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Renee Ghert-Zand

Renee Ghert-Zand

Renee Ghert-Zand is the health reporter and a feature writer for The Times of Israel.
Author Dara Horn in a promotional video for her Tell Institute. (screenshot)
September 3, 2026, 5:16 am
Dara Horn tackles enduring antisemitic lies head-on with optimistic ‘Final Solution’
Inundated by readers sharing painful personal experiences, author of ‘People Love Dead Jews’ parses the hateful phenomenon and proposes an innovative educational fix
By Renee Ghert-Zand
Michel Cojot as a young man visiting New York. (From 'To Kill A Nazi,' courtesy of the Cojot family)
June 20, 2026, 9:16 am
Entebbe raid’s unsung hero gets limelight in new documentary 50 years later
Filmmaker Boaz Dvir makes case that rescue operation would not have been possible without key role played by French-Jewish hostage — and would-be assassin of a Nazi — Michel Cojot
By Renee Ghert-Zand
Composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim gestures during a gathering at Tufts University in Medford, Mass., Monday, April 12, 2004. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)
May 23, 2026, 11:52 am
New biography hits the high and low notes of Broadway legend Stephen Sondheim’s life
Author Daniel Okrent doesn’t miss a beat analyzing the music, lyrics — and complicated personality — of the extremely secular Jewish maverick who revolutionized American musical theater
By Renee Ghert-Zand
Vladka Meed’s false identification card, issued in the name of Stanisława Wąchalska, 1943. (Courtesy, Benjamin Meed/ United States Holocaust Memorial Museum)
April 14, 2026, 8:48 am
Avenging angel risked her life to try to save Warsaw’s Jews — and lived to write about it
Updated English translation of Vladka Meed’s 1948 Yiddish memoir, ‘On Both Sides of the Wall,’ breathes new life into her experiences with the Jewish resistance against the Nazis
By Renee Ghert-Zand
Guests at Art and Fashion Café, Warsaw, 1930s. (Public domain via Polish National Digital Archives)
April 7, 2026, 7:48 pm
In glitzy interwar Warsaw, truth meets fiction as 2 young women hunt for missing mentor
In ‘The Last Woman of Warsaw,’ out April 7, author Judy Batalion shows the Jewish diversity of the cosmopolitan city as an odd couple sets out to solve a mystery
By Renee Ghert-Zand
Hannah Senesh with her older brother Gyuri in Tel Aviv. After being stranded in France during the war, Gyuri finally made it to Palestine the day his sister was shipping out to Egypt for training for her mission. This photo documents this meeting. (Public domain via Wikimedia Commons)
March 24, 2026, 4:56 pm
Certain death, small chance of success: The pre-state parachuters who jumped into Nazi Europe
Matti Friedman’s new book, ‘Out of the Sky,’ breathes life into British intelligence operatives who became Zionist heroes despite — or because of — failing at their real mission
By Renee Ghert-Zand
Author Judy Blume at BookCon in New York, May 31, 2015. (AP Photo/Kathy Willens)
March 21, 2026, 5:09 pm
For generations of Judy Blume fans, long-awaited biography does not disappoint
Realistic kids’ and teen fiction pioneer introduced readers to relatable characters and plots, not to mention unforgettable lines like, ‘We must, we must, we must increase our bust!’
By Renee Ghert-Zand
Illustrative: A group of Soviet partisans singing during a lull in the fighting. (Photographed by Yakov Davidson. Ghetto Fighters’ House Museum, Israel/Photo Archive)
January 28, 2026, 8:03 am
In WWII, legendary Jewish partisan ‘Uncle Misha’ took out Nazis while carrying a tune
New book ‘Partisan Song’ packs an action-filled punch as it tells the story of Moshe Gildenman, a nearly-forgotten Jewish guerrilla warfare leader against the Nazis in Ukraine
By Renee Ghert-Zand
Illustrative: Issa Kassissieh, 47, who has dressed up as Santa Claus for 18 years, waves to the people during his annual tour of the Old City of Jerusalem, December 18, 2025. (AP/Leo Correa)
December 23, 2025, 8:30 pm
How the Yiddish-speaking Jews of Europe had themselves a merry little Nittel Nacht
A new book explores how, contrary to popular belief, Christmas was a festive time for Jewish men, who took time off from Torah study to play cards and games
By Renee Ghert-Zand
Eunice and Mickey Heller, author Aron Heller's grandparents, when Mickey served in the Royal Canadian Air Force in WWII. (Courtesy of the Heller family)
November 24, 2025, 3:44 pm
1.5 million Jews took up arms against the Nazis. One was this author’s grandfather
Journalist Aron Heller’s quest to learn about his grandfather’s military service leads him to a wider view of Jews’ contributions in World War II and the establishment of Israel
By Renee Ghert-Zand
Director Marisa Fox holding a photo of her mother, Tamar Fromer-Fox (aka Hela Hocherman) in a scene from 'My Underground Mother.' (c) Marisa Fox, 2025. (Andrew Abrahams)
August 2, 2025, 1:45 pm
Journalist thought her Israeli freedom-fighter mother hid something big. She was right
In ‘My Underground Mother,’ premiering at the SF Jewish Film Festival, Marisa Fox grapples with her Polish-born mother’s motives for keeping secrets and hiding her true identity
By Renee Ghert-Zand
Karl Yoneda and Elaine Buchman, March 1933. (Courtesy of Karl G. Yoneda Papers, UCLA Library Special Collections)
July 28, 2025, 1:10 am
The sole Jewish-Japanese family in American WWII internment camps faced antisemitism
New book delves into how, fearing a fifth column following Pearl Harbor, the Roosevelt government incarcerated 120,000 on the West Coast, two-thirds of them US citizens, up to four years
By Renee Ghert-Zand
The seven Weber siblings upon their arrival at New York Harbor in May 1946. Bottom row from left: Renee, Judith, and Bela. Top row from left: Gertrude, Alfons, Senta, and Ruth. (Courtesy of United States Holocaust Memorial Museum)
April 24, 2025, 2:22 am
Netflix tells tale of 7 siblings who miraculously survived the Holocaust to restart life in US
Now streaming, ‘UnBroken’ illuminates story of the Webers, who lived in hiding on a German farm for two years — only to be cruelly separated upon arrival in America
By Renee Ghert-Zand
Sweater that Chana Zumerkorn from Lodz gave to her brother Joseph when they parted during the Holocaust (Yad Vashem Artifacts Collection, Gift of Joseph Zumerkorn, 11735)
April 23, 2025, 7:59 am
Clothing historian stitches together Holocaust history by focusing on ‘women’s work’
Nonfiction ‘Four Red Sweaters’ tells wartime stories of four young Jewish women while examining larger questions such as Nazis’ circular economy and perpetrator psychology
By Renee Ghert-Zand
Left to right: Huguette Müller, and Marion Müller at the French resort village of Théoule-sur-Mer in 1943. (Courtesy of Tim Judah)
March 25, 2025, 5:44 am
In Nazi-occupied French Alps, a doctor risked death to save a Jewish girl. Why didn’t others?
Newly published ‘Two Sisters’ is a family memoir that goes back and forth in time to examine motivations for resistance and questions of morality in Vichy France
By Renee Ghert-Zand
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