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Steven Salen, a tailor who survived the Holocaust and dressed presidents, dies at 103
NEW YORK — (JTA) — Nothing riled Steven Salen like a powerful man in a bad suit.
“‘That suit fits terribly!’” his daughter Elayne Landau recalled him as yelling at the TV, multiple times. “‘How’s he going to get elected? Elayne, send him a letter.’ He would dictate the letter. ‘I’m watching you on television. That suit fits horribly. You really look like you’re one-sided. Come see me!’
Sometimes, Landau recalled in an interview, she would even send the letter. And a couple of times there was a polite and friendly reply.
Salen, 103, died on Nov. 23 at a hospital in Manhasset, New York. He was a Holocaust survivor, a savvy war-era black marketeer, and then once landing New York, he built up a reputation as an outfitter — a “bespoke tailor,” as his family put it — to the powerful and influential, working until he was 95.
Salen loved talking about the opportunities this country gave him, but like many survivors, he didn’t begin to open up about the horrors he witnessed and suffered until late in his life — in his case, in his 90s.
He enjoyed regaling his children and grandchildren about his clients and what he designed to make them look good, recalled his granddaughter, Rachel Landau Fisher. One time, he saw an old photo of a man on a tarmac in a trim gray overcoat. Salen said he had made the coat.
The photo was of President Richard Nixon shaking hands with Chinese premier Zhou Enlai in Beijing, the launch of a history-shaking visit that thawed U.S.-China ties.
President Richard Nixon shaking hands with Chou EnLai while wearing a coat that Steven Salen told his family he’d made, Feb. 21, 1972. (U.S. National Archives)
“His grandchildren, Jake, Sofia, Rachel and Sam enjoyed his many stories, including a favorite of a Mafia client walking in on FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover in his underwear during a fitting,” his granddaughter, Landau Fisher, wrote in a remembrance.
At his home in Bayside, Queens, he kept mementos of his career: Handwritten entries in ledgers spanning decades, including names like Nixon, and his secretary of state, Henry Kissinger. A framed 1980 check from former President Gerald Ford for $3,170. Gerald Ford tie clips. A hardcover and pristine copy of Kissinger’s remembrance, “White House Years,” with an inscription, “To Steve Salen, who makes me look almost presentable.” A client list from 2000 that includes names like Hearst and Scorcese.
“Martin Scorsese was one of his last clients,” Elayne Landau said of the film director. “So was Harvey Keitel.”
Salen was an old-school, word-of-mouth tailor who started working at FL Dunn on Fifth Avenue in New York, and eventually had his own full-floor atelier on Madison Avenue and 53rd Street, at the heart of the city’s high-fashion district.
In 2011, when Salen already topped 90, the New York style blog “The Trad” profiled his shop. It began, “Back in the ’50s, there were 300-400 bespoke tailors in NYC. Today — there might be 30.”
“They don’t have a web site. They sure as hell don’t have any marketing savvy. Steven can’t even figure out his phone. But they can build you a suit. In fact, they build suits for a lotta shops in NYC who claim to build their own,” the blog reported. “You get chalked up. And then what? Where does your suit go? China? Mexico? Turkey? Or, to the 11th floor of an office building in midtown Manhattan.” (“It ain’t cheap,” the blogger advises.)
Occasionally Salen would pop up in an aside in an article about the rarefied occupants of New York’s social stratosphere, as when the New York Times Magazine profiled antiquarians Leigh and Leslie Keno in 1986 (they are now famed as appraisers on PBS’s “Antiques Road Show”).
“After years of searching for the perfect tailor, they finally found one they feel meets their specifications, a man named Steven Salen,” the Times said. “He passed the brothers’ acid test for tailors by spotting immediately that each twin has an arm that’s a quarter of an inch longer than the other.”
Steve Salen at his granddaughter Rachel Landau’s wedding in 2020. (Family)
Salen would not tell his children about his life before his arrival in the United States unless he had to explain the marks his suffering had left on his body.
“He told the story of how, to his amazement, he twisted off his frozen toes and didn’t even feel it,” Elayne Landau wrote in a eulogy, describing the time her father spent on the Russian front as a slave of the Nazi war machine. “We had seen his feet, you see, so he had to say something about that.”
“He was a Holocaust survivor, but as much as that experience shaped who he was, he did not want to be defined by it,” she wrote. “I understood this because growing up in a community of refugees, we didn’t ask these questions and for the most part, people didn’t offer. People needed to move on.”
He worked ceaselessly, Landau said in the interview. “I remember on Sundays we used to go to Schwartzbaum, which was a woolen shop on the Lower East Side on Delancey street to buy cloth, so this was a seven-day-a-week thing for him,” she said.
And then, in his 90s he began to open up, and Elayne Landau saw an opportunity to get close to the father who spent her childhood working.
“He remarked frequently that he can’t believe he made it,” she wrote in her eulogy. “And he began to want to talk about it. Sadly, by this time, well into his 90s, he could not recall many specifics. But with the help of the few reminiscences that I’d written down through the years, Rachel and I were able to piece together the outlines of his story.”
He was born Zoltan Salomon in Nelipyno, Czechoslovakia in 1919. In 1939, in what he would later describe as some of the best years of his life, he was learning tailoring at a trade school run by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee.
Then the Nazis arrived and they deported Salen. He never saw his parents or seven of his 11 siblings again. Russians liberated him in 1943. “He told me how the Russian soldiers gave the Jews guns to shoot their German captors,” Elayne Landau recalled. “He said some people did.”
He joined the Czechoslovakian army and became a supply sergeant, which required sharp business skills to negotiate the black market. A fellow black marketeer had a cousin, Frantisca, who was 18; she and Salen were married within three weeks. They arrived in New York in 1949, and Salen landed a job as a tailor almost immediately.
His wife, who took the American name Frances, predeceased him, and so did his son, Jeff, a founder of the seminal 1970s punk band, Tuff Darts, who died of a heart attack in 2008. He is survived by his daughter, Elayne, son-in-law Matthew Landau, daughter-in-law Diana Salen and his four grandchildren.
“He really wanted to be defined by his American life,” Elayne Landau said. “He was so grateful for being here you could never say anything bad about against America.”
His granddaughter, Rachel Landau Fisher, said he and her grandmother drew slightly different pleasures from their American experience.
“He and his wife were most honored to have tea with First Lady Betty Ford after fitting the president at the White House,” she said. “His happiest place was at a poker table in the Catskills’ Concord Hotel.”
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The post Steven Salen, a tailor who survived the Holocaust and dressed presidents, dies at 103 appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Democrats’ split over Israel in spotlight, as Chris Van Hollen challenges Chuck Schumer for Senate leader
Sen. Chuck Schumer helped Democrats win back the Senate with a historic gain of at least nine seats in the midterm elections, giving his party a 56-seat majority, just four votes short of overcoming most filibusters.
Yet the New York Democrat, who has led Senate Democrats since 2017, now faces a rare leadership challenge from Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland — a contest that will not only determine who leads the chamber but also how Democrats use their regained power.
As majority leader, Schumer would have considerable influence over which bills receive floor time, which amendments get considered and how the party manages disagreements over Israel.
Schumer has largely held firm to his longtime support for Israel, trying to manage his caucus even as the party has grown increasingly divided over U.S. military assistance and weapons sales. Now, the leadership battle could force him to confront those divisions more directly, including whether to allow votes on legislation that would restrict aid to Israel. Schumer, the country’s highest-ranking Jewish elected official, has said defending Israel is a central part of his political identity. Van Hollen, meanwhile, has emerged as one of the Senate’s fiercest critics of the Israeli government.
The challenge to Schumer was sparked by a pair of Jewish Democrats: Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, the progressive icon, and Sen. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, both of whom called for a change in leadership. It comes at a moment when the Democratic Party is changing. A new generation of senators is entering Congress; progressive activists, emboldened by their victories in recent years, are demanding a more confrontational approach to President Donald Trump and the United States’ long and unwavering commitment to Israel.
On Election Day earlier this month, Trump himself announced his plan to end roughly $4 billion in annual U.S. military aid to Israel.
Does Schumer have the votes?
Senate Democrats will choose their leader in a secret-ballot election on Dec. 1. A candidate would need 29 votes to win if all 56 members participate.
Schumer expressed confidence that he has enough support to remain leader. Van Hollen has acknowledged that he is the underdog, and claims to have the backing of more than 10 senators.
A Punchbowl News tracker on Sunday showed 14 senators publicly supporting Schumer, five backing Van Hollen, three opposed to Schumer without expressing support for his challenger, and 36 who remain uncommitted. The Hill separately reported that at least 22 senators have privately indicated they will support Schumer.
Van Hollen has attracted support from several newly elected senators, including Abdul El-Sayed of Michigan and Peggy Flanagan of Minnesota, along with Sanders and Sen. Jeff Merkley of Massachusetts.
Opposition to Schumer or supporting a leadership contest does not automatically translate into support for his challenger.
Schumer has a significant advantage mathematically, given the relationships he has built over decades in the Senate. He also played an active role in recruiting candidates who won seats in red and purple states, including Sens. Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Roy Cooper of North Carolina, Josh Turek in Iowa and Scott Colom in Mississippi.
Israel becomes part of the leadership fight
Neither candidate has made Israel central to their campaign for Senate majority leader. But their differences on the issue have drawn attention from Jewish organizations and progressive groups, which are taking opposite sides.
Van Hollen has repeatedly called for restrictions on U.S. military aid to Israel, supported measures to block weapons sales and accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza. In remarks at the New Jewish Narrative’s annual gala in Washington last month, Van Hollen said, “We’re doing nobody any favors by providing a blank check regardless of the conduct of the government of Israel.” The progressive Jewish group is backing Van Hollen’s bid.
Schumer has sharply criticized Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, most notably in a March 2024 Senate speech calling for new Israeli elections. But he has continued to defend Israel’s security and preserve the U.S.-Israel relationship. In a 2024 interview with the Forward, Schumer said that “having a majority leader who’s committed to Israel is vital for Israel’s relationship with the U.S.” He faced online backlash earlier this year for saying his job as leader is to “fight” for Israel aid.
That distinction has become central to how Democratic-aligned organizations view the leadership contest — part of a larger debate over the direction of the party, particularly its relationship with Israel.
The progressive organization Our Revolution endorsed Van Hollen, calling for an agenda that includes ending U.S. military aid to Israel and reducing the influence of wealthy donors.
Track AIPAC, a group that monitors contributions from the pro-Israel lobbying organization, also pledged to help Van Hollen win. “The voters who delivered this majority want a leader who answers to them, and Chris Van Hollen has shown he will,” Casey Kennedy, the group’s co-founder, said in a statement.
On the other side, the Jewish Democratic Council of America announced Friday that it supports Schumer’s continued leadership, along with Rep. Hakeem Jeffries’ bid to become House speaker. “Advancing these priorities will require experience and steady leadership,” said Halie Soifer, the organization’s CEO.
Winning may be the easy part
Schumer remains the favorite to win. But the vote could mark a difficult political chapter for the 75-year-old senator, who may also face a primary challenge if he seeks reelection in 2028.
If Van Hollen attracts only a small number of votes, Schumer will emerge with a stronger mandate to lead. If his challenger wins substantial support, Schumer could begin his new term with a fractured and more progressive caucus seeking a different approach.
Schumer might face pressure to allow more debate on Israel-related legislation, even if he personally opposes it. But there are also limits to how far those debates would likely go. The new majority also includes moderates, longtime supporters of Israel and senators representing swing and red states that flipped blue in this cycle.
The post Democrats’ split over Israel in spotlight, as Chris Van Hollen challenges Chuck Schumer for Senate leader appeared first on The Forward.
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When a Jewish prisoner died in Ohio in 1918, four fellow inmates left the penitentiary in civilian clothes to ensure he got a proper burial
Jack Nast wanted to be buried in a Jewish cemetery.
He died in April 1918 while incarcerated at the Ohio Penitentiary in Columbus. Little is known about the circumstances that brought him there, but another prisoner, Morris Hess, preserved an account of his final days.
As he lay ill, Nast cried out that he was a Jew, Hess wrote. He expressed pride in Jewish history and its achievements, faith in the teachings of Judaism, and regret that his own life had not lived up to its principles. He wished to receive a burial befitting someone “born in the House of Israel.”
With the aid of others, his request was granted.
Isaac B. Jashenosky and Jacob Myers, two men who regularly visited the Jewish prisoners, were with Nast before he died. Jashenosky, whom the prisoners called “rabbi,” conducted the funeral service at an unidentified Jewish cemetery, likely in Columbus. When Nast’s relatives, whom Hess described as wealthy, refused to contribute toward the expenses, Warden Preston E. Thomas permitted the prison’s Jewish inmates to contribute to a collection for the funeral.
Four prisoners were also allowed to attend the burial in civilian clothing. They listened as Jashenosky delivered his remarks and Nast’s remains were returned to the earth.
“Kaddish was said and will be said every week for him,” Hess wrote.
The account appeared in The American Israelite, a Cincinnati Jewish newspaper, under the heading “Prisoners in Ohio Penitentiary are Grateful.” Hess signed the letter with his name and prison number, 45511.
Jewish life behind prison walls
The men who helped bury Nast were part of a larger effort to sustain Jewish religious life inside Ohio’s prisons. By 1899, prisoners were being excused from work for Jewish holidays and provided with special food. In 1902, about ten Jewish inmates received matzo for Passover. By 1913, religious services were also being arranged at correctional institutions in Mansfield and Lancaster.
In 1915, Charles Albert Rosenbaum wrote to The American Israelite about B’nai B’rith’s efforts to reach Jewish prisoners in Ohio.
For years, Rosenbaum wrote, Jewish prisoners had watched representatives of other faiths visit their institutions, “not with envious but with saddened eyes.” They wondered why their own people had been so neglectful. In prison libraries, they read of “the beauties and the godlike charities of the Jewish peoples,” but turned from those pages, looked at “the cold steel walls of their cells” and doubted.
“How all of this has been changed!” Rosenbaum declared.
Rosenbaum credited Jashenosky, Myers and other Columbus volunteers with organizing visits and religious services. With Warden Thomas’ permission, more than 100 services had been held over the preceding two years, he reported, without guards present.
Hess was among those who recorded these gatherings. In 1917, he described a service attended by Jashenosky and Myers, noting that one visitor, Mrs. I. J. Shatz, had distributed cigars to the prisoners.
Freedom in the penitentiary
In 1920, Hess described Passover services held with the cooperation of Warden Thomas and his wife, Mary Thomas. Women from Columbus’ Ezrath Nosheim Society provided a holiday meal.
Jashenosky preached that although everyone desired liberty, true freedom came through “the awakening of the soul.” He told the prisoners that, “Freedom is not alone a privilege, but a lifelong obligation.”
In December 1921, another prisoner, Harry Joseph, writing on behalf of the Jewish inmates, described the work of B’nai B’rith, the Council of Jewish Women and the Ezrath Nosheim Society.
He recalled the holiday meals that women from Columbus had prepared and served, including a dinner following Yom Kippur services. Their presence, he wrote, reminded the prisoners of “the Jewish fireside with its family love.”
He continued, “The knowledge that someone cares is an incentive to reach the end of this rocky road of adversity and become useful citizens.”
Jashenosky died in April 1930, at the age of 79. Newspapers reported that he had served as a prison chaplain for more than half a century.
Before he died, Jashenosky made one final request. He wanted two Jewish prisoners, Abe Shapiro and Adam Sikorski, to attend his funeral.
Warden Thomas granted permission.
The post When a Jewish prisoner died in Ohio in 1918, four fellow inmates left the penitentiary in civilian clothes to ensure he got a proper burial appeared first on The Forward.
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Houston Astros hire former Team Israel manager Brad Ausmus as skipper
(JTA) — The Houston Astros hired Brad Ausmus as manager, the team announced Wednesday, making the former Team Israel skipper the lone active Jewish manager in Major League Baseball.
This will be Ausmus’ third managerial stint in MLB. He previously led the Detroit Tigers from 2014-2017 and the Los Angeles Angels in 2019. Ausmus, 57, owns a 386-422 career managerial record. He will be introduced at a press conference at Houston’s Daikin Park on Friday.
Ausmus most recently served as the New York Yankees’ bench coach from 2024-2026 and also previously worked in the front offices of the San Diego Padres and Angels. He had interviewed for the Astros’ managerial opening in 2020 and for their general manager role in 2022.
Ausmus spent 10 of his 18 MLB seasons with the Astros. He finished his playing career with a .251 batting average, .325 on-base percentage and .344 slugging percentage. The New Haven, Connecticut, native managed Team Israel during the qualifiers for the 2013 World Baseball Classic, served on its coaching staff in the 2023 WBC and managed the team in the 2026 tournament.
“Regarding Aus, he is just a perfect big league manager in every way and there are not many people you can say that about,” Nate Fish, the CEO of Israel Baseball Americas and a former Israel player and coach, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “He is smart. He is calm. He has the experience. He is a good fit for any team but a perfect fit in Houston considering he played 10 years there.”
Fish also pointed out that “this is the second time [Ausmus] has been hired to manage in the big leagues following a stint managing Team Israel. Just sayin’. There is a pattern!”
Israel won two of its four games in the 2026 tournament, securing a spot in the 2030 competition.
“I am honored and excited to take on this role,” Ausmus said before the March tournament. “I’ve been incredibly proud to be part of Team Israel’s journey. My focus remains exactly where it has always been: building a cohesive, competitive team that proudly represents Israel on the world stage. We have a solid foundation, and I’m ready to hit the ground running with our talented staff and players to achieve our goals for 2026.”
Ausmus, a former catcher, played for the Astros from 1997-1998 and again from 2001-2008. He won three Gold Glove Awards for his defense with Houston and was an All-Star in 1999 with Detroit. His 1,971 career MLB appearances are the most ever by a Jewish player, according to the Jewish Baseball Museum.
“I am very excited to be back in Houston,” Ausmus said in a statement. “The Astros and the city of Houston have been a huge part of my life, and I’m thrilled to create a new chapter as the team’s manager. I can’t wait to get to work.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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