Uncategorized
Is the movie ‘Nuremberg’ about the wrong Jewish psychiatrist?
Douglas Kelley, the real-life U.S. Army psychiatrist portrayed by Rami Malek in the recently released motion picture Nuremberg, wrote a book titled 22 Cells in Nuremberg that came out in 1947, a year after he finished his five-month stint at the Nuremberg trials.
Nearly 60 years later, interviews conducted by Leon Goldensohn, a Jewish psychiatrist who replaced Kelley at the historic war crimes trials, were published in The Nuremberg Interviews: An American Psychiatrist’s Conversations with the Defendants and Witnesses. Goldensohn who spent more time with Nazi prisoners than Kelley did, and this book, translated into 16 languages, arguably sheds more light on the Third Reich criminals.
Goldensohn and Kelley were responsible for monitoring both the physical and mental health of the Nazi prisoners, and both their lives ended tragically: Goldensohn died of a heart attack in 1961, five days after his 50th birthday; Kelley died by suicide in front of his family at the age of 45.
Leon Goldensohn’s son Dan, now 77, said that his father’s interactions with the prisoners were deeper than the ones Kelley had.
“There’s a couple of defendants who say in Leon’s book how much they preferred talking to him,” Dan Goldensohn told me.
One of those defendants was Hermann Goering, the commander of the Luftwaffe, the German air force, who complimented Goldensohn on his technique as a psychiatrist.
“I feel freer to talk to you than to some other psychologists,” Goering told him.
I checked in with Leon Goldensohn’s sons and daughter and their cousins when the movie Nuremberg opened and the actor portraying Douglas Kelley appeared larger than life on the silver screen. The movie was about “the wrong psychiatrist,” Dan Goldensohn told me over the phone.
“We lost our chance to have Leon’s work once again in the public eye, because of Kelley,” Dan said. “When people talk about an Army psychiatrist at Nuremberg, Kelley’s name comes up. Leon’s name hardly does. Anyway, we have our jealousies.”
A French production company did make an hour-long program based on the Goldensohn book that aired on The History Channel, but the psychiatrist’s surviving relatives said it was not well done. Dan Goldensohn said the family came close to signing a deal with an Italian company for a film or TV series based on the book.
“It suddenly collapsed as soon as they heard that this other movie was signed with real actors and a real director,” he said.
‘The best brother in the world’
Dr. Eli Goldensohn, a world-renowned neurologist at Columbia University who died in 2013 at 98, took up the book project when he retired at the age of 83. Eli, who was four years younger than Leon, spent 10 years gathering and organizing materials, writing short summaries of all the interviews, and transcribing all those that hadn’t been transcribed. Eventually, he donated his brother’s papers to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.
When the book was published in the fall of 2004, Eli Goldensohn told me his only disappointment was that it “didn’t really describe Leon’s wonderful war record.” Leon Goldensohn had been Division Psychiatrist of the 63rd Infantry Division, which fought in France and Germany, and received several decorations for service on the front lines.
Eli remembered his older brother fondly.
“The Nazi prisoners respected Leon because he was an objective person and was fundamentally a gentleman who was able to meet them on any level,” Eli told me back in 2004. “He was the best brother in the world. I did this book to memorialize the existence of one of the finest people I ever knew.”
Anticipating Hannah Arendt
Eli Goldensohn’s son and daughter assisted him on the book. Ellen Goldensohn, who had served as editor-in-chief of Natural History magazine for many years, helped with the copyediting. Her brother Marty Goldensohn, a veteran of public radio newsrooms, introduced Eli to his friend Jim Bouton, the former Yankee pitcher and best-selling author, who convinced Eli to pursue a deal with a major commercial publisher. (Eli ended up signing with Knopf, where the interviews were turned into a book by Ashbel Green, the editor who had worked with such dissident writers as Andrei Sakharov, Jacobo Timerman and Vaclav Havel.)
Ellen Goldensohn said her uncle Leon’s work was prescient, given that it came 17 years before Hannah Arendt’s Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil.
“In 1946 he really knew the banality of evil and what was asked of these people who ran the Nazi regime,” she told me.
Marty Goldensohn remembers that his mother Betty, who lived to be 101, complained about her husband commandeering the extra bedroom in their assisted living apartment for the book project.
“Eli, get these file boxes out of here or I’m going over to the other side,” she joked, the other side being the Third Reich.
Marty said his father’s labor of love on the book was motivated, in part, by a sense of history, something he shared with his brother Leon.
“Leon was a Jewish doctor and he had compassion,” Marty told me. “He was in the middle of something that the historian Tony Judt once described as ‘a seam of evil.’ He was at the seam and how could he resist asking the key questions that had to do with the horror that had been perpetrated?”
The ‘Good’ German
Of the 476 pages in The Nuremberg Interviews, 33 are devoted to Goering, who told Goldensohn he was nauseated by Picasso, referred to the virulently antisemitic newspaper Der Sturmer as “that stupid journal” and claimed that of all the accusations leveled against him, the charge of looting art treasures caused him the most anguish.
In conversations with Goldensohn, Goering insisted that he was never antisemitic, that Adolph Hitler was a great leader who was betrayed by some of his subordinates and that he, Goering, would go down in history as a man who did much for the German people.
When Leon Goldensohn pressed Goering on his culpability in the genocide of European Jewry, the prisoner gave a classic “Good German” defense: “Certainly, as second man in the state under Hitler, I heard rumors about mass killings of Jews, but I could do nothing about it and I knew that it was useless to investigate these rumors and to find out about them accurately, which would not have been too hard, but I was busy with other things,” he said. “And if I had found out what was going on regarding the mass murders, it would simply have made me feel bad and I could do very little to prevent it anyway.”
The post Is the movie ‘Nuremberg’ about the wrong Jewish psychiatrist? appeared first on The Forward.
Uncategorized
These are the victims of the Bondi Beach Hanukkah celebration shooting in Sydney
(JTA) — A local rabbi, a Holocaust survivor and a 12-year-old girl are among those killed during the shooting attack Sunday on a Hanukkah celebration in Sydney, Australia.
Here’s what we know about the 11 people murdered in the attack, which took place at a popular beachside playground where more than 1,000 people had congregated to celebrate the first night of the holiday, as well as about those injured.
This story will be updated.
Eli Schlanger, rabbi and father of five
Schlanger was the Chabad emissary in charge of Chabad of Bondi, which had organized the event. He had grown up in England but moved to Sydney 18 years ago, where he was raising his five children with his wife Chaya. Their youngest was born just two months ago.
In addition to leading community events through Chabad of Bondi, Schlanger worked with Jewish prisoners in Australian prisons. “He flew all around the state, to go visit different people in jail, literally at his own expense,” Mendy Litzman, a Sydney Jew who responded as a medic to the attack, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Last year, amid a surge in antisemitic incidents in Australia, Schlanger posted a video of himself dancing and celebrating Hanukkah, promoting lighting menorahs as “the best response to antisemitism.”
The best response to antisemitism. Happy Chanukah! pic.twitter.com/33RSGYzhUY
— Rabbi Eli Schlanger (@SchlangerEli) December 17, 2024
Two months before his murder, he published an open letter to Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese urging him to rescind his “act of betrayal” of the Jewish people. The letter was published on Facebook the same day, Sept. 21, that Albanese announced he would unilaterally recognize an independent Palestinian state.
Alex Kleytman, Holocaust survivor originally from Ukraine
Kleytman had come to the Bondi Beach Hanukkah celebration annually for years, his wife Larisa told The Australian. She said he was protecting her when he was shot. The couple, married for six decades, has two children and 11 grandchildren.
The Australia reported that Kleytman was a Holocaust survivor who had passed World War II living with his family in Siberia.
12-year-old girl
Alex Ryvchin, co-CEO of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, told CNN that a friend “lost his 12-year-old daughter, who succumbed to her wounds in hospital.” The girl’s name was not immediately released.
Dozens of people were injured
- Yossi Lazaroff, the Chabad rabbi at Texas A&M University, said his son had been shot while running the event for Chabad of Bondi. “Please say Psalms 20 & 21 for my son, Rabbi Leibel Lazaroff, יהודה לייב בן מאניא who was shot in a terrorist attack at a Chanukah event he was running for Chabad of Bondi in Sydney, Australia,” he tweeted.
- Yaakov “Yanky” Super, 24, was on duty for Hatzalah at the event when he was shot in the back, Litzman said. “He started screaming on his radio that he needs back up, he was shot. I heard it and I responded to the scene. I was the closest backup. I was one of the first medical people on the scene,” Litzman said. He added, “We just went into action and saved a lot of lives, including one of our own.”
The post These are the victims of the Bondi Beach Hanukkah celebration shooting in Sydney appeared first on The Forward.
Uncategorized
The three responses to the Bondi Beach Hanukkah attack that could make Jews safer
After two gunmen opened fire at a Hanukkah celebration on Sydney’s Bondi Beach, killing at least 11 people and wounding dozens more, the world is asking urgent questions: Could this be the first of many such attacks? Who might be behind it? And how can we prevent the next tragedy?
Was Iran involved?
Iran, with its long history of using proxies and terrorism, naturally comes to mind. Israeli intelligence has publicly warned that Tehran remains highly motivated to target Israeli and Jewish interests abroad.
Reports suggest that Israeli agencies have assessed not only that Iran has the intent, but that it also possesses the capability to use its networks — through Hezbollah, Hamas, and other proxy groups — to strike outside the Middle East. Western governments, including Australia, the U.S., and members of the EU, have acknowledged Iranian intelligence activity on their soil.
The motivation is clear: Israel’s military strike damaged Iranian infrastructure and positions in June, followed shortly by U.S. attacks that compounded the damage and were widely celebrated in Israel and by Jewish communities. To Iran’s benighted regime, they were provocations that demanded a response. Certainly some of the investigation into the Bondi Beach attack will look in that direction.
But focusing solely on Iran risks missing a more immediate and pervasive danger: Violence against Jews does not require orchestration by a foreign state. The conditions that make it possible — and increasingly thinkable — are already everywhere.
Terrorism against Jews has gone global
Terrorism is tragically easy to carry out. Only two months ago, two Jews were killed by a Muslim attacker on Yom Kippur who rammed a car into a crowd outside a synagogue in England and attacked people with knives.
And while the UK and Australia severely restrict access to weapons, nowhere in the developed world is mad violence easier to orchestrate than in the United States. Firearms are cheap, accessible, and legal for virtually anyone, and the sheer size of the country makes monitoring and security far more difficult than in smaller, more centralized nations. Lone actors can wreak destruction on a scale that would be unthinkable elsewhere. If one wanted to locate the most vulnerable place for ideologically motivated attacks, the United States sits uncomfortably near the top.
Motivation for such violence has been growing steadily. Antisemitic attacks have increased across the Western world, and the way the Gaza war unfolded has only accelerated the trend. The narrative of “genocide” has become increasingly entrenched, making it harder for Jews to occupy the once-unquestioned moral space: I still defend Israel and should not be attacked for it. That space is collapsing.
“The idea that Jews collectively bear responsibility for Israel’s actions is seeping into public consciousness in ways that make massacres like Bondi Beach more thinkable, if not inevitable.”
Dan Perry
Polls now show that roughly half of Americans believe Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. Substantial minorities go further, rationalizing recent attacks against Jews as “understandable” or even “justified.” These numbers do not indicate majority support for violence, but they are significant enough to suggest that moral restraints are weakening.
This shift is particularly pronounced among younger generations, where hostility toward Israel has become a moral baseline. It does not automatically translate into action, but it lowers the social cost of excusing violence. The idea that Jews collectively bear responsibility for Israel’s actions is seeping into public consciousness in ways that make massacres like Bondi Beach more thinkable, if not inevitable.
The situation is compounded by Israel’s current government. Its policies and rhetoric have alienated large swathes of the global community, including non-orthodox Jews in the United States. The government’s posture — contemptuous, dismissive, and occasionally openly sneering — makes the work of diplomats, community leaders, and advocates far more difficult. Israel’s failure to convey a nuanced understanding abroad of the delicacy of its own situation, nor give any inkling of introspection about its conduct in Gaza, feeds perceptions of illegitimacy and exacerbates antisemitism.
So, what can be done?
The 3 ways to make Jewish communities safer
First, Jewish communities must assume that maximal security at every event, and certainly on holidays and around landmarks, is essential not optional. Every public event, school, and institution should be protected at the highest feasible level. Prudence demands it. Governments that claim to protect minorities must fund and sustain this protection, not treat it as an emergency add-on after tragedy strikes.
Second, political leadership matters. World leaders must speak clearly and forcefully against antisemitic violence. Silence or hedging is read as permission. Muslim leaders, in particular, should speak plainly: Condemning attacks on Jews is not an endorsement of Israel, nor a betrayal of Palestinian suffering — it is an assertion of basic moral boundaries. President Donald Trump, despite his many failings, has a unique capacity to apply pressure. If he insisted publicly that major figures in the Muslim world denounce antisemitic violence, he could secure statements and commitments that might otherwise be unattainable. That could save lives.
Finally, Israel itself must confront its role. The current government has become a strategic liability — not just for Israel’s security, but for Jews worldwide. Its policies, tone, and posture have helped create the conditions in which antisemitism flourishes abroad. This in no way justifies attacks on Jews, but we must live in the real world that can be cruel, indifferent, superficial and unfair.
A government that understands the global stakes, communicates openness to the world, respects the diversity of the Jewish diaspora, and approaches foreign and domestic policy with nuance and restraint would do enormous good. It would not eliminate the threat overnight, but it would drastically reduce the conditions that allow such hatred to grow. Replacing the current government with one capable of such diplomacy and moral awareness could, in a sense, be the most effective preventive measure of all.
The Bondi Beach massacre is a devastating warning. It is a tragedy that could have happened anywhere and serves as a grim reminder that antisemitic violence is an urgent threat to Jews everywhere.
The post The three responses to the Bondi Beach Hanukkah attack that could make Jews safer appeared first on The Forward.
Uncategorized
U.S. leaders condemn ‘vile act of antisemitic terror’ after deadly Hanukkah attack in Australia
American politicians responded early Sunday to devastating reports from Sydney, Australia, where at least 11 people were killed during a Hanukkah celebration at the popular Bondi Beach on the first night of Hanukkah. Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese called the terror attack an “act of evil antisemitism” that targeted Australia’s Jewish community.
Some elected officials struck a somber tone, while others drew political conclusions.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued a brief statement condemning the attack and said that “antisemitism has no place in this world.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that the Australian government’s decision to recognize a Palestinian state earlier this year encouraged “the Jew-hatred now stalking your streets.”
Sen. Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, tied the attack to the Israel-Hamas war, sending a warning to governments that support the unilateral recognition of an independent Palestinian state before Hamas is disarmed. “When you appease those who kill Jews, you get more killing of Jews,” Graham said in an interview on Fox News’ Sunday Morning Futures.
Sen. John Fetterman, a pro-Israel Democrat from Pennsylvania, echoed that sentiment on the same program, saying that anti-Israel protests in recent years have “penetrated” into violent attacks on Jews. “Just call it what it is,” Fetterman said. “Antisemitism is a worldwide scourge, and it’s constantly demonstrated to be deadly.”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who is Jewish, posted on X that the attack is a “shocking reminder that antisemitism and hate is not only toxic and far too present and widespread around the world, it is deadly. It must be vigorously condemned, confronted and overcome.”
New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani issued a statement, posted on his social media accounts, calling the attack a “vile act of antisemitic terror” and “the latest, most horrifying iteration in a growing pattern of violence targeted at Jewish people across the world.”
Mamdani, an outspoken critic of Israel whose statements on the conflict and refusal to disavow the “globalize the Intifada” slogan have roiled and divided the Jewish community, said the deadly attack should be met with urgent action to counter antisemitism. He also reiterated his pledge to “work every day to keep Jewish New Yorkers safe — on our streets, our subways, at shul, in every moment of every day.” New York City is home to the largest concentration of Jews in the United States.
Outgoing New York City Mayor Eric Adams said the police department will provide additional security at public menorah lightings across the city. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said the state police will assist with protection. “New York will always stand against the scourge of antisemitism and confront violence head-on,” Hochul added.
Brad Lander, the outgoing New York City Comptroller who is Jewish, and also running for Congress, also highlighted the heroism of a local man, Ahmed al-Ahmed, who put his own life at risk by running behind one of the gunmen and tackling and disarming him. Lander mourned the killing of a Chabad of Bondi’s Rabbi Eli Schlanger.
“Our menorahs tonight will also be yahrzeit candles — with grief for this grievous loss and rededication to shine brighter than slaughter and hate,” Lander wrote on X.
The post U.S. leaders condemn ‘vile act of antisemitic terror’ after deadly Hanukkah attack in Australia appeared first on The Forward.