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Memoir of child of Holocaust survivors takes riveting twists
Book Review by Julie Kirsh (former Sun Media News Research Director)
Exclusive to The Jewish Post
“We used to Dream of Freedom, A Memoir of Family, the Holocaust, and the Stories We Don’t Tell”
By Sam Chaiton (Dundurn Press) 2024
Sam Chaiton’s memoir of growing up with Holocaust survivor parents in downtown Toronto in the 1950s is a compelling read.
Jeanne Beker, a well known Toronto fashion writer, mentions in her praise for “We used to Dream of Freedom” that her survivor parents talked incessantly about their war experiences.
My own parents, both survivors, would drop tidbits of their stories now and again. I learned to be watchful and vigilant for these rare moments of revelation. However, questioning my parents about the Holocaust, would cause them pain. I knew when to stand down.
In his memoir, Sam Chaiton tells the reader that his parents chose to remain completely silent about their wartime experiences. Poignantly their son was left with a silence that he interpreted as huge empty sound. Although the son could understand some Yiddish, his parents turned to Polish in order to keep the “kinder safe”. Outright denial of illness and death was part of his parents’ way of coping.
Born in the 1950s on Palmerston Boulevard in downtown Toronto, Chaiton paints a vivid picture of his youth as the middle son of five boys. He describes the mayhem of a household of barked orders and punishment by his father’s belt. His mother, as with many other survivors, was obsessed with eating and food. Chaiton learned early that rejecting his controlling mother’s food was one of his few weapons. “It’s hard not to do what a Holocaust survivor wants you to”, he says. Chaiton had to stare down two parents both with tattoos.
Dance proved to be a saving grace for Chaiton. On the dance floor, with a partner, the gates of happiness and permission to be oneself, opened. The Toronto Dance Theatre in Yorkville was a salvation and home for Chaiton. Also important to Chaiton was a family – not his troubled blood family but a chosen one – a commune.
In 1973, after a sojourn in New York, Chaiton decided that he was not a performance dancer. Back in Toronto as he pointedly danced with his mother at his brother’s wedding, she told him that he was her favourite child, imposing “the psychological damage that parental favouritism caused”.
Living in a commune with a chosen family afforded Chaiton the freedom to dig deep into his psyche, face his traumatic upbringing and tear down the rigid rules of society and the biological family. At a certain point, for reasons he explains in the book, Chaiton made the decision to vanish from the lives of his parents and brothers.
In 1980 the commune took up the cause of the injustice and illegal jailing of Rubin “Hurricane” Carter. Carter had been exonerated, released from prison and then reconvicted and sent back to prison.
In hindsight Chaiton wonders if his disengagement from his family caused them the same wounds and feelings of emptiness that Carter had to face when he was reincarcerated.
In 1985 while sitting in a New Jersey prison yard with friends and Carter, Chaiton had the riveting vision that he was in a concentration camp, “on a mission to liberate (his) parents – the dream of every Holocaust survivor’s child.”
In the summer of 1985, Chaiton received the news from Toronto that his parents were involved in a fatal car accident. Only after his mother’s death, was Chaiton able to acknowledge that in spite of her smothering, she gave him a sense of self worth and strength.
In 1988 Chaiton co-wrote the story of freeing Carter. One of his brothers saw him on a news broadcast, contacted him and the 20-year silence between Chaiton and his blood family was over.
Riding on the coattails of the successful release of Carter, Chaiton and some friends established an organization that continues to exist today. Innocence Canada has helped wrongfully convicted people like Guy Paul Morin, David Milgaard and Steven Truscott.
In chapter 16, entitled Wierzbnik, Chaiton finally learns about his father’s testimony published in a book, “Remembering Survival”, by a university professor. Reading about his father’s history helped Chaiton to understand the damage done to survivors, his parents’ trauma and why the home that they created for their sons after the war was so fraught.
Chaiton remarks on the interconnectedness of learning about the sufferings of his parents, his own personal struggles and the gift his father left him of being able to tell his own story.
Sam Chaiton’s profound memoir took courage and brutal honesty to write.
His book teaches that the legacy left by Holocaust survivors, along with a deep sadness, is the innate need of the children to persevere and find their own path of survival and growth.
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IDF Soldier from Connecticut Killed in Southern Lebanon Combat
Sgt. Moshe Yitzhak Hacohen Katz. Photo: courtesy.
i24 News – The Israel Defense Forces announced on Sunday morning the death of Sgt. Moshe Yitzhak Hacohen Katz, 22, originally from New Haven, Connecticut, who was killed during combat operations in southern Lebanon on Saturday.
According to the military, Katz was killed in a rocket attack targeting Israeli forces operating during efforts to expand a security zone in southern Lebanon. The IDF said the strike occurred overnight between Friday and Saturday, during a large-scale barrage aimed at units deployed in the area.
An initial military investigation found that one rocket directly hit an infantry unit from the 890th Battalion of the Paratroopers Brigade, killing Katz instantly. Three additional soldiers were wounded and are listed in moderate condition.
The IDF said the announcement of Katz’s death was delayed to ensure that all family members, including those in the United States, were properly notified.
The army also said that recent attacks have largely focused on the four IDF divisions operating in Lebanon. In the past 24 hours alone, approximately 250 rockets were launched toward Israeli positions, with 23 crossing into Israeli territory, according to military figures.
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AI-Generated Antisemitic Rabbi Racks Up Millions of Followers with Questionable Financial Advice
i24 News – An AI-generated character known as Rabbi Goldman has attracted millions of followers online by combining old antisemitic tropes with digital-age conspiracy theories. The avatar, presented as a caricature of a New York rabbi, plays off stereotypes of Jewish power and wealth while dispensing unsolicited “financial advice” and conspiracy-laden commentary about global elites.
In his videos, Rabbi Goldman claims that Jews have “known every secret for thousands of years,” weaving age-old prejudice into modern misinformation. Among his assertions: that the moon landing was faked, the US government will soon exert total control over its citizens, and billionaires stage yacht sinkings for insurance fraud—all allegedly foreknown by “the Jews.”
Before being removed on Sunday night, his Instagram account had racked up over 1.5 million followers. Yet the same page remains active on Facebook, which shares an owner with Instagram, with roughly 180,000 followers and thousands of interactions per post. The comments reveal an audience that is genuinely engaged with, and emboldened by, his vitriolic rhetoric.
Rabbi Goldman’s videos follow a simple formula designed to thrive in algorithm-driven ecosystems. They begin with a cryptic slogan implying secret knowledge or hidden wealth — invoking Jews as the keepers of these secrets — to draw viewers in and extend watch time, thus being featured on more people’s feeds. What follows is a cascade of AI-generated, factually dubious monologues, all culminating in a pitch: he can show you how to acquire the same “Jewish wisdom.”
That pitch leads to his website, where a manual titled How to Make and Invest Money sells for $9, and he claims it has been purchased by over 4,000 people. The real product, however, carries a fuller title — How to Make and Invest Money Like the Jews. The 62-page PDF amounts to generic, AI-spun financial advice labeled as “the Jewish method,” occasionally interspersed with random references to the Talmud. Just like the videos, it references how Jews have managed to be successful for thousands of years but offers little backup as to how that can translate to a real-world scenario.
Most of it plays off the stereotype of Jews being financially astute. But some lines, such as “Jews do not day trade… We buy the market — the entire market — and we hold it indefinitely,” remove the mask entirely.
Whether we like it or not, antisemitism thrives online—and platforms’ recent loosening of content restrictions under the banner of “free speech” has only amplified it. Social media has become an ideal environment for grifters to blend prejudice with profit. And that is, to their credit, what the creators of Rabbi Goldman have done.
They have clearly borrowed from the “manosphere” playbook—a cluster of influencers promoting hyper-masculine, materialistic lifestyles infused with misogyny and antisemitism. Like Andrew Tate and similar figures, Rabbi Goldman appeals to disaffected young men who feel alienated by the economy and society in which they live, eager to locate a scapegoat.
In Goldman’s case, the scapegoats are the elites and billionaires. But the framing of the Jews alongside the elites has, by proxy, made them the scapegoat too. By merging coded hatred with generic Instagram-style self-help language, the character transforms antisemitism into a marketable aesthetic.
So essentially, the creator of Rabbi Goldman has found a niche in an emerging market, playing off of antisemitism to sell cheaply produced slop to teenagers. Which is both entrepreneurial and morally awful. But the issue is that social media has bred the ground for this by rewarding shock content and letting antisemitism often go untouched. Even when they deleted his Instagram account, dozens of copycats popped up, including an absurdly ironic German-language version that uses the likeness of British politician Jeremy Corbyn.
And this is what happens when social media companies are reactive rather than proactive. They were chasing shadows after the account became so big. Instead, they need to cut it out at its source, be tougher on antisemitism, and be more vigilant with AI content.
And for social media users, it is hard to tell what’s real and what isn’t anymore. Just try not to get financial advice from an AI rabbi who thinks the moon landing was fake.
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Pezeshkian Clashes with IRGC Over Iran’s War Strategy and Economy
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian attends the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit 2025, in Tianjin, China, September 1, 2025. Iran’s Presidential website/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS
i24 News – Deep divisions have reportedly emerged within Iran’s leadership as the war enters its fifth week, with tensions growing between President Masoud Pezeshkian and senior figures in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, according to a report by Iran International.
The report by Iran International claims Pezeshkian has sharply criticized the military escalation strategy led by IRGC commanders, warning of severe economic consequences if the conflict continues.
He is said to have cautioned that without a ceasefire, Iran’s economy could “completely collapse within three weeks to a month.”
According to the same report, Pezeshkian has called for the restoration of executive and administrative authority to the civilian government, a demand reportedly rejected by IRGC leadership, including Ahmad Vahidi.
Vahidi is said to have pushed back, blaming the current crisis on the government’s failure to implement structural reforms prior to the war and recent protest movements.
Meanwhile, signs of economic strain are becoming increasingly visible across Iran. Reports from several major cities describe ATMs that are empty, out of service, or inaccessible, alongside repeated disruptions to online banking systems.
Public sector employees have also reported delays in salaries and benefits over the past three months.