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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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There Are No ‘Moderates’: Most of the Democratic Party Is Turning Against Israel
Former Wayne County Health Director Abdul El-Sayed, a Democrat now running for US Senate in Michigan, speaks at a “Hands Off” protest at the state Capitol in Lansing, Michigan, on April 5, 2025. Photo: Andrew Roth/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect
Americans are bracing for a politically charged summer as momentum builds for radical Democrats in key races across the country.
In what is emerging as a clarifying moment for just how far the Democratic Party is willing to swing, current polls depict a competitive race among the three candidates running for US Senate in Michigan’s August Democratic primary.
Some of the latest numbers show Abdul El-Sayed, the Bernie Sanders-endorsed physician, holding a slight lead over the other two Democratic challengers, Michigan State Senator Mallory McMorrow and Congresswoman Haley Stevens.
In a page pulled out of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s playbook, El-Sayed, who blamed Israel for the attempted terrorist attack in March that targeted preschoolers at Temple Israel in Detroit, often cloaks his radicalism in rhetoric that focuses on affordability and universal healthcare.
He displays open contempt for Israel, and has called the Jewish State “just as evil” as the genocidal terrorist group Hamas.
El-Sayed campaigns with people who justified the 9/11 attacks, and refused to take a position on the death of former Supreme Leader Khamenei for fear of offending the Islamist sensibilities of Michigan’s Dearborn residents.
For many Jewish Americans, the ascendance of El-Sayed, Mamdani, and Graham Platner, the Democratic Senate Candidate from Maine who has praised Hamas’ military tactics (and had an SS symbol tattooed on his body), reflects a new moment — a shifting of the Overton window that not only propels dangerous candidates to prominence, but paves a paradigm in which politicians whose views would have been disqualifying just a decade ago are rebranded as moderates.
Campaigning as a suburban mom trying to capture the votes of centrists and peel off some left-wing voters from El-Sayed’s camp, the present political landscape is planting the 39-year-old Mallory McMorrow firmly in the center of the Democrats’ electoral path in Michigan, with El-Sayed to her left, and the Congresswoman Haley Stevens, who has pro-Israel views, to her right.
Yet when it comes to the state senator’s platform regarding Israel, McMorrow engages with many of the same anti-Zionist ideas espoused by her challenger, El-Sayed.
She traffics in similar language falsely accusing Israel of committing genocide in Gaza with a deft talent for fashioning her far-left views in a palatable package: a Christian wife and relatable mother, whose husband also happens to be Jewish.
McMorrow satisfies the Democrats’ defined virtuous, big-tent philosophy with competing statements insisting that she would not meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu but also believes that Democrats’ affinity for Hasan Piker is a step too far into the realm of radicalism.
Should McMorrow be elected to the US Senate, would she vote any differently than El-Sayed when it comes to supporting the US-Israel alliance and providing Israel with the critical weapons it needs for its self-defense? It seems highly unlikely.
Much of the public discourse surrounds the surge of left-wing Democrats such as El-Sayed, Platner, and Mamdani, but the larger story to consider lies with politicians like McMorrow, who are using the atmospheric conditions to claim the mantle of moderation, but adopting the exact far-left positions of the candidates who hate Israel, and spread libels about Israel committing “genocide” and practicing “apartheid.”
If McMorrow is victorious in Michigan’s Democratic primary, her win would certainly be used by the Democratic establishment and its media allies to uphold a false narrative that the election was a defeat for the far left.
Yet there is perhaps no better example that illustrates just how successful leftists have been in dragging the center down than last month’s vote in the United States Senate, when nearly 80 percent of Democrats voted in favor of two anti-Israel measures introduced by Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) that, if passed, would have blocked approximately $450 million in weapons transfers to Israel.
The retreat from previously held pro-Israel leanings is reverberating beyond Congress, as “moderates” like Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro (D) and Rahm Emanuel showcase their willingness to create daylight between the US and Israel.
For its part, AIPAC has been historically quick to praise and bolster the candidacies of politicians like New Jersey Senator Cory Booker, only to have the lawmaker court his state’s growing Muslim and Arab constituencies by announcing that he will no longer accept money from AIPAC. Senator Booker also backed both Senate resolutions halting military aid to Israel.
If there are legitimate debates about AIPAC’s policies to be had, Democrats aren’t engaging in it. They’re instead using AIPAC as a bogeyman to jump on the “Israel is evil bandwagon,” and perpetuate the libel that Jews control American politics with money.
Progressive populists and Muslim Socialists may differ in their ideological appeal, but both brands of candidates use their gaining leverage as a vehicle to inject their morally blind politics into the American ecosystem and generate a new standard of what constitutes a moderate in today’s Democratic Party.
There’s very little that separates El-Sayed and McMorrow’s foreign policy vision, just as there would be scant differences in how a Shapiro or a Kamala Harris White House would approach America’s relationship with Israel.
When it comes to supporting Israel’s right to exist and defend itself, the party appears nearly united in intensifying its hostility and moving the Democratic coalition onward — and firmly against Israel.
Irit Tratt is a writer residing in New York. Follow her on X @Irit_Tratt.
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Abraham Foxman, Former ADL Head and Advocate for American Jews, Dies at 86
Abraham Foxman, a Holocaust survivor and member of the US Holocaust Memorial Council, speaks at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Annual Days of Remembrance Commemoration in the Emancipation Hall of the US Capitol on April 23, 2025. Photo: Mattie Neretin/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect
Abraham H. Foxman, who was the national director of the Anti-Defamation League for nearly three decades, has died at the age of 86, the ADL announced in a statement on Sunday.
The organization said it “deeply mourns the loss of our longtime national director,” but did not provide details about where, when, and how Foxman died. He is survived by his wife Golda, children Michelle and Ariel, son-in-law Brandon Cardet-Hernandez, and grandchildren, Cielo, Leila, Gideon, and Amirit.
Foxman retired in 2015 after spending his entire 50-year career with the ADL. He was “one of the world’s foremost voices against antisemitism and hate,” as well as an “outspoken, passionate, and tireless advocate for the Jewish people and Israel,” according to the advocacy organization.
Foxman graduated from City College of New York and NYU School of Law. He joined the ADL immediately after graduating from law school and served in various roles in the organization, including assistant director of legal affairs, before being becoming its national director in 1987. When Foxman announced his retirement from the ADL, then-US President Barack Obama said the long-time civil rights activist was “irreplaceable.”
Jonathan Greenblatt, the current CEO of the ADL, described Foxman as “an iconic Jewish leader who embraced the ideal of an America free from antisemitism and hate and who strongly believed that these scourges could be defeated if good people opposed it.”
“America and the Jewish people have lost a moral voice, a passionate advocate for the Jewish people and the state of Israel, and a remarkable leader,” Greenblatt said in a released statement. “In his storied career, Abe transformed ADL while confronting antisemitism and hate (from both left and right), opposing the global rise in antisemitism, holding world leaders accountable and working to ensure that Israel was Jewish, secure and democratic. Abe’s voice was heard – and listened to – by popes, presidents, and prime ministers, a voice he used wherever Jews were at risk. Abe Foxman spoke on the global stage with moral authority and clarity and was relentlessly dedicated to his pursuit of a world without hate.”
“Abe Foxman helped build the modern liberal era of America,” ADL Board Chair Nicole Munchnik added in a separate statement. “He was recognized across the globe as a great leader and passionate advocate for tolerance, a voice of the generation rebuilding in the shadow of the Shoah, and longtime advisor to American presidents and world leaders. To those of us who knew him, Abe was a warm friend, advisor, spirited antagonist and hugger – all over lunch.”
The American Jewish Committee praised Foxman as a “towering figure in the fight against antisemitism and hatred” and someone who “brought moral clarity, courage, and unwavering conviction to generations of advocacy and leadership.” The AJC said his advocacy “helped shape the American Jewish experience and strengthened the global fight against bigotry in all its forms.”
Born in 1940 to Polish Jews in what is now Belarus, Foxman survived the Holocaust under the care of his Polish Catholic nanny Bronislawa Kurpi, who baptized him and raised him as a Catholic to hide his Jewish identity. He lost 14 family members in the Holocaust but was reunited with his parents after the war. Together they immigrated to the United States, where Foxman attended the Yeshiva of Flatbush as a teenager. He later served as vice chairman of the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York City and was a member of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council, to which he was appointed by President Ronald Reagan in 1987 and reappointed by Presidents George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and Joe Biden.
The Auschwitz Jewish Center Foundation (AJCF) called Foxman “one of the most consequential Jewish leaders of the postwar era” and a Holocaust survivor who “devoted his life to confronting antisemitism and defending the Jewish people.”
“Abe Foxman belonged to a generation that carried the weight of history personally and transformed it into public service,” said AJCF Chairman Simon Bergson in a statement. “He dedicated his life to ensuring that the lessons of the Holocaust were applied to the defense of democratic values, human dignity, and the Jewish people. His legacy will endure for generations.”
Following the news of Foxman’s death, Israeli President Isaac Herzog praised him as a “legendary leader of the Jewish people, a champion of justice and equality, and a longtime, dear friend of mine.”
“Coming into a world at war, the Holocaust shaped Abe’s character and defined his mission: Combating antisemitism and hypocrisy, calling out racism and bias, speaking up for the Jewish people and the Jewish democratic Israel,” Herzog shared in a post on X. “His story, of rising from the ashes, is our story, the story of our people.”
Israel’s president also described Foxman as “a prominent, distinguished force in the American Jewish community, and a bridge between Israel and the Diaspora” as well as a “passionate Zionist, a humanist, and an outspoken, wise friend.”
“The affection and the respect we had for one another enabled us to openly discuss every challenge and every obstacle,” added Herzog. “I am so grateful for the profound conversations we shared over the years, and for the brave leadership he exemplified. I will miss Abe’s counsel and voice, and I know that his legacy and his message will live on.”
Foxman was a board member of the Met Council on Jewish Poverty, America’s largest organization combating Jewish poverty. Its CEO and Executive Director David G. Greenfield said he was “heartbroken” by the passing of his “dear friend and mentor.”
“At Met Council, we were privileged to have Abe as a board member, adviser, and friend,” Greenfield explained. “He brought wisdom, compassion, and deep commitment to everything he did. Even near the end of his life, Abe continued showing up for the community. Just a few weeks ago, he joined us with his granddaughters at Met Council’s Passover Day of Service at the Spitzer Fulfillment Center, helping ensure that New Yorkers in need could celebrate Pesach with dignity.”
“Public leaders do not always match their public reputations in private,” Greenfield added. “Abe was the rare person whose private kindness, humility, and generosity were even greater than his public stature. All who knew him loved him … His voice, his courage, his friendship, and his leadership will be deeply missed.”
Foxman also served as vice chairman of the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York City.
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George Washington University Says Substance Dropped Near Israel Fest Was ‘Stink Bomb’
Anti-Zionist protesters at George Washington University in May 2024. Photo: Candice Tang via Reuters Connect
George Washington University confirmed on Friday that the substance which injured a Jewish student after being dropped in “vials” near an “Israel Fest” event on campus last month was contained in “stink bombs.”
“We want to reassure members of our community that the vials that were dropped were commonly available ‘stink bombs’ and did not pose a serious health risk to those nearby,” the university’s media relations office said in statement shared with The Algemeiner. “While our ability to provide additional information at this time is limited, we will continue to keep the community informed as appropriate and in accordance with university policies and applicable laws.”
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, Geroge Washington University (GW) Professor Jonathan Turley said on Wednesday that Israel Fest is a “celebration of Israeli food, music, and culture” which “often draws protesters.” Jewish students have been fearing attending the gathering “for weeks,” Turley added, noting that anti-Zionists told everyone it was “supporting genocide.” The anecdote suggests that activists could have set in motion their plan to sabotage “Israel Fest” several weeks ago.
This latest threat against the Jewish community comes amid an epidemic of antisemitic violence in the US. According to the Anti-Defamation League’s (ADL) latest annual audit of US antisemitic incidents, assaults against Jews increased 4 percent in 2025, and perpetrators are more often resorting to using “deadly weapons” in the commission of their crimes. That raises the likelihood that their actions result in severe injury or death.
The advocacy group noted that the upward shift was reflected in the shocking murders of Jews in antisemitic attacks in the US for the first time since 2019. Two Israeli embassy staffers — a young couple set be engaged — were shot dead in Washington, DC last May, and weeks later a firebombing in Colorado claimed the life of an octogenarian. In both crimes, the alleged killers cited anti-Zionism as their motivating ideology.
Other incidents which stopped short of the worst possible outcome continue to create a sense of insecurity for American Jews. Over the past year, for example, The Algemeiner has reported on a public-school principal’s inveighing against “Jew money,” an attempted arson at the Hillel International chapter in San Francisco, California, and the movement of some conservative students into the far-right ecosystem of antisemitism — a path cleared by Nicholas Fuentes, Candace Owens, Kanye West, and troops of social media influencers.
The American Jewish community has been the target of several hateful acts in recent days. Last week, Jewish residents of the Queens borough of New York City awoke to the carnage left by a spree of vandalism which left at least four Jewish properties — private homes and synagogues — marked with the swastika and other antisemitic graffiti. The perpetrators struck the Rego Park Jewish Center, the Congregation Machane Chodosh, as well as two private homes late Sunday night, according to local lawmakers and Jewish leaders.
The graffiti left a scourge on the buildings — appearing in one case next to a memorial to German Jews who survived Kristallnacht, a November 1938 pogrom when Nazi paramilitary forces launched a coordinated nationwide attack on the German Jewish community. The vandals left no doubt regarding their allusion to that period, graffitiing “Heil Hitler” at the Rego Park location.
At GW, Jewish students have claimed that the problem of widespread antisemitism has persisted there for years.
One ongoing lawsuit alleges that the university enabled an eruption of antisemitic discrimination on campus by declining to intervene in a slew of incidents in which anti-Zionists threw rocks at Jewish students, vandalized the campus office of Hillel International, and uttered slurs such as “filthy k—ke.” Meanwhile, The Algemeiner has reported extensively on the activities of its Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapter, which once threatened a Jewish professor and continues to spread antisemitic tropes about Israel.
Responding to a phenomenon that is common to the point that is a prosaic facet of campus life, George Washington University’s Hillel International chapter said on Wednesday the Israel Fest incident “will not deter our community.”
It added, “GW Hillel will continue to support our students so they can proudly be Jewish.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.