For Holocaust Remembrance Day, a story of a daring rescue and a concert at Carnegie Hall

OUR LEAD STORY

A Carnegie Hall tribute to the Japanese diplomat who saved thousands from the Shoah: Kristina Reiko Cooper is a virtuoso cellist whose father-in-law was rescued from the Nazis thanks to Chiune Sugihara. A Japanese diplomat posted in Lithuania, Sugihara wrote transit visas for between 2,000 and 6,000 Jews whose descendants are estimated at 100,000 today. “It always astounds me, the reverberations,” Cooper, a convert to Judaism, told our intern Tani Levitt ahead of a tribute concert this week. “In the world today, there are thousands upon thousands of people who would not exist if it weren’t for Sugihara.” Read the story ➤

Related: Sugihara was told to only issue visas to those who had gone through proper immigration procedures. But he defied that directive. “I may have to disobey my government,” he reportedly explained, “but if I don’t, I would be disobeying God.”

(Courtesy)

Newly discovered images of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising: For the past 80 years, the only known pictures of the seminal event of Jewish resistance were taken by the Nazis. Then, a few months ago, the son of a Warsaw firefighter found an undeveloped roll of film. Now on display in Poland’s Jewish history museum, the photos offer a new perspective on the month-long uprising in which 13,000 Jews died. Read the story ➤

If you’re visiting Times Square on Tuesday, you can see a replica of a cattle car used to transport Jews to Nazi death camps as part of the Orthodox Union’s Hate Ends Now tour.

And on Wednesday in Riverside Park, children of ghetto fighters and Holocaust survivors will gather at a memorial to the uprising. The program is at 3 p.m. ET and will be available on YouTube afterward.

From our partners at Haaretz: A new installation at Yad Vashem records the names of 4.8 million Holocaust victims on large pages that let visitors search for lost family members. The names of 1 million others remain unknown. Read the story ➤

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ALSO FROM THE FORWARD

Fans of the show came dressed in ‘Maisel’-inspired vintage fashion. (Rebecca Salzhauer)

Amazon and Manischewitz transformed 10 blocks of NYC to celebrate The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel: Fans enjoyed a jaunt through a recreated version of the show’s technicolor New York, complete with sets representing each season of the series, dancers who shimmied and mash-potatoed down the sidewalk and kiosks that distributed pink-and-white cookies. Our intern Rebecca Salzhauer visited the mid-century wonderland. See the photos and read the story ➤

Antisemitic incidents jumped in the U.S. last year, but decreased in other countries: Still, a new report out this morning from the Anti-Defamation League paints an overall dismal picture, pointing to ”thousands” of incidents worldwide, “including hundreds of physical assaults.” In the United States, the audit showed 3,697 antisemitic incidents, the most since the group began keeping track in 1979 — and a 36% increase from 2021. Read the story ➤ 

Plus…

• The parents of journalist Evan Gershkovitch spoke publicly for the first time since their son’s arrest, saying his imprisonment in Russia brings back painful memories of hiding their Jewishness in the Soviet Union.
• Our editor-in-chief’s New Jersey synagogue hosted an end-of-Passover dinner that doubled as a Ramadan break-fast for local Muslims. Which turned out to be an unusual setting in which to say kaddish.
• HBO announced a new seven-season TV series based on the Harry Potter books. Our PJ Grisar offered up some Jewish storylines.
• Polish Nazi sympathizers, a popular Christian TV series, and antisemitic posts from the leaker of classified documents. Test your IQ with our weekly news quiz.

Jewish leaders need tools and training to respond to the troubling rise in antisemitism. A new Spertus Institute program fills this critical need. 

This program gives front-line leaders the opportunity to work with a team of experts to equip them to respond to antisemitic incidents with knowledge, strength, and skill. 

Preferred admission deadline is June 1 for Fall Cohort.  

WHAT ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY

Rep. George Santos plans to announce his reelection bid as soon as today. (Getty)

🤦  Rep. George Santos, the New York Republican who is under investigation for fabricating facts about his past, is expected to announce his reelection campaign today. Meanwhile, new disclosure forms from Santos show that he gave more refunds to contributors than he took in during the first quarter of this year. (NY Post, Axios)

💸  A 36-year-old Florida woman met a Holocaust survivor on a dating site and spent four years scamming him out of his life savings: $2.8 million. She lived extravagantly while the victim lost his apartment. She pleaded guilty to the fraud on Friday and agreed to pay restitution. She will be sentenced in July. (Times of Israel, Dept. of Justice)  

☪️  The White House appointed a new Muslim community liaison, Mazen Basrawi, a blind civil rights attorney. The role had been eliminated during the Trump administration. (Religion News Service)

🎶  PBS will air a Holocaust documentary produced by Hilary and Chelsea Clinton on Tuesday. The film, titled How Saba Kept Singing, tells the story of a cantor whose voice entertained the Nazis in Auschwitz. (JTA)

🏀  Domantas Sabonis, the 26-year-old Lithuanian-American NBA all-star, is converting to Judaism. “He’s always asking questions,” said Rabbi Erez Sherman of Sinai Temple in Los Angeles, who studies with Sabonis via Zoom. When Sabonis is in Vilna, Sherman said, he goes to the kosher butcher for chicken. (JTA)

🥯  A new day has dawned in the Jewish culinary world: the cream-cheese-stuffed bagel is here, thanks to a collaboration between H&H Bagels and Philadelphia Cream Cheese. The cheese is piped throughout the core of the bagel, which makes it a baked good, which is tax-exempt in New York City, and not a sandwich, which carries an 8.875% tariff. The special bagel is available at H&H locations through Tuesday, Tax Day. (CNN)

Shiva calls ➤  Hedda Kleinfeld Schachter, a Holocaust survivor who revolutionized the bridal industry and was featured on the reality show Say Yes to the Dress, died at 99 … Edward Koren, a veteran cartoonist for The New Yorker, died at 87 … Michoel Schnitzler, a popular Hasidic singer known for his Yiddish melodies, died at 62.

What else we’re reading ➤  Death penalty looms over trial for Tree of Life massacre … Indie pop singer turns Yiddish poetry into music … A high school cross country star chose Shabbat over the state championship – and he still won.

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ON THE CALENDAR

(Getty)

On this day in history (1907): Ellis Island, the former immigrant inspection station in New York Harbor, processed a record 11,747 people — more than any other single day in its history. A quarter of the 12 million immigrants processed there between 1892 and 1954 were Jews.

Today is the 11th day of the Omer, the 49 days Jews count between Passover and Shavuot. A new counter helps you keep track of each day in a variety of languages, including Ladino and Yiddish.

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