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A Holocaust survivor from tiny Rhodes shares her story in a new book
(New York Jewish Week) — Auschwitz survivor Stella Levi chose not to tell the story of what she endured during the Holocaust until she was well into her 90s and met the author Michael Frank.
“I didn’t want my identity to be fixed in that way. I didn’t want that number to be tattooed on my arm,” she explains. “I didn’t want to be a victim.”
On Wednesday evening, Frank read that passage from “One Hundred Saturdays: Stella Levi and the Search for a Lost World,” his new book based on the conversations he and Levi had over the course of 100 Saturday afternoons spent together at her Greenwich Village apartment. The New York Jewish Week hosted the live conversation with Frank and Levi — glamorous and whip-smart at age 99 — at B’nai Jeshurun in Manhattan. The New York Jewish Week’s former arts and culture editor, Sandee Brawarsky, moderated.
The book — a moving, personal account of the once-vibrant Sephardic Jewish community that had thrived on Rhodes, an island in the Aegean Sea — was just named one of the 10 best books of 2022 by the Wall Street Journal.
During the conversation, Frank and Levi shared a lighthearted rapport, occasionally speaking to one another in Italian, the language in which Levi was educated. (Her family, along with the rest of Rhodes’ Jewish community, spoke Judeo-Spanish.)
Some 350 guests filled the sanctuary at the Upper West Side’s B’nai Jeshurun to hear Levi share memories of her childhood in the Juderia — the Jewish quarter — of Rhodes; her harrowing, three-week journey to Auschwitz in July of 1944 and what she endured there; how she arrived in the U.S. and eventually built a life for herself in New York City.
Of the approximately 1,700 members of the island’s Jewish community who were deported by the Nazis, only some 150 survived.
And yet, despite the horrors she witnessed, Levi, from an early age, lived life to the fullest — moving to New York, learning English at Columbia University, serving on the board of Centro Primo Levi NY and helping keep the memory of the Rhodes Jewish community alive.
Rounding out the program were singer Daphna Mor and oud player Adam Good performing Sephardic songs, as well as a slideshow of vibrant artwork by Maira Kalman, who illustrated “100 Saturdays.”
To watch a recording of the event, which was presented in partnership with B’nai Jeshurun, the Jewish Book Council, Natan and the ASF Institute of Jewish Experience, click below.
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The post A Holocaust survivor from tiny Rhodes shares her story in a new book appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Puppet Monty Pickle is guest on the Forward’s ‘Yiddish Word of the Day’
It’s not every day that a kosher dill pickle puppet gets a chance to learn some Yiddish.
Monty Pickle, star of the children’s series The Monty Pickle Show, recently joined Rukhl Schaechter, host of the Forward’s YouTube series Yiddish Word of the Day, for an episode teaching viewers the Yiddish words for various wild animals.
Or as they’re called in Yiddish: vilde khayes.
The Monty Pickle Show, a puppet comedy on YouTube and TikTok, aims to show young viewers what it means to be Jewish in a fun, lively way. The series was created by the Emmy Award-winning producers of Sesame Street and Fraggle Rock.
So far, he’s met a number of Jewish personalities, including rabbis, musicians and chefs, and explored holidays like Rosh Hashanah, Hanukkah and Passover.
Sitting alongside Rukhl during the lesson, Monty eagerly tries to guess what each word means, providing for some very funny moments.
The post Puppet Monty Pickle is guest on the Forward’s ‘Yiddish Word of the Day’ appeared first on The Forward.
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IDF Nabs Islamic State Terror Suspect in Syria
Guns seized in the course of the operation. Photo: IDF Spokesperson via i24
i24 News – Israel Defense Forces soldiers conducted an operation on Wednesday in the area of Rafid in southern Syria to apprehend a suspected terrorist affiliated with ISIS, the military spokesperson said on Saturday.
The announcement comes as Washington announced a major operation to eliminated Islamic State terrorists in Syria after three Americans lost their lives in a jihadist attack in Palmyra.
The Israeli soldiers completed the operation in Syria “in cooperation with IDF intelligence,” the statement read, adding that “the suspect was transferred for further processing in Israeli territory.”
Additionally, during the operation, weapons were found and seized.
IDF troops “continue to remain deployed along the Golan Heights border in order to protect the State of Israel and its citizens,” the statement from the spokesperson concluded.
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Report: Trump Admin Envisions Transformation of Gaza into Chic High-Tech Metropolis
US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, Washington, DC, Jan. 20, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Carlos Barria
i24 News – The US administration of President Trump vision for the future of Gaza has it transformed into a high-end high-tech hub of luxury and innovation, the Wall Street Journal reported Saturday.
A team of officials understood to be led by Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and special Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff developed a draft proposal to convert the war-ravaged Palestinian territory into a glittering metropolis, propelling Gazans from poverty to prosperity.
US officials with familiarity with the plan—pitched to foreign governments and delegations as a PowerPoint presentation— are cited in the report as saying that, understandable open-endedness of a project in its early phase notwithstanding, the blueprint has many lacunae and leaves crucial questions unanswered.
Critics cite the plan’s silence on the thorny question of disarming Hamas, the Islamist terror group that ruled Gaza for the past 15 years, and initiated the cross-border incursion and massacre of Israelis on October 7, 2023; the attack launched the devastating war that has left much of the coastal territory in ruins.
The plan’s projected cost is put at $112.1 billion over 10 years, with Washington prepared to commit support to the tune of some $60 billion in grants and guarantees on debt for “all the contemplated workstreams” in that time period.
The question of where two million Gazans would reside during the costly and lengthy rebuilding is also left unaddressed, it is understood.
Similar-sounding plans have been mooted by the Trump administration even before it managed to broker a ceasefire in October that paused the two year-long war.