The Moss Maidens, a play about teen girls seducing and killing Nazis, is making history

By Gila Axelrod August 4, 2023

“There’s this catharsis in getting to kill Nazis on stage, knowing they would have wanted to kill you.”

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A Day in the Life of Gedenkdiener

By Raquel G. Frohlich July 3, 2023

“My grandpa was in the Hitler Youth—now I’m doing a very different thing.”

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Is Ye the New Wagner?

By Miri Verona June 14, 2023

“He just has so many bangers!” said another Jewish friend begrudgingly the same week, dismayed that we weren’t putting Ye West on the playlist for the rager that night.

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“This book will make people check themselves:” Jonathan Freedland on Escaping Auschwitz

By Raquel G. Frohlich November 21, 2022

The author of “The Escape Artist: The Man Who Broke Out of Auschwitz to Warn the World,” on Rudolph Vrba’s story, modern genocide, and the unfair expectations placed on survivors of great trauma.

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Everything Is The Holocaust

By Drew Perkoski January 6, 2022

In a world ruled by Godwin’s Law, how can we reclaim the memory of the Holocaust to fight against today’s real atrocities?

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Has the Jewish Community Failed “Never Again” for the Uyghurs?

By Leo Brown May 12, 2021

Despite Jewish organizations rallying together against the genocide, the movement has not gained the same traction within the broader American Jewish community.

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Second Generation Survivors

By Tara Silberg March 10, 2021

Are the kids alright? How the parenting styles of Holocaust survivors transmitted trauma to the next generation and beyond.

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A New Era in Holocaust Education: Commemorating Without Survivors

By Jordan Pike May 6, 2020

Survivors are dwindling at a rapid rate. As of 2018, there were an estimated 416,375 living Holocaust survivors in the world, according to a report published by Claims Conference.

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We Are Someone’s Ancestors

By Avigayil Halpern August 1, 2019

Protest does not remove us from our Jewish people. Machlah, Noah, Choglah, Milcah, and Tirzah are our ancestors, too. Standing for what is right can create new Torah, can change the fabric of the world entirely, and in the process make us integral to that new world.

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The #1 Failure of Holocaust Education Isn’t Discussed

By Max Buchdahl May 1, 2018

According to a survey recently reported in the New York Times, 41 percent of millennials wrongly believe two million or fewer Jews died in the Holocaust and that 66 percent of millennials could not say what Auschwitz was. American Jews understandably reacted with extreme concern, shocked that so many of their fellow Americans – particularly…

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Poland Holocaust Law Prompts European Jewish Student Reactions

By Lev Gringauz February 21, 2018

A new piece of right-wing Polish legislation, which criminalizes accusing Poland of complicity in the Holocaust, sparked international condemnation, hitting a particularly raw nerve with Jews in America and Israel. But for European Jewry – and Jewish students – this nerve has been exposed for years. The amendment to the Act on the Institute of…

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Cobbling Together a Jewish Life in China, Just Like My Grandparents

By Izzy Ullmann August 21, 2017

Originally published in J. Weekly. Being isolated from community tests one’s commitment to the values and practices that normally bring that community together. This is what the experience of being a Jew in China has taught me. I grew up in the warm embraces of Judaism, spending many hours at Yavneh, a Jewish day school in…

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Your Favorite Childhood Reads and Their Surprising Holocaust Histories

By Jackson Richman July 10, 2017

My favorite childhood books, “Curious George” and “Where the Wild Things Are,” always gave me a smile. They’re both fun light reads with lovable, mischievous main characters. Their creators, however, share a dark, trying past. The authors and their ancestors, H.A. and Margaret Rey and Maurice Sendak, respectively, survived the Shoah before creating some of…

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Don’t Praise Trump for One Decent Holocaust Speech

By Mari Cohen May 9, 2017

The bar for President Trump is now set so low that he can clear it just by admitting that the Holocaust and anti-Semitism are bad. Praising Trump’s April 25 keynote speech at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum’s annual Day of Remembrance, Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said, “It deeply matters that President Trump used the power…

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An Open Letter to Press Secretary Sean Spicer

By Sarah Asch April 19, 2017

Dear Sean Spicer, You had to do it, didn’t you? You had to play the Holocaust card. With Steve Bannon watching smugly from his perch on the president’s shoulder, you held Hitler up as a model fascist, because at least he didn’t use chemical weapons. You said this on the first day of Passover. And…

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