Uncategorized
A new portrait collection showcases 90 Holocaust survivors who lived long and full lives
(JTA) — Werner Reich had his opening line ready when he sat down for B.A. Van Sise to take his portrait.
“Before I could say anything, he said, ‘Everybody comes to me and they want me to talk about the Holocaust. What am I supposed to say? I went to Auschwitz. It was lousy,’” Van Sise said, recalling that Reich’s comment felt like a joke, not a lament.
But instead of dwelling on the horrors of the Nazi concentration camp, the two men spoke about magic, a refuge for Reich as a Jewish teenager trying to survive. The resulting portrait shows a man in his 90s wearing retro glasses, a cloud of smoke floating a few inches above his open palm, in a picture vibrating with life and with enchantment.
Van Sise’s portrait of Reich is the first in “Invited to Life: Finding Hope After the Holocaust,” his new portrait collection of 90 Holocaust survivors. The accompanying text acknowledges Reich’s experience at Auschwitz, but it focuses more on Reich’s life after the war and his long career in magic — striking a balance that Van Sise says is core to his project.
“This is not something that people are inclined to talk about because it’s not always bombastic. It’s not the part that you sell movie tickets to,” Van Sise said. “You can make, and people have, a hundred movies about Jewish people being imprisoned, tortured, and enslaved. Why doesn’t anybody talk about them thriving afterwards?”
Holocaust survivor and hiking enthusiast Sam Silberberg poses for “Invited to Life”. (Courtesy of B.A. Van Sise / Design by Grace Yagel)
Van Sise is far from the first photographer to capture the faces of survivors in the decades following the end of the Second World War. Famed portrait photographers Martin Schoeller and Mark Seliger, both known for their iconic celebrity portraiture — Schoeller for his uniform, stylized close-ups and Seliger as a magazine photographer who also recently photographed Jerry Seinfeld in a fashion shoot — have also set their cameras in front of Holocaust survivors. Countless other photographers have done the same. But what Van Sise says is sometimes missing from survivor photography is a focus on the postwar lives, many of them joyous, that the subjects have experienced over the last 70-plus years.
“I suspect that one person might see these folks and see victims,” Van Sise said. “And I see them as survivors.”
Holocaust survivor and Park East Synagogue Rabbi Arthur Schneier poses for “Invited to Life”. (Courtesy of B.A. Van Sise / Design by Grace Yagel)
“Invited to Life” was inspired by a 2015 photo assignment Van Sise took on for the Village Voice. Motivated by the anti-immigrant, anti-refugee rhetoric of then-candidate for president Donald Trump, he realized that a particularly cohesive cohort of refugees to come to the United States had arrived more than 75 years ago, at the end of the Second World War, and a photographic retrospective on their lives in America could be a valuable project. He reached out to the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York to be put in touch with a dozen survivors for the story. He ended up taking more than 30 portraits. When the alternative newsweekly ceased publication in 2017 (it was revived in 2021) before he could publish the photos, the museum invited Van Sise to turn the portraits into a solo exhibition, in what became the museum’s first-ever public art installation.
Then the pandemic arrived, and like many photographers whose everyday work required travel, Van Sise was out of a job.
“It had never been a marquee project for me,” said Van Sise, who is Jewish but has no familial connection to the Holocaust. “I kept coming back and thinking about them, and about the fact that these people had been through the worst there ever was, the worst that ever has been, the worst there ever might even be.”
Holocaust survivor and painter Fred Terna poses for “Invited to Life”. (Courtesy of B.A. Van Sise / Design by Grace Yagel)
Van Sise spent the better part of 2020 driving around the United States, getting COVID swabs every three days so he could safely photograph 140 elderly survivors, 90 of whom ended up in the book. (He was insistent with his publisher that the final number of portraits in the book be a multiple of 18, the Jewish numerical symbol for “life”.)
The photos are all in black and white, but beyond that, they are as diverse as Sise’s subjects. Some incorporate backgrounds, some are solo portraits; some are serious, some are silly; some include children, grandchildren, husbands, wives, props; some are in profile, and some are shot straight on. The subjects are Nobel Prize-winning chemists and homemakers; pilots and psychologists; haberdashers and teachers; famed rabbis and partisans-turned-conmen.
All of them, Sise says, were photographed with a sense of generosity.
“A person who wants to be critical of me — which is fair — might say that I’m overly charitable,” Van Sise says of his own work, acknowledging that no photographer can avoid bias completely while behind the camera. (It didn’t help that many of the survivors he photographed were eager to feed him cookies, as he frequently recalls.)
In the nearly three years since Van Sise began photographing the subjects of his book, the reality of working with more than 100 elderly people set in. Several of the survivors, including Holocaust educator René Slotkin, Budapest-born legal secretary Kathy Griesz and Reich died before they got the chance to hold a copy of the book in their hands, much to Van Sise’s dismay.
“As a writer, you carry them with you,” he said. “So for me, there were a few where I got pretty rattled.”
Holocaust survivor and educator René Slotkin poses for “Invited to Life”. (Courtesy of B.A. Van Sise / Design by Grace Yagel)
The photographs reflect acknowledgment by all involved that the survivors in the pictures are all nearing the ends of their lives. Many of his subjects chose to include their children, grandchildren, or great-grandchildren in their portraits, and the photographer was intentional in closing the book with a portrait of Irving Roth, a longtime Holocaust educator, with his 3-year-old great-granddaughter Addie sitting on his lap. In the text, Roth remarks on the origins of his Hebrew name, Shmuel Meir, which came from his great-grandfather and imagines what life will be like for Addie when she turns 103, and what she will remember of him.
Roth passed away in February 2021 at age 91.
“Those stories don’t end in 1945,” Van Sise said. “These people have lived for, now, 77 years since and have done plenty with that time. And that’s worth exploring, because that’s the part they have control over.”
Reflecting on different styles of Holocaust survivor portraiture at a discussion at the Museum of Jewish Heritage, the original home of Van Sise’s portraits, German photographer Martin Schoeller remarked on his own preference for images of older faces.
Holocaust survivor and educator Irving Roth and great-granddaughter Addie pose together for “Invited to Life”. (Courtesy of B.A. Van Sise / Design by Grace Yagel)
“They have more life in them. You see the wrinkles and you feel that there’s more to discover in the face, in an old face. So they almost feel like they’re telling the story of the suffering of the Holocaust more visually, because they’re older faces,” Schoeller said.
“But then, it’s been 75 years since the end of the war,” he added. “So these people have lived 75 years; so to say, ‘Now I see the horror in this old man’s face’ feels a little bit — I don’t know if that’s really true. I leave it up to the people looking at the pictures.”
—
The post A new portrait collection showcases 90 Holocaust survivors who lived long and full lives appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Uncategorized
Amid Iran tensions, Huckabee tells US embassy staff in Israel they should leave ‘TODAY’ if they wish
(JTA) — Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee has told U.S. government employees and their families that they may leave the country and should do so expediently, amid mounting signs of a possible U.S. attack on Iran.
Huckabee emailed embassy staff on Friday morning saying that if they want to leave, they should do so “TODAY,” according to a letter first reported by The New York Times. He noted that commercial flights could become scarce and urged them to accept passage to any country before returning to Washington, D.C.
“There is no need to panic, but for those desiring to leave, it’s important to make plans to depart sooner rather than later,” he wrote.
The letter comes a day after U.S.-Iran talks in Geneva ended without public breakthroughs. Iranian officials, as well as the Omani mediators, said additional conversations were planned for next week; the United States did not comment. Steve Witkoff and Jared Kusher, two Jewish advisors to President Donald Trump who successfully brokered a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war last year, are leading the U.S. delegation.
Trump has been threatening to attack Iran for weeks over its nuclear program and has built up U.S. military forces in the Middle East to levels not seen in decades. In recent days, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Vice President JD Vance have both said military intervention could be needed while saying the president continued to prefer diplomacy.
Vance’s comments were particularly notable because he typically opposes U.S. intervention overseas. He told the Washington Post in comments published Friday morning that there was “no chance” that the United States would get involved in an extended Middle East campaign.
Iran has said it would consider Israel a valid target in the event of a U.S. attack. Last year, Iranian missiles killed more than two dozen people in Israel during a 12-day war initiated by Israeli strikes on Iran’s military program. Now, Israelis have been living in limbo for weeks while waiting to learn whether a new war, expected to be more destructive, will begin.
In the past, when expecting Iranian retaliation, the embassy has warned staff against leaving population centers in Israel. Now, the Department of State has updated its Jerusalem embassy website to reflect “the authorized departure of non-emergency U.S. government personnel and family members of U.S. government personnel to leave Israel,” setting a status that means flights will be paid for by the U.S. government.
While El Al, Israel’s national carrier, does not fly during Shabbat, other airlines typically do run some flights to and from Ben Gurion Airport on Friday nights and Saturdays. Many of those are budget European airlines that have only recently resumed flying to Israel after last year’s Iran war; some airlines, including KLM, have already suspended Israel flights in anticipation of another conflict.
The post Amid Iran tensions, Huckabee tells US embassy staff in Israel they should leave ‘TODAY’ if they wish appeared first on The Forward.
Uncategorized
San Francisco mayor Daniel Lurie condemns ‘Tax the Jews’ chant heard during protest
(JTA) — Jewish leaders and California elected officials have condemned an antisemitic chant that was audible during a protest Wednesday against the repeal of a local San Francisco tax ordinance.
During a news conference addressing a new housing construction development plan hosted by San Francisco mayor Daniel Lurie and San Francisco District 5 Supervisor Bilal Mahmood, protesters with the Democratic Socialists of America chanted “tax the rich.”
According to videos reviewed by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, one woman on the scene can be clearly seen and heard chanting “tax Israel” and “tax the Jews.”
For those curious, a source sent me this video of the press conference. You can hear a woman chanting “tax Israel” and “tax the Jews” about 30 seconds in. https://t.co/0fDb9H8TXH pic.twitter.com/PkdHLGzBc1
— Gabriel Lorenzo Greschler (@ggreschler) February 26, 2026
Lurie, who is Jewish, condemned the chants, which he said had come from a group of people.
“At an event this afternoon, a group of individuals that were chanting ‘tax the rich’ began to shout ‘tax the Jews,’” Lurie tweeted. “Suggesting that Jews are wealthy is a tired trope, and targeting our community at an event focused on creating economic opportunity for San Franciscans is decidedly antisemitic. I will never accept hate directed at the Jewish community or any community in our city. Those are not San Francisco values—we’re better than that.”
The DSA, the largest socialist organization in the country, distanced itself from the chants, saying that only a single person was involved and that she was not a DSA member.
“During today’s protest of the Prop I repeal, a non-member joined the crowd and spouted disgusting antisemitic remarks,” the DSA said in a statement. “DSA members and other protesters asked her to stop, but she refused. We want to be clear that whatever hate she holds isn’t shared by DSA members and we categorically reject antisemitism.”
In the videos, the woman is wearing a head covering and glasses and appears to be pacing a distance away from the other protesters.
The incident comes as the DSA, which endorses the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement and opposes economic and military aid to Israel, has both notched major wins and drawn repeated allegations of antisemitism. After Oct. 7, it broke with one of its political stars, New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, following her appearance on a panel where she condemned antisemitism. More recently, one of its members, Zohran Mamdani, was elected mayor of New York City. There, a DSA member last week challenged a DSA-affiliated elected official for condemning Hamas during an open meeting.
In San Francisco, the chant was condemned by other Jewish organizations, leaders and government officials, like the San Francisco Jewish Community Relations Council, California Rep. Ro Khanna, and Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt.
In a statement shared on X, Amy Spitalnick, the CEO of Jewish Council for Public Affairs, said, “What does antisemitism look like? This. This is hate and extremism masquerading as progressive politics when, in fact, nothing about it is progressive — and it only undermines the fight for justice, all of our safety, and our democracy.”
The post San Francisco mayor Daniel Lurie condemns ‘Tax the Jews’ chant heard during protest appeared first on The Forward.
Uncategorized
HarperCollins to publish book of conversations with Rabbi Eli Schlanger, Chabad emissary slain in Sydney
(JTA) — A book featuring testimony from Rabbi Eli Schlanger, the Chabad emissary who was killed in December in an antisemitic terror attack in Sydney, will be published this spring, HarperCollins Publishers announced on Thursday.
Schlanger, who moved to Bondi Beach as an emissary of the Chabad movement 18 years ago, was the father of five children, including a newborn son. On Dec. 14, Schlanger was hosting the Chabad of Bondi’s Hanukkah celebration when two gunmen opened fire on the festivities, killing Schlanger as well as 14 others.
The book, titled “Conversations With My Rabbi: Timeless Teachings for a Fractured World,” was written by Nikki Goldstein, a Jewish author who first encountered Schlanger during a hospital stay in 2022.
Last January, Goldstein and Schlanger began recording their conversations together for a book, but weeks before finishing its final chapter, Schlanger was killed.
“I was devastated, shocked, and grieving. But I knew that Eli’s legacy, his mission to bring light and love to the world, would not die with him,” Nikki Goldstein said in a statement. “Eli saved my life those years ago, and it’s my honor and privilege to ensure that his voice, memory, and mission are not silenced by terror and continue to work miracles.”
The book, which is set to be published on May 26, is the second major work centering a Jewish victim of terrorism to be released within a year. Former hostage Eli Sharabi’s memoir “Hostage,” published last fall, was named Book of the Year by the National Jewish Book Awards earlier this month. The memoir, which details Sharabi’s abduction by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023, and 15 months he spent in captivity before learning that his wife and daughters had been murdered, was a bestseller in Israel before coming out in English.
A book by another icon of the Israeli hostage crisis is slated to hit the shelves in April. Rachel Goldberg-Polin’s memoir, titled “When We See You Again,” chronicles her relentless advocacy to free her son Hersh, who was kidnapped from the Nova music festival in Israel on Oct. 7 and subsequently murdered by Hamas in August 2024.
The post HarperCollins to publish book of conversations with Rabbi Eli Schlanger, Chabad emissary slain in Sydney appeared first on The Forward.