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In HBO’s new Stephen King series, the Holocaust is fuel for jump scares
This article contains spoilers for the first episode of the HBO Max series It: Welcome to Derry.
In the first episode of It: Welcome to Derry, it’s immediately clear that the local high school has a bullying problem. Kids stuff pickle jars in the locker of a girl whose father died in a pickle jarring accident. The Bert the Turtle mascot (it’s set in 1962 after all) is knocked around. But among the bullies stands Theodore “Teddy” Uris, a kinder, more compassionate teenage boy. It may come as no surprise that he’s Jewish.
A prequel to the 2017 movie of It, based on Stephen King’s novel, the series starts with the disappearance of the friendless and abused Matty Clements. Teddy immediately feels guilty, wondering if he could’ve prevented Matty from running away by being nice to him. Teddy’s friend Phil, who is much more interested in spying on female neighbors as they undress, doesn’t understand why Teddy cares.
Jewish men are often painted as less masculine and more sensitive than their non-Jewish counterparts. This is sometimes done derisively, although in Derry, which was developed by Andy and Barbara Muschietti, the brother-sister director-producer team behind It and It Chapter 2, and Jason Fuchs, co-writer of Wonder Woman, it makes Teddy one of the most likeable characters.
What feels more shocking is the way the show incorporates the Holocaust to torment him, although King’s work has mined the Holocaust for horror fodder in the past, such as in the novel Apt Pupil.
Shabbat dinner at the Uris household starts off normally, with the Hebrew prayers for wine and challah (incorrectly identified as “Yiddish” in the subtitles). Teddy, who is haunted by the idea that Matty is still alive, asks his dad, Rabbi Uris, if it’s possible for someone to be held underground for months. His father chides Teddy for what he thinks is his son’s wild imagination. Rabbi Uris reminds Teddy that his grandparents survived Buchenwald, where Jewish skin was allegedly turned into lampshades.
“We are Jews, Theodore,” he says. “We know better than anyone the real horrors of this world. Reality is terrifying enough as it is. Cut it out with the fantasy.”
That night, as Teddy reads a Batman comic, his lamp begins to turn off on its own. The third time he turns it back on, he is greeted with a lampshade sewn out of groaning faces.
Although the episode is packed with creepy moments — some are so overdone as to verge on parody — this scene feels the most disturbing. You may or may not believe in the two-headed devil baby that flies at us in the beginning of the episode, but the horrors of the Holocaust are very real. Behind the otherworldly spectre of the lampshade is true torture and abuse.
It feels almost exploitative to use the Holocaust for shock value. For many years, claims that Nazis turned the skin of Jewish prisoners into objects were seen as too controversial to discuss. Some feared that the claims were so outlandish, it would give credence to Holocaust deniers. Although it’s not clear if this was a common Nazi practice, at least one lampshade recovered from Buchenwald was confirmed to have been sourced from human skin. Should one really be using the skinned faces of Holocaust victims for a jump scare?
There’s something to be said for how Pennywise, Derry’s resident demon clown, mines the psychology of his victims to terrorize them, and surely the Rabbi’s comments about the Shoah affect Teddy’s young mind. But one can point to epigenetic Jewish trauma in other ways.
In It, the Jewish character Stanley Uris (Teddy’s nephew) is haunted in his synagogue by what looks like a surrealist Amedo Modigliani figure. It’s a Jewish haunting in setting and source (Modigliani was Sephardic), but it didn’t play on specific Jewish trauma the way the lampshade does.
Maybe the whole point of Derry is to take things up a notch from its predecessor. It certainly doesn’t pull any punches in the final scene of the episode: Multiple children are brutally murdered on screen, something most shows tend to avoid depicting in detail. The first — and most graphic kill — is Teddy.
The post In HBO’s new Stephen King series, the Holocaust is fuel for jump scares appeared first on The Forward.
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Rep. Ilhan Omar says Stephen Miller’s comments on immigrants sound like how ‘Nazis described Jewish people’
Rep Ilhan Omar, Democrat of Minnesota, on Sunday likened the Trump administration’s immigration rhetoric to Nazi depictions of Jews.
“It reminds me of the way the Nazis described Jewish people in Germany,” Omar said in an interview on CBS’s Face the Nation, commenting on a social media post by Stephen Miller, President Donald Trump’s senior adviser, in which he suggested that “migrants and their descendants recreate the conditions, and terrors, of their broken homelands.” Miller, who is Jewish, is the architect of the Trump administration’s immigration policy.
Omar called Miller’s comments “white supremist rhetoric” and also drew parallels between his characterization of migrants seeking refuge in the U.S. to how Jews were demonized and treated when they fled Nazi-era Germany. “As we know, there have been many immigrants who have tried to come to the United States who have turned back, you know, one of them being Jewish immigrants,” she said.
Now serving as Trump’s deputy chief of staff for policy, Miller is central to the White House’s plans for mass deportations and expanded barriers to asylum. During Trump’s first term, Miller led the implementation of the so-called Muslim travel ban in 2017, which barred entry to the U.S. for individuals from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen, and pushed to further reduce a longtime refugee program.
Rep. Ilhan Omar: “When I think about Stephen Miller and his white supremacist rhetoric, it reminds me of the way the Nazis described Jewish people in Germany.” pic.twitter.com/GAjIMqFq26
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) December 7, 2025
Miller’s comments echoed similar rhetoric by Trump after an Afghan refugee was accused of shooting two National Guard members near the White House last month, killing one.
Trump told reporters at a cabinet meeting last week that Somali immigrants are “garbage” and that he wanted them to be sent “back to where they came from.” The president also singled out Omar, a Somali native who represents Minnesota’s large Somali-American community. “She should be thrown the hell out of our country,” Trump said.
In the Sunday interview, Omar called Trump’s remarks “completely disgusting” and accused him of having “an unhealthy obsession” with her and the Somali community. “This kind of hateful rhetoric and this level of dehumanizing can lead to dangerous actions by people who listen to the president,” she said.
The post Rep. Ilhan Omar says Stephen Miller’s comments on immigrants sound like how ‘Nazis described Jewish people’ appeared first on The Forward.
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Nigeria Seeks French Help to Combat Insecurity, Macron Says
French President Emmanuel Macron at the Elysee Palace in Paris, France, Sept. 15, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Benoit Tessier/Pool
Nigerian President Bola Tinubu has sought more help from France to fight widespread violence in the north of the country, French President Emmanuel Macron said on Sunday, weeks after the United States threatened to intervene to protect Nigeria’s Christians.
Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, has witnessed an upsurge in attacks in volatile northern areas in the past month, including mass kidnappings from schools and a church.
US President Donald Trump has raised the prospect of possible military action in Nigeria, accusing it of mistreating Christians. The government says the allegations misrepresent a complex security situation in which armed groups target both faith groups.
Macron said he had a phone call with Tinubu on Sunday, where he conveyed France’s support to Nigeria as it grapples with several security challenges, “particularly the terrorist threat in the North.”
“At his request, we will strengthen our partnership with the authorities and our support for the affected populations. We call on all our partners to step up their engagement,” Macron said in a post on X.
Macron did not say what help would be offered by France, which has withdrawn its troops from West and Central Africa and plans to focus on training, intelligence sharing and responding to requests from countries for assistance.
Nigeria is grappling with a long-running Islamist insurgency in the northeast, armed kidnapping gangs in the northwest and deadly clashes between largely Muslim cattle herders and mostly Christian farmers in the central parts of the country, stretching its security forces.
Washington said last month that it was considering actions such as sanctions and Pentagon engagement on counterterrorism as part of a plan to compel Nigeria to better protect its Christian communities.
The Nigerian government has said it welcomes help to fight insecurity as long as its sovereignty is respected. France has previously supported efforts to curtail the actions of armed groups, the US has shared intelligence and sold arms, including fighter jets, and Britain has trained Nigerian troops.
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Netanyahu Says He Will Not Quit Politics if He Receives a Pardon
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu participates in the state memorial ceremony for the fallen of the Iron Swords War on Mount Herzl, Jerusalem on Oct. 16, 2025. Photo: Alex Kolomoisky/POOL/Pool via REUTERS
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that he would not retire from politics if he receives a pardon from the country’s president in his years-long corruption trial.
Asked by a reporter if planned on retiring from political life if he receives a pardon, Netanyahu replied: “no”.
Netanyahu last month asked President Isaac Herzog for a pardon, with lawyers for the prime minister arguing that frequent court appearances were hindering Netanyahu’s ability to govern and that a pardon would be good for the country.
Pardons in Israel have typically been granted only after legal proceedings have concluded and the accused has been convicted. There is no precedent for issuing a pardon mid-trial.
Netanyahu has repeatedly denied wrongdoing in response to the charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust, and his lawyers have said that the prime minister still believes the legal proceedings, if concluded, would result in a complete acquittal.
US President Donald Trump wrote to Herzog, before Netanyahu made his request, urging the Israeli president to consider granting the prime minister a pardon.
Some Israeli opposition politicians have argued that any pardon should be conditional on Netanyahu retiring from politics and admitting guilt. Others have said the prime minister must first call national elections, which are due by October 2026.