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The Nazis sent them to Hawaii to spy for the Japanese
Family of Spies: A World War II Story of Nazi Espionage, Betrayal, and the Secret History Behind Pearl Harbor
By Christine Kuehn
Celadon Books, 272 pages, $30
Surely this must be historical fiction.
Here’s the premise: In 1930s Germany, a teenage girl has an affair with chief Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels. When he somehow discovers she is half-Jewish, her immediate family (excepting one ardently Nazi brother) is banished to Hawaii, where mother, father and daughter are tasked with spying for the Japanese — and facilitating the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Decades later, an American writer inherits this unlikely story and the resulting generational trauma. She sets out to uncover more details, spurring an intermittent, emotional 30-year quest and, finally, this book, Family of Spies.
Which, it turns out, is not fiction, but rather an astonishing blend of history and memoir.
“Christine Kuehn was cocooned in the sanctity of a quiet suburban life when a mysterious letter in 1994 pierced that bubble,” the author’s biographical blurb states. The letter, from a screenwriter, seeks information about a grandfather involved with the Nazis. It sends the skeptical Kuehn and her husband to a bookstore, where, in the World War II section, sure enough, they find scattered references to a man named Otto Kuehn and his daughter, Ruth. Both are linked to anti-American espionage.
By this point, Otto and his wife, Friedel, are dead. So, too, is Leopold, the brother who stayed behind and fought for Germany during the war. But living witnesses remain: Christine’s father, Eberhard, and, even more tantalizingly, Ruth herself.
“You don’t need to know about the family, the past, or Pearl Harbor,” Ruth had told Christine years earlier. Christine’s father, too, had supplied only “vague, whitewashed snippets” about that past.
But after some prodding, Eberhard Kuehn shares memories of his Hawaiian boyhood, an idyll of swimming, surfing and fishing during which he was unaware of the family’s spying. When the surprise Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor happened, on Dec. 7, 1941, he was 15 and, though not yet a citizen, thoroughly American. He enlisted in the U.S. Army as soon as he could, fought at Okinawa, and remained estranged from his parents for the rest of his life.
As Christine investigates, Eberhard, always a teller of fantastical stories, is ravaged gradually by dementia. His recollections fade, leaving her to continue her fraught pilgrimage through family history alone.
As for Ruth — if this were indeed a novel, the climax would be a confrontation between aunt and niece, with attendant revelations. But Ruth is intent on concealment. On a visit to Germany after her mother’s death, she and another brother, Hans, burn a cache of family papers. She dies having kept her secrets.
Kuehn’s narrative weaves back and forth between the history itself and her quest to discover and decipher it. She reports deeply on the intricacies of espionage and counterespionage in Hawaii, relying largely on FBI files. Her structure and style are clear and effective. But it is really the improbability of the tale that hooks readers.
Its precipitating events take place in Berlin, where Ruth, like the rest of the family, is immersed in Nazi culture. Encountering Goebbels, a vicious antisemite who is also a charming womanizer, she succumbs, and for a while he does, too. But it turns out that her biological father is not Otto Kuehn, a failed businessman trying to rise in Nazi ranks, but a Jewish architect with whom Friedel was involved before the marriage. That, of course, is a problem.
Otto Kuehn’s own history includes missteps and near-misses. One family anecdote has him loaning the financially strapped Rudolph Heydrich, his competitor for a top SS post, train fare to get to the job interview. Heydrich beats Kuehn out for the position, later becoming Gestapo head and a key architect of the Holocaust.
Meanwhile, Otto works as a secret agent, first for the Weimar-era German navy and then for the Nazis. So, drafting him, in 1935, for Hawaiian espionage makes a certain sense. But in his granddaughter’s telling, he is “vain, grandiose, a risk-taker,” a less than superlative spy. He and Friedel are too ostentatious, parlaying cash windfalls from their Japanese handlers into real estate purchases and lavish parties. Ruth is seemingly more subtle in prying military information from U.S. naval officers charmed by her. “Dating was the perfect cover,” Kuehn writes.
At one point, Ruth becomes engaged to a German steel executive living in Tokyo, a man who happens to be the family’s Japanese handler. But when Friedel travels to Japan to collect money owed to the Kuehns, she finds Ruth’s fiancé living with another woman.
Here, the story (which evokes the great FX spy thriller The Americans) becomes stranger still. The FBI and U.S. military intelligence have by now grown suspicious of the Kuehns. An FBI operative, Robert L. Shivers, is assigned to Honolulu in 1939 to stake out the family, as well as other suspected spies. A cat-and-mouse game of surveillance and surreptitiousness erupts.
One of Otto’s principal contributions to the attack on Pearl Harbor was devising a code that involved using light signals to broadcast U.S. ship movements to the Japanese military. Cables from the Japanese consulate to Tokyo describing the signals were intercepted by American intelligence, but not decoded or translated until after the attack.
Kuehn describes the terror of Pearl Harbor, with its massive American casualties and damage to the U.S. Pacific fleet — and what happened to her family next: imprisonment, separation, wandering, exile, a Biblical level of catastrophe. Otto, convicted of espionage by a military tribunal, barely escaped a firing squad. But imprisonment with hard labor broke him, and his subsequent life — first in Argentina; then in Germany, with Friedel – was unhappy. It cannot have helped that after leaving the United States he never saw his son Eberhard again.
While there is no climactic confrontation with Ruth, Christine does find some closure by traveling to Germany. There, long-lost cousins share documents and photos and help her collate the family history. Lisa, who had reached out to her, is the daughter of Otto’s brother. “We are very excited for you to tell the story,” she tells Christine, marking the end of an intergenerational conspiracy of silence.
The post The Nazis sent them to Hawaii to spy for the Japanese appeared first on The Forward.
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Portuguese artists pull out of Jerry Seinfeld-headlined festival
(JTA) — Several Portuguese artists have dropped out of a comedy festival in Lisbon headlined by Jerry Seinfeld, citing their support for Palestinians and implying opposition to Seinfeld’s support for Israel.
At least six acts over recent days have canceled their appearances at the MEO Commedia a La Carte Fest, a new international comedy festival in the Portuguese capital. The event from Oct. 29 to Nov. 1 has advertised that it will host Seinfeld’s first live appearance in Portugal.
Though none of the artists who withdrew mentioned Seinfeld by name, some hinted at a boycott against his pro-Israel views. The Jewish comedian has become one of Hollywood’s most prominent advocates for Israel since October 2023.
Actress and comedian Inês Aires Pereira announced on Instagram on Saturday that “one of the names” featured at the festival “persistently defends ideas and acts that I consider indefensible,” adding, “We cannot relativize or normalize a genocide.”
The comedy duo Cebola Mol posted a graphic of themselves with a watermelon, widely recognized as a symbol of solidarity with Palestinians. “We will celebrate justice, freedom and joy with you on another occasion,” they said on Instagram.
The festival announced on Friday that performances by the groups Tributo Pop and Conjunto Cuca Monga were also canceled, but did not provide reasons. Two other acts, comedian Pedro Tochas and visual artist Vhils, shared their cancellations on Instagram without further details.
Seinfeld has aligned himself with Israel during its current conflict in Gaza, following decades of largely avoiding commenting on political issues. He visited Israel in December 2023 to meet with the families of hostages seized by Hamas on Oct. 7 of that year. Since then, he has attracted attention for a series of dismissive remarks toward pro-Palestinian advocates.
During an appearance last year at Duke University, Seinfeld compared pro-Palestinian activists with the Ku Klux Klan, saying, “The Klan is actually a little better here because they can come right out and say, ‘We don’t like Blacks, we don’t like Jews.’ OK, that’s honest.”
Representatives of Seinfeld and producers of the MEO Commedia a La Carte Fest did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The post Portuguese artists pull out of Jerry Seinfeld-headlined festival appeared first on The Forward.
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UK, France, Canada to ban goods from Israeli settlements
(JTA) —
The United Kingdom, France and Canada will ban goods produced in the West Bank settlements and Jewish neighborhoods of East Jerusalem, British Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband told Parliament on Tuesday, explaining that all such communities were deemed by his country to be illegal.
The declaration exacerbated the rising tensions riling the traditionally strong Israel-U.K. alliance. Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar warned that these steps stoked antisemitism against British Jews in an on-camera statement to reporters in Jerusalem.
Sa’ar charged that the measures were a politicized hostile action deliberately taken ahead of Friday’s Jewish New Year holiday, with an eye toward influencing the country’s Oct. 27 elections.
Israel, he said, is responding by closing the British Consulate in Jerusalem that services Palestinians. It will also remove British representatives from the International Gaza Support Center in Kiryat Gat and halt the British training of Palestinian Authority security forces. He added that Israel would bar the entry of 12 British politicians and other nationals involved in anti-Israel activity.
France and Canada have also announced a ban on the import of settlement goods, Miliband told parliament. He noted that the Netherlands, Ireland, Belgium, Spain and Norway have either banned goods or in the process of doing so.
In the same address, Miliband affirmed Israel’s right to exist, reflected on his own Jewish roots and rejected the notion that there was a connection between the policy steps against West Bank settlement activity and the safety of British Jews.
What is motivating the U.K., Miliband said, is “a deep sense of shame about what has unfolded in Palestine under the eyes of the international community” as well as Israel’s “clear intent to bury the Palestinian state.”
In response, he said, the U.K. “will introduce an import ban on goods from illegal settlements in the occupied [Palestinian] territory” as part of a “new comprehensive sanctions regime” that will be put in place within nine months.
This will include, he said, “action against specific companies and individuals who provide services, such as construction, infrastructure, financing or real estate for settlement expansion.”
To those who “finance or facilitate illegal settlements, let me say this, you will face the full force of U.K. sanctions,” Miliband warned.
Miliband clarified that the ban would not affect the export of religious items or life-saving Israeli medications. He explained that trade with the settlements was minimal and that the greater impact would be the sanctions on services.
As part of declaring the ban, Miliband said that the British government is also adopting the International Court of Justice’s 2024 advisory opinion that all Israeli settlement activity over the pre-1967 border was illegal.
But others in Parliament pushed back against Miliband’s declaration. MP Richard Tice of Britain’s right-wing Reform party said that the sanctions were a grave mistake that would “embolden the scourge of antisemitism against British Jews on British streets,” endanger ties with the United States and lead to “tit for tat” sanctions from Israel.
Miliband shot back that “no British Jew is responsible for the policies of the Israeli government and it behooves all of us to make sure that there can be no confusion about that,” saying that Tice’s statement “fell foul” of that goal.
The U.K. action is the latest escalation in tensions between Israel and the Labour-led British government headed by Prime Minister Andy Burnham, who took power in July.
The prior government, led by former Labour Premier Keir Starmer, had already angered Israel by recognizing Palestinian statehood in 2025, suspending licenses for the export of arms to Israel and freezing talks toward a free-trade agreement.
France and Canada are also announcing a ban on the import of settlement goods, Miliband told parliament. He explained that the Netherlands, Ireland, Belgium, Spain, and Norway have either banned goods or in the process of doing so.
In concert with Miliband’s appearance at Parliament, Britain and 11 other countries issued a joint statement pledging “their intention to introduce national and/or support European restrictions on trade in goods with settlements which are illegal under international law.”
Those other countries were Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Iceland, Ireland, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain and Sweden.
The 12-country bloc said it was taking this step to maintain the viability of the two-state resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, describing the situation in the West Bank as “rapidly deteriorating.”
In its statement, the bloc stressed that it was taking this step amid an “unprecedented level of settler violence and settlement expansion, including the unacceptable decision to publish tenders for the E1 settlement project.” That project is seen as cutting through land that would render a Palestinian state unviable.
The post UK, France, Canada to ban goods from Israeli settlements appeared first on The Forward.
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California Gov. Newsom, a presidential hopeful, slams Netanyahu and AIPAC in PBS interview
(JTA) — California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a 2028 presidential hopeful, ventured farther than ever in his criticisms of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in a weekend interview that delved into the Democratic Party’s relationship with Israel.
“I think it’s overwhelmingly opposed to the current regime in Israel,” Newsom said of the party, in a PBS News Hour interview with Amna Nawaz.
Pressed by Nawaz on divisions among his colleagues on Israel, Newsom denied that the subject is “even controversial anymore,” stressing that “the condemnation of what Bibi Netnayahu’s doing is almost universal.” The governor slammed the Israeli military’s conduct in Gaza and condemned the settler violence that has expanded in the West Bank.
“We want a democratic and secure Israel, and we want a secure and democratic Palestinian state as well right next door,” Newsom said, adding that Netanyahu has proved counterproductive to achieving a two-state solution.
Though he repeatedly maintained that Democrats are not divided on Israel, the governor acknowledged that “some of the language” by fellow Democrats “has been weaponized.” Certain “aspects of rhetoric” from individual candidates, he added, are on “the spectrum of concern,” Newsom said.
A number of candidates from the party’s far left place most if not all of the blame on Israel for a war in Gaza that has resulted in tens of thousands of Palestinian deaths. and downplay the role of Hamas in launching the war with the Oct. 7, 2023 raid inside Israel in which 1,200 people were killed and more than 250 were abducted. Newsom’s rhetoric is of a piece with party moderates who are critical of the Israeli government but who call for a secure Israel, reject Hamas and who resist pressure from the left to call Israel’s actions “genocide.”
Newsom nonetheless insisted that the party is unified on the issue. “But I think universally, everyone agrees, even if you don’t think it’s genocide, that it’s been a moral catastrophe,” he said of the war in Gaza. “The vast majority of us also agree about the atrocities on Oct. 7th and how horrific and unacceptable it was, and the terrorism that was perpetrated by Hamas.”
Newsom was among the many U.S. politicians to visit Israel in October 2023, meeting with survivors and families impacted by the attacks.
During a March book tour, Newsom sparked a backlash when he said that some people were referring to Israel “appropriately as sort of an apartheid state.” He quickly walked back these remarks, telling Politico that he had used the term “in the context of the direction that Bibi is going.”
“I revere the state of Israel,” he declared at the time.
The governor warned, however, that if Netanyahu proceeds in the direction of West Bank annexation, apartheid could become “a word you may hear others use.”
In addition to amplifying his condemnation of Netanyahu this weekend, Newsom also addressed the fact that fewer Democrats are accepting funds from political action committees affiliated with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the pro-Israel lobbying group.
As for Newsom himself, Track AIPAC, an organization that compiles Federal Election Commission data to flag pro-Israel campaign contributions, did not log any such donations to the likely presidential candidate. But the group did flag him as “pro-Israel.”
“It’s a minority of Democrats that are accepting AIPAC,” the governor said, noting a “dramatic change” over the last couple years.
“The vast majority of Democrats I talk to, even Democrats in the past that have in the past have taken AIPAC money, are pledging not to now,” Newsom added. “That’s more of a mainstream position, interestingly, within the Democratic Party.”
The post California Gov. Newsom, a presidential hopeful, slams Netanyahu and AIPAC in PBS interview appeared first on The Forward.
