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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.”
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The post A new portrait collection showcases 90 Holocaust survivors who lived long and full lives appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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A Chabad Jew was stabbed in NYC. He returned the next day to continue wrapping tefillin.
(JTA) — Less than 24 hours after he was stabbed in midtown Manhattan, Yosef, a Chabad-Lubavitch man from Crown Heights, was back on the same street where he’d been assaulted, popping into Diamond District businesses as usual to help employees wrap tefillin.
Yosef, 26, who did not share his last name to maintain his privacy, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that he was back on 47th Street on Thursday afternoon, the day after the stabbing, without missing a beat in his Monday-through-Thursday rounds even as police investigate the incident as a possible hate crime.
A number of the people he visited pieced together that the widely circulated footage of a man being stabbed the previous night was of him.
“They were in shock. They were obviously scared for me,” said Yosef, who has been wrapping tefillin and distributing Shabbat candles to Jewish Diamond District employees for about three years. He started that routine when his father, a Chabad Jew who works in the jewelry business, realized he needed his son’s help to handle the demand for those acts. Yosef told Chabad.org that he was “still shaken” by the attack a day later.
Still, he told JTA, “We can’t allow some hate to stop us.”
Yosef said he felt it was important to communicate that message because “we need more mitzvahs in the world, we need more light in the world.”
Yosef was taken to Bellevue Hospital on Wednesday evening around 6 p.m., where medical staff assessed that he had no internal bleeding and would not need stitches. No arrests have been made, but the assailant has been described as a woman in her 40s.
The attack has renewed concerns about security that have faced Chabad adherents and institutions, which often host public events and maintain a visible street presence. But the threat didn’t diminish their presence in midtown Manhattan on Friday.
Multiple Chabad men stood under a bright yellow tent on the sidewalk wrapping tefillin for a steady stream of workers in the heavily Jewish Diamond District.
“The Rebbe says that the way to defeat darkness is only through the addition of light,” said Shmuel Cohen, who was handing out small photographs of the movement’s late leader, the Lubavitcher Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson.
Cohen told JTA that he had not heard about the attack that took place just down the block two days earlier, though his partner under the sidewalk tent had. Cohen said that the best way to respond is through “the observance of Torah and mitzvot without being ashamed of our Judaism but presenting it to everyone.”
Also on Friday, Chabad officials met with New York Police Department representatives for their annual meeting about security ahead of Chabad’s international conference in Crown Heights, the Brooklyn neighborhood where the movement is headquartered. The conference begins on Nov. 5.
Chabad has been targeted in multiple high-profile attacks in the past year, including the deadly Bondi Beach shooting in Australia in December. The following month, a man rammed a car into the doors of the Chabad-Lubavitch headquarters in Brooklyn, raising further questions over how the movement should balance its commitment to making its events accessible with security.
Meanwhile, Jews have been targeted in more than half of hate crimes committed in New York City in 2026, despite making up about 12% of the city’s population.
“Security is our top priority. Our goal is to provide an environment where every participant feels safe and can fully experience the purpose and spirit of the gathering,” said Rabbi Mendy Kotlarsky, a top organizer of the upcoming conference.
In the wake of the attack, Yosef said he is not concerned about going out in public as a visibly Jewish person and doesn’t plan to change how he approaches the world.
“I was wearing the same clothes on Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday,” he said. “I didn’t change my routine.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post A Chabad Jew was stabbed in NYC. He returned the next day to continue wrapping tefillin. appeared first on The Forward.
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They met on a Birthright trip then married. Now this American Israeli couple’s internet fame has turned to infamy.
Ethan and Hila Klein first met at Yad Vashem — Israel’s Holocaust museum — in 2007, a meet-cute they recounted, giggling, years later for their millions of YouTube followers.
“I think I went up to her and said something like, ‘They had it coming, don’t you think?’” said Ethan, known for his edgy humor and infamous internet trends, including Vape Nation and Papa Bless. “No I didn’t say that. I wonder if you would have laughed though.”
They were on a Birthright trip, Ethan an American and Hila an Israeli soldier on leave to join the group. Soon after the trip ended, Ethan moved to Israel to be with Hila, and the two began making videos under the name H3H3 Productions (the H for Hila and the 3 standing in as an E for Ethan). They married, moved to America, and started a popular podcast.
A Jewish love story, until Thursday, when Hila, now mother to their three children, accused Ethan publicly of having a months-long affair.
“The betrayal I feel is immeasurable,” Hila said in an Instagram post. “My only family on this side of the world. How do I even begin to make sense of this?”
Ethan reposted her statement.
Their podcast is run by a handful of crew members who often chime in and participate in various skits and bits. The crew also shared a statement saying they stand with Hila and refuse to work with Ethan, though they added they don’t know what this will mean for the future of the show.
A couple roiled by Oct. 7
The left-leaning, secular couple’s videos and podcasts focused primarily on pop culture, internet drama and general politics, not Jewish or Israeli issues.
Both Ethan and Hila would make statements sometimes when tensions in Israel flared, and they would occasionally speak out against IDF actions that upset them.
In 2021, Ethan started a podcast with political commenter Hasan Piker, a controversial left-wing influencer, called Leftovers, a nod to their leftist politics.
Then came Oct. 7.
Ethan, an American Israeli dual citizen like Hila, was horrified by the attacks but quick to call the IDF genocidal in the aftermath. In their first episode together after Oct. 7, Ethan and Piker said the show would continue through their disagreements. The episode was tense, and it was their last.
As Piker’s rhetoric on Israel intensified and became at times antisemitic, the two began a nasty internet feud, culminating in a nearly five-hour livestreamed debate.
Piker posted about the news of the affair on X, sharing a video of Ethan and expressing disgust for men who cheat.
“Now this is a high caliber man [with] good morals,” Piker said sarcastically. He also posted “Judge me by my enemies” after sharing Hila’s statement.
Hila, who owns a makeup and clothing company, increasingly came under scrutiny by Piker and others after Oct. 7 for her service in the IDF. Artists refused to work with her. One model she hired publicly disavowed her after finding out she was Israeli.
The couple was harassed, sometimes online, sometimes in-person, as they attempted to take what they viewed as a nuanced stance in the aftermath of Hamas’ attack on Israel and the ensuing war in Gaza. The united front seemed to fortify their relationship, as Ethan, ever outspoken, routinely came to his wife’s defense.
Their show lost thousands of subscribers, but loyal fans stuck with them — fans who now say they are gutted and confused by the news of the affair. Many in disbelief noted that Ethan had Hila’s face tattooed on his arm less than two years ago as a surprise for her.
“The greatest thing a man can do for his children is to love their mother,” says the quote surrounding the tattoo.
The Forward attempted to contact the Kleins through their work emails and did not immediately hear back.
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These Jewish college students have some ‘nonnegotiables’ for El-Sayed
At the University of Michigan, first-year student Robert Kashan, 18, and sophomore Jacob Reich, 19, sat behind a large blue sign. “Some things are nonnegotiable,” it declared in all caps.
The sign laid out their requirements for any candidate seeking their support: a commitment to Jewish safety, “including for Zionist Jews,” and supporting Jewish statehood in Israel, among other positions.
“Zionism is a legitimate part of the Democratic coalition, and a lot of us are feeling less represented by the Democratic Party,” Kashan told the Forward.
The students are part of a broader “Nonnegotiable” movement in Michigan, a coalition of Jewish Democrats who are spelling out their dealbreakers for candidates ahead of the Senate election between Democratic nominee Abdul El-Sayed and Republican nominee Mike Rogers.
The movement has attracted national attention, with hundreds of rabbis across 34 states signing on to the “Nonnegotiable” demands. Meanwhile, about 20 students at the University of Michigan have publicly signed, while hundreds more offered support anonymously, according to Reich.
The “Nonnegotiable” supporters aren’t saying whom they’ll vote for if their concerns aren’t addressed — or whether they’ll vote at all. But they are pushing back against the assumption that Jewish voters will, as the saying goes, “vote blue no matter who,” urging El-Sayed to engage with their demands if he hopes to earn their support.
That’s in contrast with two other Jewish political camps, including a group called Michigan Jews for Democracy that endorsed El-Sayed. Their petition, which has garnered almost 1,000 signatures, notes that some signatories hold reservations about El-Sayed but are voting for him nonetheless as a check on President Trump.
“We understand that a vote is not a valentine; it’s a strategic chess move,” the petition reads.
A competing petition, dubbed “Michigan Jews Against Extremism,” has drawn hundreds of signatures from Michigan Jews who plan to vote for Rogers. That petition similarly emphasizes that Rogers voters may still have reservations about the candidate: “Our vote for Mike Rogers does not require that we agree with him on every issue or that we support President Trump,” it reads.
“Nonnegotiable,” meanwhile, rejects the idea that Jewish voters would have to choose between Zionist and Democratic values. Some have criticized the nonnegotiable movement for ignoring the reality of the electoral choice at hand. Others have called it “a veiled attempt to excuse the actions of Jewish Democrats who want to feel validated about voting for Mike Rogers.”
But Kashan and Reich, who met at Hillel and plan to major in political science, said the “Nonnegotiable” movement was the only way they could see themselves engaging in the election, as they felt increasingly pulled between their identities as Democrats and as Jews.
Some Michigan Jews have expressed alarm at El-Sayed’s questioning of whether Israel should exist as a Jewish state and his decision to campaign alongside controversial Twitch streamer Hasan Piker, who has been accused of antisemitic rhetoric. Rogers, who Trump has endorsed, earlier this week called El-Sayed “anti-Jew.”
In a letter to Michigan Jews, El-Sayed has vowed to “stand up against antisemitism and take the threat of violence against our Jewish community incredibly seriously.” He has also hired a Jewish liaison in the final weeks leading up to the election.
This will be the first election when Kashan, who just turned 18, is eligible to vote, and Reich’s first national election after voting in a local primary in his hometown of Palo Alto, California. For both, voting Democratic in their first major election had once seemed like a given.
“I’m a Jewish Democrat, and I want Democrats to take the Senate,” Reich said. “I want to vote for a Democrat in my own state.”
They’re still holding out hope that will happen — and that, with less than two weeks until the Nov. 3 election, El-Sayed will sign on to their petition.
And if he doesn’t? Neither student is ready to say.
The post These Jewish college students have some ‘nonnegotiables’ for El-Sayed appeared first on The Forward.
