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A Holocaust survivor and her family saw ‘Leopoldstadt.’ The Broadway play told their story.
(New York Jewish Week) — On a Wednesday evening last month, three generations of a Jewish family made their way to their seats at the Longacre Theater to see “Leopoldstadt,” Tom Stoppard’s epic Broadway play about the tragedies that befall an extended Jewish family in the first half of the 20th century in Vienna.
The date of the family gathering was a significant one: Nov. 9, the 84th anniversary of the Nazi pogroms known as Kristallnacht. And in the audience was Fini Konstat, 96, who lived in the once thriving Jewish neighborhood after which the play is named, and witnessed the horrors it portrays first-hand. Alongside her were her daughter and her son-in-law, Renee and James Akers, and her oldest great-grandchild, Lexi Levin, 23.
When Konstat was a child, she lived in a “nice apartment” in Leopoldstadt. But exactly 84 years to the day of their theater date, “I was running with my father, seeing all the Jewish stores with all their windows broken,” she told Levin in a short video her great-granddaughter filmed before the curtain rose.
“It’s such a blessing for me to be here with you,” Levin said to her great-grandmother in response. “Ninety-six years old, survived a pandemic, at a Broadway show in New York City.”
Left: Fini as a child on the balcony of her apartment in Leopoldstadt. Right: Fini with her three children in front of the very same building, pictured in 2015. (Courtesy)
Since the beginning of its Broadway run in mid-September, “Leopoldstadt,” with its depiction of a prosperous Viennese family on the brink of destruction, has moved audiences to tears and inspired deep reflections on the Holocaust. Based on the celebrated playwright’s own family history — of which he was barely aware while growing up in England — it has provided a stark counterpoint to news about rising antisemitism and the celebrities who have been purveying it.
But for Konstat, the play was much more personal. “When I heard the word ‘Leopoldstadt,’ this alone gave me lots of thrills and memories,” Konstat, who is known in her family as Mimi, told the New York Jewish Week in accented English. She recalled how Levin, who recently moved to the city, invited her to fly to New York to see one of Broadway’s hottest tickets.
“Leopoldstadt,” she repeated, her voice breaking. “The second district. That’s where we lived.”
At the end of Stoppard’s five-act play, audiences learn that most of the Jewish characters had perished under the Nazis — of the four generations in the show, just three cousins survive to carry on the family’s legacy.
For Konstat too, she and her parents were among the very few in their extended family to survive the Holocaust. “Almost all of them went to Auschwitz or other camps,” Konstat said. “My mother was a twin and only the twins remained alive. [My mother’s] five other siblings and my grandmother perished.”
L-R: Renee Akers, James Akers, Lexi Levin and Fini Konstat at the Longacre Theater to see Tom Stoppard’s ‘Leopoldstadt on Broadway,’ Nov. 9, 2022. (Courtesy)
In a Zoom conversation held over Thanksgiving weekend, Konstat, surrounded by two of her daughters, two of her granddaughters and three of her great-granddaughters, shared what the play meant to her — and how her family has restored what she lost.
In the months after Kristallnacht in 1938, Konstat and her parents hid in a neighbor’s apartment; Konstat recalls hiding under the duvet when German soldiers showed up. Eventually the family fled to Turkey, and then to India, before settling down in Mexico City. There, the teenage Fini met her husband David, also a survivor who escaped Poland. The two of them began to write the rest of their story — starting with the birth of the first of their three children in 1948.
Unlike many Holocaust survivors, Fini and David Konstat were open about their experiences during the war, instilling a sense of pride and duty to remember in their children — something that eventually extended to their grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
“They were proud to speak about how they survived this,” said the Konstats’ middle child, Renee Konstat Akers. “Their life was an odyssey. They had the courage to do things that you would never think were possible. We grew up grateful knowing how our family survived in that incredible way.”
Each child moved to different places as they grew up and got married. Manuel, the oldest, stayed in Mexico. Renee married an American and moved to the Midwest, and Denise, the youngest, to Houston. Each became deeply involved in their Jewish communities, sending their children (Konstat’s grandchildren) to Jewish day schools, celebrating Jewish holidays and participating in synagogue life.
“The word ‘miracle’ really does not feel like an understatement in this scenario,” said Sherry Levin, one of Konstat’s grandchildren. “When we think about what it took for my grandmother and grandfather to survive and how they were able to intersect in Mexico, and such an amazing multi-generational family has come to fruition, it feels miraculous.”
Pictured here on their 40th anniversary, Fini and her husband David met in Mexico City after both had fled Europe. They were married 54 years before David died in 2001. (Courtesy)
Reviews of the show have ranged from rhapsodic to resistant, with some critics suggesting the play is simplistic and obvious in its story-telling or that it is less a well-crafted play than a well-meaning lesson on the Holocaust.
But just as the Merz family clashes and argues about everything from antisemitism to intermarriage to socialism in “Leopoldstadt,” each generation of the Konstat family that saw “Leopoldstadt” that night came away with something different — a reaction influenced by their age, their Jewish identity, their nationality and their relationship with their family.
For Konstat, the arc of “Leopoldstadt” was so familiar that it hardly stirred her. “It was just very happy watching it and enjoying it and enjoying my children with me, “ she told the New York Jewish Week. “I didn’t think about anybody else.”
Akers, too, felt an intense familiarity with the story, and, perhaps toughened by her own family history, didn’t experience an intense emotional reaction. Her own parents’ lives gave Akers a sense of purpose in her life — for example, in the 1990s, she was passionate about helping resettle Jews fleeing the former Soviet Union. With her own children, she instilled in them a strong sense of Jewish purpose in their work, their education and their family.
“I was a sandwich in between seeing my mother and my granddaughter,” she said of her “Leopoldstadt” experience. “I was emotional thinking of my mom who went through it, but I was more emotional about seeing my granddaughter be so moved. It really hit her at her core.”
Indeed, it was the youngest member of the family present that night who was most shaken by the play.
“It really felt like a gift to my family and to me, specifically, to be able to see what Mimi’s life looked like before the war,” Lexi Levin said, surmising that, as a fourth-generation survivor, she is among the first in her family to be able to start processing the loss on a grander scale.
“For the first time in my life, I really felt the magnitude of her loss,” she added. “I’ve known her story and I’ve been inspired by her story to be involved with my own Jewish causes, but I have never been able to access and truly empathize with her grief and what it meant that she lost the entire family she had before this one that she created.”
Turning to her great-grandmother, as if trying to make her understand the exact precision of the show, Levin explained, “It’s a play about generations and the family was large and then it was small.”
“You made it large again,” she said, referring to the generations of family that had assembled — in the Broadway theater and again over Thanksgiving weekend. “Look at this room.”
Pictured on her 90th birthday in 2017, Fini Konstat now has three children, ten grandchildren and twenty great-grandchildren. (Courtesy)
There was a coda for the family after the curtain went down. The day after the show, the family wanted to see the 1907 “Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I,” one of Gustav Klimt’s most famous paintings, which currently hangs at the Neue Galerie on the Upper East Side. A version of the portrait’s true story — how a painting of a socialite from a prominent Viennese Jewish family was looted by the Nazis and the family’s efforts to get it back — features in the plot of “Leopoldstadt.”
The gallery, however, was closed on the only day the family could visit. After a call to the management at the gallery, which showcases the German and Austrian art collections of Jewish philanthropist Ronald S. Lauder, the gallery’s director arranged a private tour.
“It felt like we were in a puzzle and everything was finally coming together,” said Akers. “It was an emotional, emotional time.”
When the week was over and the emotions were spent, Konstat and the Akers returned home with a reignited passion for their family story. But there was yet another twist: In addition to the whirlwind trip Levin planned for her grandparents and for Mimi, she had been undergoing the laborious process of applying for Austrian citizenship. Six members in Konstat’s large family have undertaken the process over the last two years.
“Part of the motivation was knowing Mimi’s story, and knowing that she survived because her mother had citizenship in Turkey,” Levin said. “That story was just inspirational to me, knowing that dual citizenship was what saved our family.” She convinced her brother and mother to apply for Austrian citizenship as well.
The day after her grandmother and great-grandmother left New York, Levin called them with news from her small apartment in Manhattan: An Austrian passport had arrived in the mail. The curtain was rising on another act.
Konstat was surprised at how interested her family was in getting Austrian citizenship. “I feel very good,” she said. “I’m very happy.”
“Does it make you emotional?” Levin asked her during the Zoom call with the New York Jewish Week.
“It does — of course it does. I used to love Austria,” she said. “I was sad to leave. I was disappointed. We never thought of coming back. I was happy to be able to escape. Thank God we made it out of hell.”
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The post A Holocaust survivor and her family saw ‘Leopoldstadt.’ The Broadway play told their story. appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Israelis and Americans deserve to know why they are still at war
Israelis have once again been asked to live under the shadow of war. Sirens and missiles punctuate sleepless nights. Families sleep beside safe rooms. Children measure their days between alarms.
People will endure that, when they believe there is a purpose behind the sacrifice.
Yet three weeks into the current confrontation with Iran, Israel’s government hasn’t offered anything resembling such clarity. Nor has that of the United States. And as the costs of war accrue in both countries — with Americans worrying about forces deployed across the region, and paying the price of the conflict at the gas pump — citizens of both countries deserve something basic from their leaders: a direct, compelling explanation of what this war is supposed to achieve.
In a democracy, citizens who are sending their children to shelters and their soldiers to the front absolutely have the right to know the objectives of a war. Yes, you cannot reveal operational details that could endanger pilots, intelligence sources, or soldiers in the field.
But explaining the purpose of a war is not the same thing as revealing tactics. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. President Donald Trump aren’t exhibiting prudence by keeping things, as the Forward‘s Arno Rosenfeld wrote, “incoherent.” Instead, they’re showing contempt for those they govern.
The hubris would be troubling even if either government in question enjoyed broad public trust. But neither Netanyahu nor Trump are leaders who command such confidence. And the arrogance that has infected even officials under them reflects a deeper pattern that has long defined both men’s leadership: an extraordinary sense of entitlement to power.
An Israel defined by hubris
Many Israelis believe that Netanyahu bends the truth routinely and will do almost anything to remain in power. Under those circumstances, demanding blind faith in this war is insulting.
Consider the extraordinary elasticity of the government’s claims. In June, after the earlier 12-day confrontation with Iran, Netanyahu declared that Israel had pushed back Iran’s missile and nuclear threats “for generations.”
If anyone made the mistake of believing him at the time, it is now obvious that he was lying. Iran still possesses missiles, which we know, because they have rained down on Israel throughout this war. If this conflict is now necessary to confront the very same dangers, the public deserves an explanation of what exactly happened to the supposed “generations” of security their leader had promised.
Yet instead of engaging with tough questions from the press about why Israel engaged in this war, what its goals are, and when it will end, Netanyahu has opted to exclusively discuss the war on friendly platforms. There are social media videos produced by his team, which are pure propaganda; the rare stage-managed “news conference,” usually with the few questioners selected in advance; and a studious avoidance of interviews with the Israeli media — with the sole exception of the pro-Netanyahu Channel 14.
Incredibly, when asked by a reporter from Haaretz a few days ago what the goals of the war were — and why no explanation has been offered to the citizens of the country — Government Secretary Yossi Fuchs actually had the temerity to respond that, in his eyes, citizens don’t need to know about those goals. Some have been set, he said, but they are confidential.
This posture invites, of course, even more suspicion.
Muddled American messaging
If Netanyahu says too little, Trump, on the American side, possibly says too much.
He speaks constantly about the war, yet always seems to struggle with precision or coherence.
One day he suggests the conflict could last a long time. The next he says he thinks it may end soon. When asked about terrorism that could follow escalation, he shrugs that “some people will die.”
This is not surprising; Trump’s rhetoric on these things has always been belated, confused and focused on spectacle. Within hours of the bizarre American seizure of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro — a reprehensible figure but still the head of a sovereign state — Trump appeared on television explaining that the U.S. needed access to Venezuelan oil.
With short-term operations like that in Venezuela, Trump’s inability to explain why the U.S. needed to engage, and outline what Americans can expect going forward, was less glaring. Now, as he waffles between demanding NATO allies come to aid the war and insisting their help isn’t needed; bizarrely declares the war will end “when I feel it in my bones”; and makes clear that the war was initiated with no strategic foresight, it’s impossible to ignore
So Americans, like Israelis, are left struggling to understand what exactly their government is trying to accomplish. And while in Israel the war is still broadly supported — so great is the anger at the Iranian regime, and so effective has been Israel’s missile defense — that is hardly the case in the U.S.
The blame game
The risks of a war defined by ever-moving goalposts and a deliberately obscure timeframe are obvious and terrifying. Just look at the war in Gaza.
That conflict dragged on for nearly two years, accompanied by repeated declarations that Hamas would soon be eliminated. Today, Hamas still exists. Yet the government has offered no serious accounting of that reality. On the way to this endgame, in which the status quo has ended up preserved but with Gaza in ruins, Netanyahu repeatedly blocked off-ramps. He was clearly indifferent to the widespread perception that he was using the continuation of the war to avoid accountability: he explicitly and shamelessly argued that spectacular breakdown on Oct. 7 could not be investigated while the war continued.
In fact, he is using the exact same playbook in this new war, arguing last week — with Trump’s support — that Israeli President Isaac Herzog should issue him a pardon in his ongoing corruption trial so that he can focus on the war.
Some Israelis now genuinely fear that prolonged emergency conditions could become politically convenient. Netanyahu’s critics openly speculate that a monumental national crisis might provide justification to delay or manipulate elections — as Netanyahu is obsessed with remaining in power and is badly behind in the polls.
In the U.S., this fumbling has opened the door to an alarming new reality: one in which Israel and its international supporters are blamed for dragging the U.S. into war. On Tuesday, Joe Kent, director of the National Counterterrorism Center, resigned over the war with a public letter making unproven allegations that Trump fell prey to an Israeli “misinformation campaign that wholly undermined your America First platform.” There is a clear risk that such rhetoric, fueled by the sense of directionlessness in this war, will increase already surging antisemitism.
The paradox of justification
Netanyahu and Trump’s failure to clearly justify the war does not mean that the Iranian regime deserves indulgence.
Tehran has brutalized its own citizens for decades and exported violence throughout the Middle East. Through Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, the Houthis in Yemen, and Shiite militias in Iraq, it has helped fuel conflicts that have cost countless lives. The regime has given the world many reasons to wish for its disappearance.
For the past month I have been arguing relentlessly that the Iranian regime has forfeited any claim to sympathy and that its actions have justified the Israeli and U.S. attack.
A long war determined to bring the regime to its knees may not be fundamentally unjustified. But requiring blind faith in the leaders prosecuting that war is.
The post Israelis and Americans deserve to know why they are still at war appeared first on The Forward.
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Trump Official Resigns Over Iran War, Blames Israel
Mattie Neretin – CNP/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect
A senior U.S. counterterrorism official resigned Tuesday in protest of President Donald Trump’s military campaign against Iran, accusing Israel of playing an outsized role in pushing the United States into conflict.
Joe Kent, director of the National Counterterrorism Center, said he could not support the war, arguing Tehran posed “no imminent threat” to the United States. But it was Kent’s broader assertion, that pressure from Israel and pro-Israel voices influenced the decision to go to war, that drew swift pushback from the White House and national security experts.
In his resignation, Kent also drew parallels to the Iraq War, suggesting that similar dynamics shaped both conflicts, arguing that Israel pushed the US into the conflict. His comments revived long-running debates about how U.S. intelligence and foreign alliances factor into decisions to use military force, though many officials and analysts have rejected such comparisons as misleading.
“Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby,” Kent wrote in his resignation letter.
Kent further claimed that he lost his wife in a “war manufactured by Israel.” Kent’s wife, Shannon Kent, died in 2019 when an ISIS suicide bomber detonated an explosive device during a U.S. military operation during the Syrian Civil War. Kent’s assertion suggests that Israel started the Syrian Civil War is completely unfounded. However, the notion that Israel controls the ISIS terror group is a popular conspiracy online.
The Trump administration forcefully disputed Kent’s claims, maintaining that the decision to strike Iran was based on credible intelligence about threats to U.S. forces and interests in the region. Trump dismissed Kent as “weak on security,” defending the operation as necessary to deter Iranian aggression and protect American personnel and allies.
Karoline Leavitt, White House Press Secretary, lambasted Kent’s letter as inaccurate .
“The absurd allegation that President Trump made this decision based on the influence of others, even foreign countries, is both insulting and laughable. President Trump has been remarkably consistent and has said for DECADES that Iran can NEVER possess a nuclear weapon,” she wrote.
National security experts and former officials also criticized Kent’s framing, arguing that it oversimplifies the policymaking process and risks promoting narratives that inaccurately portray Israel as driving U.S. military decisions. They emphasize that while Israel is a close ally that shares intelligence and strategic concerns, particularly regarding Iran’s nuclear ambitions and support for proxy groups, decisions to go to war are made by U.S. leadership based on American intelligence assessments.
Israel has long warned about the threat posed by Iran’s regional activities, including its backing of armed groups hostile to both Israeli and U.S. interests. Those concerns are broadly shared across multiple U.S. administrations and within the intelligence community, regardless of political party.
Kent’s resignation marks the most significant internal break so far over the Iran conflict and highlights growing divisions within the administration and across Washington. While some critics of the war have echoed his concerns about the lack of an imminent threat, others have expressed alarm at his decision to center Israel in his critique, warning that such claims can distort public understanding of how U.S. foreign policy decisions are made.
Kent came under fire during his confirmation process over his reported connections to white supremacists Nick Fuentes and Greyson Arnold. Kent admitted that he had conversations with Fuentes over social media strategy. However, Kent later distanced himself from Fuentes and repudiated his views.
Kent also holds other unorthodox foreign policy viewpoints, such as a relatively forgiving posture towards Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In April 2022, following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, Kent argued that Putin was “very reasonable” and accused the US foreign policy establishment of aggravating Russia into war.
Kent’s comments on Tuesday drew widespread backlash from many who accused him of peddling antisemitic tropes. Ilan Goldberg, Senior Vice President and Chief Policy Officer of liberal pro-Israel organization J-Street, praised Kent for leaving the administration, but added “the antisemitic stuff in here blaming Israel for the Iraq war and a secret conspiracy of the media and Israelis to deceive Trump into going to war with Iran is ugly stuff that plays on the worst antisemitic tropes.”
“Donald Trump is the President of the United States and he is the one ultimately responsible for sending American troops into harms way,” Goldberg added.
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UK Hate Crime Prosecutions Reveal Stark Disparities Between Muslim and Jewish Victims
Demonstrators attend the “Lift The Ban” rally organised by Defend Our Juries, challenging the British government’s proscription of “Palestine Action” under anti-terrorism laws, in Parliament Square, in London, Britain, Sept. 6, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Carlos Jasso
Hate crimes against Muslims in the United Kingdom are nearly twice as likely to result in prosecution as those targeting Jews, newly released figures show, exposing a striking imbalance in how justice is ultimately delivered.
According to data compiled by the British Home Office, the government department responsible for policing and security, figures on hate crime offences recorded over the past year show that Muslim victims of Islamophobic attacks were 76 percent more likely to see their attackers prosecuted than Jewish victims of antisemitic attacks.
Across the United Kingdom, 6.7 percent of hate crimes targeting Muslims led to a charge or summons — around one in 15 cases — compared with just 3.8 percent of offences against Jewish victims, or roughly one in 26, over the period from April 2024 to March 2025.
The gap is particularly stark in certain offences. Religiously aggravated assaults without injury against Muslims were over six times more likely to lead to prosecution, with 6.3 percent of cases resulting in charges compared with just 1.1 percent for Jewish victims.
Similarly, racially or religiously aggravated criminal damage was around four times more likely to result in charges, at 3.4 percent versus 0.8 percent.
Although 4,478 religious hate crimes were reported against Muslims compared with 2,873 against Jews, the smaller size of the Jewish population means such offences are far more concentrated and statistically significant. By raw population, the contrast is stark: around 3.9 million Muslims live in England and Wales, compared with 287,360 Jews
The Home Office’s data also reveals that Jewish people are disproportionately targeted, experiencing religious hate crimes at a rate roughly ten times higher than Muslims.
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) — the body responsible for bringing criminal cases in England and Wales — said comparing crime reports with prosecutions is difficult because cases can only proceed once police submit sufficient evidence for a charging decision.
According to the CPS, a record number of hate crime cases were referred by police last year, with 11,140 defendants prosecuted for racially flagged offences, resulting in a charge rate of 87.1 percent and a conviction rate of 85.2 percent.
In the UK, the Community Security Trust (CST) — a nonprofit charity that advises Britain’s Jewish community on security matters — recorded 1,521 antisemitic incidents from January to June last year. This was the second-highest number of antisemitic crimes ever recorded by CST in the first six months of any year, following 2,019 incidents in the first half of 2024.