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This 16-year-old turned her grandmother’s Holocaust survival story into a novel
(New York Jewish Week) — In May of 1937, 7-year-old Inge Eisinger lived in a luxurious Vienna apartment with a pantry stocked with favorite foods and a staff to keep her company. Though she had a strained relationship with her mother and an absent father, Inge, who was mostly raised by her maternal grandmother Anna, was living a charmed life.
This is the scene that opens “Running for Shelter,” a young adult novel about the Holocaust written by a young adult herself: 16-year-old Suzette Sheft, who is a junior at the Horace Mann School in the Bronx. In the novel, Sheft retells her grandmother’s story of surviving the Holocaust.
Published by Amsterdam Publishers, which specializes in Holocaust memoirs, the book is a delicate and powerful reminder of the importance of recording one’s family history. It’s a lesson Sheft learned too early in life: Her father died of pancreatic cancer when Sheft was just 13 and she soon realized she was forgetting all the stories he told her about his childhood.
“I fantasized about rewinding time, so I could go back and record my favorite stories about his childhood,” Sheft writes in an author’s note. “I wished I had taken the time to write these stories down when I had the chance, because his death allowed me to understand the vitality of preserving the stories of our loved ones before it is too late.”
In memory of her father, Sheft recorded the story of his mother, her grandmother Monique Sheft, who was once the Viennese school girl Inge Eisinger.
In pre-war Austria, Eisinger had been living a completely assimilated life — so much so that her parents never even told her that she was Jewish. Following the Nazi takeover of Austria, her mother managed to whisk the two of them away to Switzerland, then Paris, but soon abandoned her. After a twisting and tragic story, Eisinger eventually reunited with her grandmother and moved to a village in Central France to wait out the war, changing her name to the more French “Monique.”
Sheft’s novel ends in 1946, when the two are on the boat to New York after the war and Eisinger’s grandmother reveals to her that she and her family are actually Jewish.
In spite of this — or perhaps because of it — Sheft, who lives in Manhattan with her mom, her twin brother and two dogs, is very committed to her Jewish identity. “Although my grandmother never really practiced Judaism, my dad was very involved in the Jewish world,” she said. “He was very passionate about Jewish causes and just Judaism, in general. So I felt very connected to the Jewish world because of him.”
The New York Jewish Week talked with Sheft about what the book means to her, why its subject matter is important and what she learned in the process of putting it together.
This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
New York Jewish Week: What was the process of writing the book; how did the idea begin and how did you collect your grandmother’s story?
Suzette Sheft: I had heard a lot of my grandmother’s stories from my dad. I always had an interest in the Holocaust — I would go to Holocaust museums in every city I visited, and I almost exclusively read books about World War II and the Holocaust growing up. So I kind of knew in the back of my head that I wanted to do something like this, but [my father’s death] sparked and ignited the necessity of doing it as soon as possible.
As for the process, a few summers ago I spent a week with my grandmother, interviewing her every day about her escape from Austria to France. At first she shared physical elements of her life, like her apartment and her family dynamics and her school life, but then she began to talk to me about the time leading up to the war — the years before the Germans invaded Austria. As she spoke, I recorded everything she said in bullet point form and I would periodically stop and ask for more detail. The next day, at the beginning of the conversation, I would recap what we had talked about, and then allow her to elaborate or clarify the story.
Later, I wanted to widen my perspective and uncover other stories and details that she may have forgotten, so I watched an interview she did with the USC Shoah Foundation. This was really helpful because there were some details that she had forgotten or that she had left out.
Even though the book is about your grandmother’s life, you wrote it as fiction. How much of the story came from your grandmother’s details, and how much did you have to research or create on your own?
Every event that happens is true, and everything actually happened to her, but there are some small details that I embellished. For me, it was really helpful because, while I love creativity and writing, I sometimes struggle to pick an idea. So the fact that she had all these little stories, and I could expand from those, was something I loved while writing this. I had to use fiction when describing the atmosphere of certain places and also to write the dialogue because I can’t know exactly what they said or how they said it.
Do you have a favorite story your grandma told you that you made sure to get in the book?
Inge goes to a boarding school [in France] with her host family and there the children play a game where they pick someone to be the “torturer,” who is usually whoever they think the ugliest person is. My grandma had red hair and green eyes, and I guess she wasn’t the traditional standard of beauty. They picked her to be the torturer and she would have to pull people’s hair and scratch them. There would also be a queen, who was usually the prettiest girl with blond hair and blue eyes, and she would be protected. I thought it was interesting because to me it was the children’s way of understanding what was going on in the world around them. It’s a bit complicated, but when she told me this story I was completely shocked. It was really fascinating.
For people your age, why do you think Holocaust education is still relevant and important?
Some people my age don’t know anything about the Holocaust. I recently came across a statistic that talked about how little Gen Z knew about the Holocaust. There’s also been a spike in antisemitism and a decrease in awareness of history. For example, with Kanye West, who has a lot of followers, saying antisemitic remarks, a lot of people are going to just go along with what he says. There’s also just been a lot of hate crimes towards Jewish people, especially during COVID.
Lastly, the number of living Holocaust survivors is diminishing by the day. Gen Z is the last generation probably that is ever going to have the ability and the opportunity to speak with Holocaust survivors before they’re all gone. It’s important that we share this book now and then we educate people now before it’s too late.
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The post This 16-year-old turned her grandmother’s Holocaust survival story into a novel appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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J Street says Israel should fund its own defense
J Street, the progressive pro-Israel, pro-peace political advocacy, is shifting its stance on defensive U.S. military aid to Israel as a growing number of Democrats, including some of the congressional candidates it endorsed this year, call for ending such assistance.
Jeremy Ben-Ami, the organization’s longtime president, said in a lengthy post on Monday that the organization is now advocating for phasing out direct financial support for arms sales to Israel when the current $38 billion 10-year memorandum of understanding between the two countries expires in 2028. He called it “a fundamental reassessment of the U.S.-Israel security relationship,” citing “the war in Gaza, rising extremist Jewish terror in the West Bank and the US-Israel war with Iran.”
Also stressing that “the US-Israel security relationship remains a central pillar of American policy in the Middle East,” Ben-Ami added that joint research and technological investment “should continue” and that the U.S. should continue to sell short-range air and ballistic missile defense capabilities to Israel. However, “all future Research and Development agreements with Israel must include genuine cost-sharing and aim to produce defense items that both countries plan to field.”
Ben-Ami’s post includes this statement, in boldface: “The goal of this reassessment is to advance the broader American interest of a more stable and prosperous Middle East that includes both Israelis and Palestinians living in security and freedom.”
U.S. funding for Israel’s Iron Dome first started under the Obama administration in 2011. J Street’s acceptance of the position for candidates appears aimed at navigating divisions among congressional Democrats as Democratic Party voter views swing against Israel and influential progressive figures in the congressional delegation, most conspicuously Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, who previously backed missile-defense funding, and Rep. Ro Khanna of California, join calls to end all military aid to Israel.
Other members and candidates in the party still back Iron Dome funding from the U.S. seek to condition offensive weapons sales on Israel’s compliance with human rights and international law.
Brad Lander, a Jewish challenger to Rep. Dan Goldman, said last week he would oppose any additional U.S. aid to Israel, arguing the country is in violation of human rights and international law.
Last week, Brad Lander, a Jewish Democrat running for Congress who has described himself as a liberal Zionist, on Friday joined the calls for an end to U.S. aid to Israel, while adding that “Israel should have access to purchase it with their own funds.” Lander, who has been “primary approved” to challenge Rep. Dan Goldman of New York — who is the official J Street pick in the race — told the Forward he did not coordinate his announcement with the group’s, which came after his.
Democrats are already taking legislative action. The Senate is expected to vote on Wednesday on two measures — filed by Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Jewish Vermont Independent and longtime critic of U.S. aid to Israel — to restrict at least $660 million in weapons sales to Israel. A record 27 Senate Democrats — a majority of the caucus — supported a similar pair of resolutions to block weapons transfers. J Streets urged members to vote in favor. In the House, the Block the Bombs Act, which would restrict certain offensive arms sales to Israel, currently has 60 sponsors.
J Street’s red line
Ben-Ami maintained that J Street’s updated stance to end grants, known as the Foreign Military Financing (FMF) program, aligns with calls by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Sen. Lindsey Graham, a Republican from South Carolina, to gradually “taper off” U.S. military aid to Israel over the next decade until it reaches zero. “This reform would normalize the relationship and place Israel in the same category as other capable allies that purchase U.S. defense equipment without subsidy,” Ben-Ami said.
Ilan Goldenberg, J Street’s senior vice president and chief policy officer and previously an aide to former Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden, said the organization will still support the sale of Iron Dome components and other missile defense systems as long as it’s consistent with U.S. law and aligns with U.S. policy objectives and interests.
The strategy reflects a broader shift in politics, where Israel policy and Palestinian rights have become a litmus test for progressive candidates. Recent polls showed the tensions within the Democratic Party, which loomed large in the 2024 presidential election in the wake of the Gaza war — and now opposition to the war in Iran — are likely to shape the midterm elections.
J Street PAC is backing 133 House and Senate incumbents as well as Democratic challengers running against Republican incumbents. The group has also approved several candidates competing in open Democratic primaries, allowing its donor network to support their campaigns
Speaking with the Forward during J Street’s annual conference in Washington, D.C. last month, Ben-Ami outlined the organization’s red lines for endorsements. “If you’re in favor of a complete arms embargo against Israel, and you don’t recognize that Israel should be the national homeland of the Jewish people, you won’t come anywhere near our list,” Ben-Ami said.
A recent poll commissioned by the organization found that 70% of American Jews support placing some conditions on military assistance, including 26% who favor halting aid altogether.
The departure from the long-standing bipartisan consensus backing unconditional military support for Israel has drawn criticism from some Israel supporters.
Joel Rubin, a national security expert and a former Obama administration official who was the founding political and government affairs director at J Street in 2008, called it a “major shift” that “undermines” pro-Israel organizational support for the U.S.-Israel security assistance relationship and also “puts more pressure” on Democrats to oppose aid to Israel. “J Street is playing with fire regarding the US.-Israel relationship,” he said. “It’s much easier to tear down a relationship than it is to build one up.”
The post J Street says Israel should fund its own defense appeared first on The Forward.
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Deni Avdija might not win Most Improved Player. But he can achieve something greater.
In any other year Deni Avdija, the NBA’s reigning Israeli superstar and its most talented Jewish player in at least half a century, might be a shoo-in for the league’s Most Improved Player award. The 6-foot-8 forward inflated his scoring average from 16.9 to 24.2 — good for 14th in the NBA — as he made his first All-Star team and guided the Portland Trail Blazers to their first winning season in five years.
But in spite of his team’s social media campaigning, this year’s award seems most likely headed to the Atlanta Hawks’ Nickeil Alexander-Walker, whose 20 points-per-game more than doubled last year’s average. Sportsbooks made Alexander-Walker an overwhelming favorite to win, and while I would debate the merits — Avdija also raised his assist numbers, had a bigger role on his team and made a more difficult leap — I can’t really argue the odds.
Anyway, with the regular season over, Deni is onto more important things — starting Tuesday night, when his Blazers take on the Phoenix Suns in the biggest game of his career to date. The winner of Tuesday’s Play-In (10 p.m. ET on Amazon Prime) advances to the one place Avdija’s never been in his six seasons: the NBA Playoffs.
At stake is more than just Avdija’s drought of 425 games without a playoff appearance — the fifth longest streak of any active player. It’s also the 10 years Israeli fans watched Avdija’s Jewish countryman Omri Casspi play without seeing him in the postseason. Casspi’s 588 games with seven different teams are the fourth-most without playing in the playoffs in NBA history (and the most of any player born after 1950). An ignominious record, indeed.
As Jewish Telegraphic Agency has noted, Israeli-born journeyman TJ Leaf, who is not Jewish, made the playoffs as recently as 2021. And others have pointed out that Casspi’s team made the playoffs in 2014, but he did not play. But Avdija himself seems to regard this as a possible breakthrough.
“First taste of the playoffs — I think ever for an Israeli player,” he said — last year, before the Blazers barely missed the Play-In.
If the Blazers do end the Jewish Israeli playoff curse, it will be thanks to Avdija, who’s answered every call for the franchise this season. In two critical late-season games against the Los Angeles Clippers — their rival for the 8th playoff seed — Avdija led all players in scoring both times, including 35 points April 10 as Portland grabbed hold of the 8-seed.
Avdija’s work will be difficult against Phoenix, which in Dillon Brooks employs one of the stingiest wing defenders in the Association. Avdija was one of the best in the league at drawing fouls — he was third in the NBA in free throw attempts — and the game may depend on how closely the referees officiate contact. As for prior experience, Avdija only played one full game against the Suns this year, scoring 19 points in a 17-point loss; Portland split the other two matchups.
Because they secured the 8-seed, the Blazers will have a second chance at making the playoffs even if they lose. The winner of Wednesday night’s Clippers-Golden State Warriors matchup will face the loser of Blazers-Suns. Two chances to win one, and make (Jewish) Israeli hoops history.
The post Deni Avdija might not win Most Improved Player. But he can achieve something greater. appeared first on The Forward.
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German Court Drops Antisemitic Motive in Attack on Jewish Student, Sparking Outcry Over Reduced Sentence
A protester wrapped in an Israeli flag at a rally against antisemitism at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin. Photo: Reuters/Lisi Niesner
More than two years after the brutal attack on Jewish student Lahav Shapira, a German court has acquitted the perpetrator of antisemitic-motivated charges and handed down a reduced sentence, in what appears to be yet another case of the justice system in Europe dismissing antisemitism as a driving factor in violent crime.
On Monday, the Berlin Regional Court sentenced Shapira’s 25-year-old classmate to two and a half years in prison for aggravated assault, delivering a lighter punishment than the one handed down during the initial ruling last year.
However, the court found no antisemitic motive behind the attack, overturning the previous ruling that had concluded otherwise, a decision that has prompted outrage and renewed criticism over how such cases are interpreted and prosecuted.
The court found there was not enough evidence to establish that the accused had expressed antisemitic views prior to the attack, and that investigators’ discovery of anti-Israel material and a pro-Palestinian map in his apartment could not be definitively tied to him or any of his family members.
Shapira strongly condemned the verdict, describing it as a reversal of perpetrator and victim, and expressed hope that the public prosecutor’s office would appeal so the case could be reconsidered “by competent people.”
“What other motive could there have been?” 33-year-old student Shapira said when leaving the courtroom. “I’m annoyed; it’s sad.”
The attack took place in February 2024, when Shapira was out with his girlfriend and was recognized by a fellow student of Arab descent who confronted him over posters he and other students had placed around the university regarding Israeli hostages taken during the Hamas-led invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
As the argument escalated, Shapira was knocked to the ground with punches and kicked in the face, suffering a complex midface fracture and a brain hemorrhage.
During the first trial, the public prosecutor’s office argued that “Shapira was attacked because he is Jewish and stood up against antisemitism.”
Even though the accused admitted to the assault in both trials, he consistently denied that it was motivated by antisemitism.
Shapira has also tried unsuccessfully to force the Free University of Berlin (FU) to offer stronger protection against antisemitic discrimination. However, the Berlin Administrative Court rejected his lawsuit against the university as inadmissible.
This latest case is by no means the first in Europe to raise alarm bells among the Jewish community, as courts have repeatedly overturned or reduced sentences for individuals accused of antisemitic crimes, fueling public outrage over what many see as excessive leniency.
Like most countries across Europe and the broader Western world, Germany has seen a shocking rise in antisemitic incidents over the last two years, in the wake of the Oct. 7 atrocities.
According to newly released figures, the number of antisemitic offenses in the country reached a record high in 2025, totaling 2,267 incidents, including violence, incitement, property damage, and propaganda offenses.
By comparison, officially recorded antisemitic crimes were significantly lower at 1,825 in 2024, 900 in 2023, and fewer than 500 in 2022, prior to the Oct. 7 atrocities.
Officials warn that the real number of antisemitic crimes is likely much higher, as many incidents go unreported.
In one of the latest incidents, unknown perpetrators defaced a home over the weekend in Berlin’s Prenzlauer Berg district with a swastika and the slogan “Kill all Jews,” prompting an investigation by the State Security Service.
Last week, an Israeli restaurant in the German city of Munich was attacked when assailants smashed multiple windows and threw pyrotechnic devices inside in what authorities suspected was an antisemitic assault.