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This 16-year-old turned her grandmother’s Holocaust survival story into a novel
(New York Jewish Week) — In May of 1937, 7-year-old Inge Eisinger lived in a luxurious Vienna apartment with a pantry stocked with favorite foods and a staff to keep her company. Though she had a strained relationship with her mother and an absent father, Inge, who was mostly raised by her maternal grandmother Anna, was living a charmed life.
This is the scene that opens “Running for Shelter,” a young adult novel about the Holocaust written by a young adult herself: 16-year-old Suzette Sheft, who is a junior at the Horace Mann School in the Bronx. In the novel, Sheft retells her grandmother’s story of surviving the Holocaust.
Published by Amsterdam Publishers, which specializes in Holocaust memoirs, the book is a delicate and powerful reminder of the importance of recording one’s family history. It’s a lesson Sheft learned too early in life: Her father died of pancreatic cancer when Sheft was just 13 and she soon realized she was forgetting all the stories he told her about his childhood.
“I fantasized about rewinding time, so I could go back and record my favorite stories about his childhood,” Sheft writes in an author’s note. “I wished I had taken the time to write these stories down when I had the chance, because his death allowed me to understand the vitality of preserving the stories of our loved ones before it is too late.”
In memory of her father, Sheft recorded the story of his mother, her grandmother Monique Sheft, who was once the Viennese school girl Inge Eisinger.
In pre-war Austria, Eisinger had been living a completely assimilated life — so much so that her parents never even told her that she was Jewish. Following the Nazi takeover of Austria, her mother managed to whisk the two of them away to Switzerland, then Paris, but soon abandoned her. After a twisting and tragic story, Eisinger eventually reunited with her grandmother and moved to a village in Central France to wait out the war, changing her name to the more French “Monique.”
Sheft’s novel ends in 1946, when the two are on the boat to New York after the war and Eisinger’s grandmother reveals to her that she and her family are actually Jewish.
In spite of this — or perhaps because of it — Sheft, who lives in Manhattan with her mom, her twin brother and two dogs, is very committed to her Jewish identity. “Although my grandmother never really practiced Judaism, my dad was very involved in the Jewish world,” she said. “He was very passionate about Jewish causes and just Judaism, in general. So I felt very connected to the Jewish world because of him.”
The New York Jewish Week talked with Sheft about what the book means to her, why its subject matter is important and what she learned in the process of putting it together.
This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
New York Jewish Week: What was the process of writing the book; how did the idea begin and how did you collect your grandmother’s story?
Suzette Sheft: I had heard a lot of my grandmother’s stories from my dad. I always had an interest in the Holocaust — I would go to Holocaust museums in every city I visited, and I almost exclusively read books about World War II and the Holocaust growing up. So I kind of knew in the back of my head that I wanted to do something like this, but [my father’s death] sparked and ignited the necessity of doing it as soon as possible.
As for the process, a few summers ago I spent a week with my grandmother, interviewing her every day about her escape from Austria to France. At first she shared physical elements of her life, like her apartment and her family dynamics and her school life, but then she began to talk to me about the time leading up to the war — the years before the Germans invaded Austria. As she spoke, I recorded everything she said in bullet point form and I would periodically stop and ask for more detail. The next day, at the beginning of the conversation, I would recap what we had talked about, and then allow her to elaborate or clarify the story.
Later, I wanted to widen my perspective and uncover other stories and details that she may have forgotten, so I watched an interview she did with the USC Shoah Foundation. This was really helpful because there were some details that she had forgotten or that she had left out.
Even though the book is about your grandmother’s life, you wrote it as fiction. How much of the story came from your grandmother’s details, and how much did you have to research or create on your own?
Every event that happens is true, and everything actually happened to her, but there are some small details that I embellished. For me, it was really helpful because, while I love creativity and writing, I sometimes struggle to pick an idea. So the fact that she had all these little stories, and I could expand from those, was something I loved while writing this. I had to use fiction when describing the atmosphere of certain places and also to write the dialogue because I can’t know exactly what they said or how they said it.
Do you have a favorite story your grandma told you that you made sure to get in the book?
Inge goes to a boarding school [in France] with her host family and there the children play a game where they pick someone to be the “torturer,” who is usually whoever they think the ugliest person is. My grandma had red hair and green eyes, and I guess she wasn’t the traditional standard of beauty. They picked her to be the torturer and she would have to pull people’s hair and scratch them. There would also be a queen, who was usually the prettiest girl with blond hair and blue eyes, and she would be protected. I thought it was interesting because to me it was the children’s way of understanding what was going on in the world around them. It’s a bit complicated, but when she told me this story I was completely shocked. It was really fascinating.
For people your age, why do you think Holocaust education is still relevant and important?
Some people my age don’t know anything about the Holocaust. I recently came across a statistic that talked about how little Gen Z knew about the Holocaust. There’s also been a spike in antisemitism and a decrease in awareness of history. For example, with Kanye West, who has a lot of followers, saying antisemitic remarks, a lot of people are going to just go along with what he says. There’s also just been a lot of hate crimes towards Jewish people, especially during COVID.
Lastly, the number of living Holocaust survivors is diminishing by the day. Gen Z is the last generation probably that is ever going to have the ability and the opportunity to speak with Holocaust survivors before they’re all gone. It’s important that we share this book now and then we educate people now before it’s too late.
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The post This 16-year-old turned her grandmother’s Holocaust survival story into a novel appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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FIFA COO Says World Cup ‘Too Big’ to Be Postponed by Israel-Iran War
Soccer Football – FIFA Club World Cup – Group D – Esperance de Tunis v Chelsea – Lincoln Financial Field, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, US – June 24, 2025, General view of the FIFA logo before the match. Photo: REUTERS/Lee Smith
FIFA Chief Operating Officer Heimo Schirgi said the 2026 World Cup is “too big” to postpone and will proceed as planned despite the ongoing conflict in the Middle East.
Schirgi made the comments while speaking on Monday outside construction of the International Broadcast Center, which is located inside the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center and will serve as a hub for international coverage of the World Cup. Schirgi was asked about Iran as it remains unclear if the country will participate in World Cup, after the US and Israel launched joint airstrikes against the Islamic Republic that led to the killing of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and several other high-ranking Iranian officials. Iran has retaliated with strikes against Israel and civilian areas across the Middle East.
“At some stage, we will have a resolution, and the World Cup will go on, obviously,” Schirgi replied, according to NBC 5 in Dallas. “The World Cup is too big, and we hope that everyone can participate that has qualified.”
FIFA Secretary General Mattias Grafstrom previously said the organization is closely monitoring the situation in the Middle East ahead of the World Cup in June. Schirgi added that FIFA has been in contact with Iran’s soccer federation, but did not provide details about what was discussed, according to Reuters.
The FIFA World Cup will take place across cities in the US, Mexico, and Canada from June 11 to July 19. Iran qualified for the tournament through its participation in the Asian Football Conference. It is set to compete in Group G at the World Cup and is scheduled to face New Zealand on June 15 and Belgium on June 21, both in Los Angeles, before going head-to-head against Egypt on June 26 in Seattle. Soccer fans from Iran are already barred from entering the United States for the World Cup as part of a travel ban that the Trump administration announced in June.
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Heaviest Day of Strikes Yet on Iran Despite Market Bets That War Will End Soon
Smoke rises following an explosion, amid the US-Israeli conflict with Iran, in Tehran, Iran, March 7, 2026. Picture taken with a mobile phone. Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
The United States and Israel pounded Iran on Tuesday with what the Pentagon and Iranians on the ground said were the most intense airstrikes of the war, despite global markets betting that President Donald Trump will seek to end the conflict soon.
Raising the stakes for the global economy, Iran‘s Revolutionary Guards said they would block oil shipments from the Gulf unless US and Israeli attacks cease.
“Today will be yet again, our most intense day of strikes inside Iran: the most fighters, the most bombers, the most strikes, intelligence more refined and better than ever,” US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told a Pentagon briefing.
Yet with Trump having described the war on Monday as “very complete, pretty much,” investors appeared convinced he would end it soon – before the disruption to global energy supplies worsened the global economy.
An historic surge in crude oil prices on Monday was mostly reversed within a day. Asian and European share prices staged a partial recovery from earlier precipitous falls, and Wall Street bounced to around its levels of late February, before the war.
A source familiar with Israel’s war plans told Reuters the Israeli military wanted to inflict as much damage as possible before the window for further strikes closes, under the assumption Trump could end the war at any time.
Israel’s foreign minister, Gideon Saar, said his country was not planning for an endless war and was consulting with Washington about when to stop it.
Iran has refused to bow to Trump’s demand that it let the United States choose its new leadership, naming hardliner Mojtaba Khamenei as supreme leader to replace his father, who was killed on the war‘s first day.
But occasionally contradictory remarks from Trump at a Monday press conference appeared to reassure markets he would stop his war before provoking an economic crisis like those that followed the Middle East oil shocks of the 1970s. He said the US had already inflicted serious damage and predicted the conflict would end before the four weeks he initially set out.
Trump has not defined what victory would look like, but on Monday did not repeat declarations that Iran must let him choose its leader.
Several congressional aides have said they expect the White House to soon request as much as $50 billion in additional funding for the war.
The US used $5.6 billion in munitions in the first two days of strikes against Iran, a source familiar with the information said on Tuesday.
“There is a big question mark over how long people can put up with the costs of this conflict,” said Clionadh Raleigh, CEO of US crisis-monitoring group Armed Conflict Location & Event Data, or ACLED.
Several senior Iranian officials voiced defiance on Tuesday.
“Certainly, we are not seeking a ceasefire; we believe the aggressor must be struck in the mouth so that they learn a lesson and never again think of attacking dear Iran,” Iran‘s parliament speaker, Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, posted on X.
Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi told PBS that Tehran was unlikely to resume negotiations with the US.
The war has effectively halted shipments through the Strait of Hormuz, where a fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas normally passes along Iran‘s coast. Some of the world’s biggest producers have run out of storage and cut back output.
After Iran chose its hardline new leader, oil prices briefly surged to nearly $120 a barrel on Monday. But by 1500 GMT on Tuesday, Brent crude had settled back down below $90.
Trump said on Monday that if Iran blocks oil through the strait, “we will hit them so hard that it will not be possible for them or anybody else helping them to ever recover that section of the world,” he said.
But a spokesperson for the Revolutionary Guards said Tehran would not allow “one liter” of Middle Eastern oil to reach the US or its allies while US and Israeli attacks continue.
“We are the ones who will determine the end of the war,” the spokesperson said.
Iran is fighting back but is not tougher than the US military expected before the war, the top US general told reporters on Tuesday, at the same briefing where Hegseth promised the Pentagon’s most intense day of strikes in the 10-day-old conflict.
Asked if Iran was a stronger adversary than he expected when the US military drew up its war plans, General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters the fight was not harder than expected.
“I think they’re fighting, and I respect that, but I don’t think they are more formidable than what we thought,” Caine told the Pentagon briefing.
Ending the war quickly would appear to preclude toppling Iran‘s leadership, which held large-scale rallies on Monday in support of the new supreme leader.
Many Iranians want change and some openly celebrated the death of the elder Khamenei, weeks after his security forces killed thousands of people to put down anti-government protests. But there has been little sign of protest during the war.
At least 1,270 people have been killed since the US and Israeli airstrikes began on Feb. 28, according to Iranian state media reports.
Scores have also been killed in Israeli attacks on Lebanon to root out the Iran-backed terrorist group Hezbollah, which has fired into Israel in solidarity with Iran. Iran said four of its diplomats were killed in a strike on a hotel in Lebanon on Sunday.
Iranian strikes on Israel have killed 12 people. Iran has struck US military bases and diplomatic missions in Arab Gulf states but also hit hotels, closed airports and damaged oil infrastructure.
Australia will deploy a military surveillance aircraft to the Middle East and send missiles to the United Arab Emirates but will not put troops on the ground in Iran, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Tuesday.
Australia‘s military support would help the Gulf countries defend themselves against unprovoked attacks from Iran, Albanese said, stressing Australia was “not a protagonist.”
“Our involvement is purely defensive,” Albanese told reporters. “And it’s in defense of Australians who are in the region as well as in defense of our friends in the United Arab Emirates.”
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New Poll Shows Complex, Nuanced Views Among Democratic Voters on Israel
Pro-Israel rally in Times Square, New York City, US, Oct. 8, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Jeenah Moon
A new survey analysis of Democratic voters suggests that despite increasingly vocal criticism of Israel in some activist circles, especially among the party’s youth, the broader Democratic electorate remains largely supportive of the US–Israel relationship.
The data, released by the Manhattan Institute, examines the ideological positioning of the Democratic Party and its views on a range of cultural and political issues, including attitudes toward Israel. Its findings suggest that while the party is experiencing a generational shift in how voters discuss the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the center of the Democratic electorate continues to support Israel’s security and the longstanding alliance between Washington and Jerusalem.
According to the findings, relatively small shares of Democratic voters occupy the most firmly pro-Israel or anti-Israel positions. Only 13 percent of respondents say Israel is fundamentally a “colonial apartheid state” that should be dismantled and bears responsibility for violence tied to the conflict since its founding. At the other end of the spectrum, just 16 percent describe Israel as a legitimate nation confronting serious security threats and view its actions as largely defensive, even if imperfect.
One of the report’s central conclusions is that the largest bloc of Democratic voters identifies as politically moderate. According to the analysis, moderates outnumber both progressive liberals and a smaller activist faction often associated with the party’s most ideological rhetoric. When asked about the direction of the Democratic Party, 38 percent of respondents said the party should move toward the political center, compared with 22 percent who said it should move further left and 26 percent who said it is already in the right place.
The results suggest that the median Democratic voter holds a more pragmatic political outlook than the tone of many internal party debates might indicate. The largest portion of Democratic voters falls somewhere between those two poles. Nearly half of respondents, 49 percent, say Israel has a right to exist but believe the Israeli government’s treatment of Palestinians, both historically and during the current war, deserves strong criticism. Another 23 percent say they are uncertain about how to characterize the conflict.
The analysis also highlights a sharp generational divide. Younger Democrats are substantially more likely than older voters to adopt strongly critical views of Israel. Among Democrats between the ages of 18 and 29, 26 percent say that Israel should be dismantled as a colonial apartheid state and that it “bears responsibility for any and all violence since its founding.” That is four times more than Democrats over the age of 65 and three times more than those between the ages of 50 and 64.
Meanwhile, only 9 percent of Democrats in the youngest cohort say Israel is a legitimate country confronting serious security threats and acting largely in self-defense.
These new findings carry implications for the party’s debate over Israel. The survey analysis suggests that most Democratic voters still view Israel as an important US ally and support its right to defend itself, even as many also express concerns about the humanitarian consequences of conflict in Gaza and the broader Israeli-Palestinian dispute. In other words, the report suggests that the typical Democratic voter has a position that combines support for Israel’s security with calls for diplomacy and humanitarian restraint.
Despite those internal disagreements, the analysis concludes that the most strident anti-Israel rhetoric in American political discourse originates from a relatively small but highly visible activist faction within the Democratic coalition. This group, which often plays a prominent role in campus activism and social media campaigns, is more likely to support measures such as boycotts or sanctions targeting Israel and to frame the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in stark ideological terms. According to the report, however, this faction represents a minority of Democratic voters and does not reflect the views of the party’s broader electorate.
Taken together, the findings point to a Democratic electorate that is more supportive of Israel than some political narratives suggest. While younger activists and progressive voices have become increasingly prominent in shaping the party’s internal debate, the survey analysis indicates that moderates, many of whom maintain traditional views of the US–Israel relationship, still make up the largest segment of Democratic voters.