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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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Iran Parrots Isolationist Right-Wingers Opposing US-Israel Strikes as Trump Denounces Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly
Megyn Kelly hosts a “prove me wrong” session during AmericaFest, the first Turning Point USA summit since the death of Charlie Kirk, in Phoenix, Arizona, US, Dec. 19, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Caitlin O’Hara
US President Donald Trump’s decision to launch joint military strikes on Iran with Israel has provoked an epic fury of opposition from parts of his so-called “America First” base, whose talking points have now apparently inspired Iranian officials to echo them.
“Mr. Rubio admitted what we all knew: US has entered a war of choice on behalf of Israel. There was never any so-called Iranian ‘threat.’ Shedding of both American and Iranian blood is thus on Israel Firsters,” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi posted Monday on X, referring to US Secretary of State Marco Rubio. “American people deserve better and should take back their country.”
A brief excerpt of statements offered by Rubio explaining the rationale for the war began circulating online suggesting Israel had directed the attacks, eliminating the full context of his remarks which emphasized his view that the Iranian regime posed a threat to the US and the world. “The imminent threat was that we knew that if Iran was attacked, and we believed they would be attacked, that they would immediately come after us,” Rubio said.
“No matter what, ultimately, this operation needed to happen,” he added, arguing that Iran was building up its missile arsenal to such an extent that it could “hold the whole world hostage” while having a degree of “immunity” from outside action due to the damage it could inflict.
Nonetheless, Ali Larijani, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, wrote in all capital letters Monday on X that “TRUMP HAS BETRAYED ‘AMERICA FIRST’ TO ADOPT ‘ISRAEL FIRST.’”
In a Monday appearance on SiriusXM’s “The Megyn Kelly Show,” former US Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Georgia Republican and outspoken opponent of the Jewish state, said, “I was out there on the front lines for ‘Make America Great Again.’ And ‘Make America Great Again’ was supposed to be ‘America first,’ not ‘Israel first,’ not any foreign country first, not any foreign people first, but the American people first in our problems.”
Pointing her finger and raising her voice, Greene told Kelly that “[US Vice President] JD Vance promised it. [US intelligence chief] Tulsi Gabbard promised it. All of them promised it. And we’re a year in, and we’re in another f**king war, and we’ve got American troops being killed. I think it’s time for America to rip the band-aid off, and we need to have a serious conversation about what the f**k is happening to this country, and who in the hell are these decisions being made for and who is making these decisions?”
Greene later added to her comments on X: “And just like that we are no longer a nation divided by left and right, we are now a nation divided be those who want to fight wars for Israel and those who just want peace and to be able to afford their bills and health insurance.”
Kelly praised Greene’s posting on her show, saying that “X is completely saturated in neocons, the pro-Israel crowd, and people who would love to cheerlead us right into another Middle East ground war that’s endless. I was grateful for your contrary perspective, Marjorie.”
Making her position further explicit, Kelly added, “I don’t think those four service members died for the United States. I think they died for Iran or for Israel … this feels very much to me like it is clearly Israel’s war.”
The next day, Trump was asked at the White House if Israel dragged the US into conflict with Iran and rejected the notion.
“I might have forced their [Israel’s] hand,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office as he met with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz. “We were having negotiations with these lunatics, and it was my opinion that they were going to attack first. If we didn’t do it, they were going to attack first. I felt strongly about that.”
Beyond Kelly, far-right podcaster Tucker Carlson promoted a comparable point of view as reports circulated that over the past month, he had met with Trump three times in the Oval Office to make the case against a regime change war in Iran.
On Monday, Carlson released a new installment of his show — a monologue running more than 100 minutes — titled “Israel’s war and what it means.”
Carlson said within the first 60 seconds, :First, why did this happen? Now in this case there’s a really simple answer. This happened because Israel wanted it to happen. This is Israel’s war. This is not the United States’s war. This war is not being waged on behalf of American national security objectives to make the United States safer or richer. This war’s not even about weapons of mass destruction.”
Far-right podcaster Candace Owens said the same thing in an interview with Piers Morgan.
“The reason America wants a regime change in Iran is because Bibi Netanyahu is demanding it,” she said, referring to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “There was no imminent threat to the United States when Trump made this decision to do what Bibi wanted. I want to be clear here. This was not Trump’s decision; it was Bibi Netanyahu’s decision. And that is why he did it. We’re very aware that Israel is dictating our foreign policy and we would now like that to stop.”
Owens wrote in response to a clip of Trump saying that US soldiers could die that “Goyim always must die so the Khazarian mafia can expand their borders,” a promotion of the conspiracy theory claiming that the origins of the Jewish people trace back not to Israel but to a Turkic population in the Middle Ages.
Continuing with her months long-efforts to link Israel to the murder of her friend, Turning Points USA chief Charlie Kirk, Owens wrote on Saturday: “Remember when they tried to gaslight us last June by calling us ‘Panicans,’ claiming we were lying about serial killer Bibi Netanyahu’s aims? The ONLY reason this war didn’t begin last June was because of Charlie Kirk. They eliminated that reason on September 10th.”
White nationalist podcaster Nick Fuentes — who has celebrated Adolf Hitler and encouraged his “Groyper” followers to rape women — also filtered the attack on Iran through an antisemitic conspiracist ideology.
“This war has nothing to do with nuclear weapons, terrorism, or dead protesters,” Fuentes wrote on Saturday, referencing the Iranian regime’s recent massacre of tens of thousands of anti-government demonstrators. “For decades, Israel has openly pursued an agenda to topple Iraq, Syria, and Iran. They orchestrated all of these wars in order to eliminate their rivals and gain total hegemony over the Middle East.”
On Sunday, Fuentes wrote that “this is a war of aggression for Israel. Americans will die in terrorist attacks and in missile strikes so that Israel can expand its borders in every direction. Trump, Vance, and Rubio sold us out.”
Matt Walsh, a populist-nationalist podcast host for Owens’ former employer, The Daily Wire, said in response to Rubio’s comments that “he’s flat out telling us that we’re in a war with Iran because Israel forced our hand. This is basically the worst possible thing he could have said.”
Trump has rejected Carlson and Kelly’s criticism, however.
“I think that MAGA is Trump — MAGA’s not the other two,” he said in an interview with independent DC newsletter The Inner Circle on Monday night. “MAGA wants to see our country thrive and be safe. And MAGA loves what I’m doing — every aspect of it.”
Noting Kelly in particular, Trump stated she “was opposed to me for years when I ran the first time and nothing stopped me.” He said that “some people are against — and they always come back. She came all the way back. But now I guess she maybe doesn’t like the idea of this war, but I do because I have to keep nuclear weapons out of the hands of the Iranians.”
Giving Carlson an apparent green light to continue with his outbursts and conspiratorial provocations, Trump said that the podcaster “can say whatever he wants; it has no impact on me.”
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FBI Investigates Antisemitic Threats at Stanford University
The Hoover Tower rises above Stanford University in this aerial photo in Stanford, California, US. Photo: REUTERS/Noah Berger
A recent antisemitic incident at Stanford University in which someone sent threatening notes to the California campus’s Hillel chapter is being investigated by the FBI and local law enforcement officials.
According to The Stanford Daily, the missives were signed by an entity claiming to represent a faction of Stanford alumni based in Europe which calls itself “exposingstanfordjews.” It vowed to “monitor” campus Jewish life and claimed to have knowledge of “acute credible threats against the personal safety of Jewish Stanford undergraduate and graduate students.” Several campus organizations received the notes, including the Daily, public safety, Stanford’s office for religious and spiritual life, and the Taube Center for Jewish Studies.
The FBI’s involvement in the matter comes amid a spate of attacks on Jewish institutions and individuals across the US.
Last month, for example, two men trespassed the grounds of the Olami Dallas Center in Texas and demanded entry to the home of its rabbi by claiming to be window cleaners. In January, an assailant set the Beth Israel Congregation in Jackson, Mississippi on fire over its “Jewish ties.” Another arsonist struck the San Francisco Hillel building in December.
Stanford University said on Monday that it “strongly condemns the targeting of our Jewish community in this manner,” adding, “The security of and wellbeing of our campus is our top priority, and we are following up with the affected individuals to provide all necessary support.”
In another statement, Stanford Hillel Rabbi Jessica Kirschner said, “The best way I know to combat hate is to be proudly, deeply Jewish, and to keep building community with each other and with caring people across Stanford.”
Antisemitism has previously been an issue on Stanford’s campus. School officials acknowledged the university’s failure to identify and respond to a spate of incidents in a comprehensive 2024 report. Across 148 pages, the document cited the desecration of Jewish religious symbols, swastika graffiti, extreme anti-Zionist activism, and other incidents as causing a hostile environment which deprives Jewish students of a normal college experience.
“Some of this bias is expressed in overt and occasionally shocking ways but often it is wrapped in layers of subtlety and implication, one or two steps away from blatant hate speech,” the report said. “We learned of instances where antisemitism and anti-Israeli bias reached a level of social injury that deeply affected people’s lives: students moving out of their dorms because of antisemitic acts or speech; students being ostracized, canceled, or intimidated for openly identifying as Jewish, or for simply being real, or expressing support for Israel, or even refusing to explicitly condemn Israel; students fearing to display Jewish symbols or reveal that they were Jewish for fear of losing friendships or group acceptance.”
Other elite colleges continue to deal with campus antisemitism nearly three year after it emerged as a major social phenomenon in the aftermath of the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel.
A significant portion of Jewish students at the University of Pennsylvania still find the climate on campus to be hostile and feel the need to hide their identity, according to a 2025 survey of Jewish undergraduates at the school.
The survey, conducted by Penn’s local Hillel International chapter, found that 40 percent of respondents said it is difficult to be Jewish at Penn and 45 percent said they “feel uncomfortable or intimidated because of their Jewish identity or relationship with Israel.” Meanwhile, the results showed a staggering 85 percent of survey participants reported hearing about, witnessing, or experiencing “something antisemitic.”
Another 31 percent of Jewish Penn students said they feel the need to hide their Jewishness to avoid discrimination, which is sometimes present in the classroom, as 26 percent of respondents said they have “experienced antisemitic or anti-Israel comments from professors.” Overall, 80 percent of Jewish students hold that anti-Israel activity is “often” antisemitic and that Israel’s conduct in war is “held to an unfair standard compared to other nations.”
In December, StopAntisemitism, a Jewish civil rights advocacy group, assigned mediocre and failing grades to over a dozen elite American colleges in a new annual report, citing the institutions’ failing to mount a meaningful response to campus antisemitism.
Of all the Ivy League universities assessed by StopAntisemitism, only three — Cornell University (C), Dartmouth College (B), and Princeton University (D) — merited higher than an “F.” StopAntisemitism, which is led by executive director Liora Rez, said other schools in the conference, such as Harvard University and Yale University, continue to offer Jewish students a hostile environment, citing as evidence feedback it has received from Jewish students who attend them.
“At Harvard, Jewish students report high levels of self-censorship and antisemitism, with federal authors finding the university showed ‘deliberate indifference.’ Despite new initiatives, the campus climate remains tense and accountability uncertain,” the report said. “At Yale, Jewish students faced harassment, exclusion, and blocked access, prompting a federal investigation. Despite policy changes, the campus remains hostile and unsafe for Jewish students.”
Other elite schools such as the University of Chicago, Northwestern University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Wesleyan University didn’t perform well either. Ds and Fs were given to the lot. Meanwhile, in the Washington, DC metropolitan region, a destination for students aspiring to future roles in government, American University and Georgetown University earned Ds.
“Even since the recent Gaza ceasefire agreement, antisemitism remains loud, bold, and unchecked, revealing that none of this is about Israel but instead is about Jew-hatred, plain and simple,” the report said. “Coordinated protests, ideological harassment, and institutional apathy continue to endanger Jewish students. Families must confront the facts: Are you prepared to send tuition dollars to a school that allows your children to be threatened, targeted, and blamed simply for being Jewish?”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Hegseth Praises Israel’s ‘Unmatched Skill’ in Battle, Says Allies to Have ‘Complete Control of Iranian Skies’
US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth holds a briefing amid the US-Israeli conflict with Iran, at the Pentagon in Washington, DC, US, March 2, 2026. Photo: REUTERS / Elizabeth Frantz
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Wednesday said that American and Israeli forces will soon achieve “complete control of Iranian skies,” warning that Iran “will be able to do nothing about it” while praising Israel’s military prowess and precision strike capabilities as a defining strategic advantage.
“I stand before you today with a clear message: America is winning unequivocally and without mercy,” Hegseth said during a press conference at the Pentagon alongside Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “We are only four days into the operation; the achievements are amazing and there are more forces on the way.”
The Pentagon chief emphasized that US and Israeli forces are rapidly expanding their operational reach over Iran.
“We’ve taken control of Iran’s airspace and waterways without boots on the ground,” Hegseth continued. “We control their fate.”
He also praised Israeli cooperation and rejected media reports claiming Israel was dragging Washington into war. Those reports followed remarks by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio that were taken out of context and circulated on social media explaining the timing of the strikes, which officials said was a deliberate and coordinated strategic decision.
Hegseth described Israel as a “steadfast partner,” praising its military performance and saying the campaign is being carried out with “unmatched skill and iron determination.”
“Our ally Israel is demonstrating tremendous capabilities. Extraordinary cooperation with such an ally is amazing and necessary. We salute you and appreciate you,” he said.
“The combination of Israel’s defense capabilities and our force is amazing. The Iranian regime knows it is finished,” Hegseth continued.
The defense chief also pledged that Iran will never obtain a nuclear weapon, echoing past remarks by US President Donald Trump that Washington remains committed to the effort and prepared to continue the campaign “for as long as we need to.”
Hegseth warned that continued Iranian aggression would bring “death and destruction from the skies,” stressing that the United States is “playing for keeps.”
Amid conflicting media reports and isolated Iranian drone breakthroughs, he also accused segments of the press of attempting to undermine Trump by framing the campaign in ways that downplay US and Israeli military progress.
Hegseth also assured reporters that the United States has prioritized protecting its troops “ahead of everything else,” noting that before the conflict, roughly 90 percent of American forces in the region were repositioned outside Iranian weapons range.
During the press conference, Caine emphasized that US forces are prepared to maintain operational pressure while prioritizing the safety and protection of American personnel in the region.
“We are attacking and destroying the Iranian missile system to neutralize the threat to the United States and its allies. We are destroying the Iranian navy to prevent them from attacking the US Central Command, and we are making sure that Iran does not rebuild its capability during the war,” he said.
“Iran’s missile capability has decreased by 86 percent since the beginning of the war, 35 percent just since yesterday,” the top uniformed US military official added.