter.
“Troy Jackson doesn’t do word salad. He calls a genocide a genocide and says he’ll never vote for taxpayer-funded military aid to fund it,” the group wrote in a Facebook post earlier this month. “That’s what Maine voters delivered a historic win for on June 9, what other contender in Maine will actually say it?”
Jackson, 58, is a fifth-generation logger from northern Maine and first entered politics in 1998 by leading a logging blockade along the Maine-Canada border to protest corporations hiring low-wage foreign workers. In 2000, he launched an unsuccessful Republican bid for the state House before later winning a seat two years later as an independent.
He ran again for re-election in 2004 as a Democrat and won, kicking off a two-decade long career in state politics where he maintained strong union ties and progressive views. Jackson also once voiced opposition to same-sex marriage and abortion, both positions he has since reversed.
In 2024, at the Maine State Democratic Convention, Jackson, who served as convention chairman, reportedly attempted to quiet down a small group of pro-Palestinian protesters who called Maine Rep. Jared Golden a “war criminal” during a video celebrating the Jewish congressman.
“I believe in the ability of people to demonstrate and protest,” Jackson said amid the outburst. “There is a time for that.”
Earlier this year, Jackson came in third place in the state’s Democratic primary for governor. During his campaign, he pledged not to take “dark money,” but did not specifically reject AIPAC, which typically spends in federal races.
During Platner’s campaign, Jackson campaigned alongside him and endorsed his candidacy until Platner was accused of sexual assault. Following the allegation, he joined other progressive leaders in calling for Platner to drop out.
Going into Saturday’s nominating convention, Kresge said that there was still a “palpable sense of relief” among the local Jewish community that Platner, whose Nazi-linked tattoo had sparked outcry among Jewish Mainers, was out of the race.
“Troy Jackson may sound alike on a lot of these issues, but he’s not burdened by – well, he is burdened by some accusations and stuff —but he’s not burdened by a Reddit history,” Kresge said. “He has an actual political resume to run on.”
While some Jewish Mainers questioned Jackson’s recent rhetoric on Israel, others said his long record in local government offered some assurances.
“I don’t know Troy Jackson, but I think having a resume to fall back on, and having been in the position where he’s had to make compromises and understand the difference between spouting a popular slogan versus getting things done, I think is a small measure of comfort,” said Matt Tzuker, a Jewish resident of Portland.
Maine State Rep. Laurie Osher, who is Jewish and said she was ready to vote for Jackson, said that she hoped that Jackson would be able to “keep up the momentum” that Platner had gained during his campaign.
“He’s got my vote because I have worked with him,” Osher said. “For every moment that I found him doing something I didn’t think was great, he was also open to me telling him why I didn’t think it was great, and I saw him do better.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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MAGA influencer Laura Loomer mounts Jewish apology tour in Ukraine, meeting with Zelensky and rabbi
(JTA) — MAGA firebrand Laura Loomer, who is warring with anti-Israel figures on the right, is invoking her Judaism as she pulls an about-face on a former hobbyhorse of hers: Ukraine.
Loomer interviewed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on a visit to the country this week, asking him about his Jewish identity and the country’s antisemitism policies. She also sat down with influential rabbi Moshe Azman as Ukraine’s punishing war with Russia drags into its fourth year.
In a series of tweets, she apologized for her past assertions that Ukraine is “full of Nazi sympathizers,” and that Zelensky was “a self-hating Nazi Jew.”
“I admit it, I fell for Russian propaganda,” Loomer, who wields considerable influence with President Donald Trump, wrote Friday after sharing “a lovely Kosher dinner” with Azman’s family. She also visited a historic Kyiv monastery recently shelled by Russian drones and invited Zelensky to make his case for why supporting Ukraine was “America First.”
Loomer’s Jewish Ukraine tour comes as the American right is splintering, largely between pro- and anti-Israel factions — pitting the likes of Loomer and Jewish pundit Ben Shapiro against those aligned with pundit Tucker Carlson.
Military aid to Ukraine has served as a tension point between the hawks and isolationists since Russia’s invasion in 2022. The two issues have become increasingly intertwined, with the right’s loudest anti-Israel voices opposing the U.S.-Israel war against Iran and also projecting weariness around supporting Ukraine.
Vice President JD Vance, whose language on Israel and Jewish issues has alarmed some Jewish leaders, took credit for halting U.S. aid to Ukraine earlier this year. Vance’s associate Carlson, who has recently turned on Trump and broken with the Republican Party, conducted a softball interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2024. The U.S. Senate will vote on a new joint Russia-Iran sanctions bill next week.
Trump himself exhibited closeness with Putin during his first term and, together with Vance, chastised Zelensky during a White House meeting last year. But his administration has indicated a recent willingness to try to end the war on terms sympathetic to Ukraine, and the two leaders are scheduled to meet in the White House next week.
Loomer, too, formerly exhibited pro-Russia tendencies, including writing for the Russian-owned English-language outlet RT. More recently, she has feuded with other right-wing media figures, including Carlson, Candace Owens and Joe Rogan, often citing her pro-Israel views as the reason for the falling-out. Unlike a growing number of pundits on the right, she has also continued to cheer on the war with Iran even as its support has sunk across party lines and other commentators have sought to cast blame onto Israel.
Loomer has also used inflammatory rhetoric toward Muslims, calling on Trump to pass “a Muslim Ban as it was intended to be” after New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a “war criminal” earlier this week.
In her Zelensky interview, filmed at the Ukrainian presidential palace and released in full on Friday, Loomer tried to play partisan politics. She unsuccessfully urged him to call Trump the best president in history and told him that his 2024 visit to a Pennsylvania munitions factory alongside Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro was “one of the reasons why a lot of Americans came to dislike you.” (Shapiro, who is also Jewish, was at the time a prominent campaign surrogate for then-Vice President Kamala Harris, who was running for president.)
Loomer sought a Jewish connection with the president, telling him, “I’m Jewish, you’re Jewish. We share that in common.” Zelensky, who rarely publicly comments on his Jewish heritage, highlighted that Ukraine earlier this year passed a law criminalizing antisemitism.
“It’s illegal, antisemitism. We did it during my presidency,” he said. The new law, a strengthening of a 2021 law, institutes fines and possible prison terms for those found guilty of hatred or discrimination on the basis of Jewish identity.
Zelensky, who has long enjoyed largely unqualified support among Democrats and liberal Americans, praised Loomer’s visit and change of heart. He, Azman and other Ukrainian figures who met with Loomer have sought to cultivate increased favor with Trump during a particularly uncertain phase of the war.
Loomer told the president her main goal was to counter “Russian propaganda” she believed was prominent among American podcasters, including allegations of links between Ukraine’s military and Naziism.
“I really opposed sending my taxpayer dollars to Ukraine because I really believed that you had an army, the Azov Battalion, full of Nazis,” she told Zelensky, referencing an infamous Ukrainian military wing that has continued to attract scrutiny, both before and after the 2022 invasion, for its links to neo-Nazis and other extremists.
“We are not Nazis,” Zelensky told her, later urging her to visit Babyn Yar, the memorial to the “Holocaust by bullets” perpetrated by Nazis on Ukrainian soil with the help of local collaborators in 1941. In 2022, shortly after the invasion, a Russian bombing near the memorial prompted Zelensky to make an appeal to the global Jewish community for support.
Loomer, who is notorious for credulously reporting explosive allegations against her political enemies, said she accepted Ukraine’s claims to now be Nazi-free. One of the deciding factors, she said, was meeting with Azman, the Chabad-affiliated rabbi who holds the disputed title of chief rabbi of Ukraine and whose son was killed in battle with Russia in 2024.
“The Rabbi told me his dead Jewish son didn’t fight alongside Nazis,” Loomer tweeted, adding, “I can assure Amercians [sic] that Jews are safer in Ukraine than they are in Mamdani’s New York City!” (Azman has also praised the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol riots by Trump supporters, celebrating them for “protesting mass election fraud” and comparing them to the Maidan, the 2014 Ukrainian protest movement that ousted a pro-Russia president.)
Most diaspora Jews and Jewish organizations have backed Ukraine since the invasion and have decried Putin’s initial assertion that his invasion was intended to “denazify” the country. Loomer has now joined their ranks, hoping to marry that support to her own ideological identity as a Jewish right-winger in an era where the president she has long championed is losing some influence.
“We won’t have Trump forever,” she wrote Tuesday, “and the axis of evil is moving fast.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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