arts & culture
Play Inspired by
Concentration Camp Story Debuts
S JARRAD SAFFREN | JE Staff
teven Fisher is not
Jewish. He actually
grew up in a Catholic
family in Delaware County.

But he was inspired to write
“The Last Boy,” a play about
the Holocaust, anyway.

The playwright described
the story of “The Last Boy,”
which opened a two-week off-
Broadway run at the Theatre
at St. Clement’s in New York
City on July 10, as “Dead Poets
Society Meets Anne Frank.” It’s
a historical fiction inspired by
Terezin, a Nazi concentration
camp where a group of young
boys created a secret literary
society and hand-produced a
weekly magazine, Vedem, with
poems and prose. Toward the
end of World War II, as the
Allies advanced and the Nazis
started burning their records,
the only remaining member of
the society left in the camp,
Sidney Taussig, buried the
Vedem archives.

Upon liberation, Taussig dug
22 up the archives and brought
them with him to Prague,
ensuring their survival. Most
of his friends in the society,
though, about 85 out of the
100, according to Fisher, died
in the Holocaust.

Fisher discovered the story in
his former life as a youth choir
director in the Philadelphia
area. Every year he would take
his Keystone State Boychoir on
performance tours/educational
trips. Several years ago, he
decided to take the choir to the
Terezin site in the Czech Republic
because he was worried that
the historical memory of the
Holocaust was fading, he said.

During a pretrip to the site,
now a museum, to scout the
location, Fisher bought a book
with the highlights from those
old Vedem archives. He took it
back to his hotel room, started
reading and didn’t sleep that
night. Fisher was hooked on the
boys’ stories about missing food
and about being excited to be
away from their parents, and to
AUGUST 26, 2021 | JEWISHEXPONENT.COM
COURTESY OF STEVEN FISHER
The title card for “The Last Boy,” a play about Jewish boys who created a literary magazine while
living in a concentration camp.

be living with other boys their
own age. He was also amused
by their bawdiness and their
evisceration of their “dorm dad.”
“These were teenage boys,”
Fisher said.

After the choir trip to
Terezin, Fisher learned that
Taussig was still alive, and
living in Florida. He visited the
survivor and got a firsthand
account of life in the camp.

Taussig told his guest stories
about hearing other boys
crying themselves to sleep
over hunger, and about seeing
the Nazis post regular lists
of about 1,000 people who
would be “transported east.”
“They didn’t know what was
east,” Fisher said. “But they
knew it wasn’t good.”
Taussig also explained
Vedem’s editorial process: The
100 or so boys would submit
entries to the editor each
week, and three or four would
be selected. Then, the boys
would gather every Friday at
sundown — in the attic during
winter, outside during summer
— to read their poems and
stories aloud.

After that visit, Fisher
brought Taussig to Philadelphia
for the choir to honor him
at the National Museum of
American Jewish History. For
that June 2019 event, Fisher
wrote a musical performance
about the Vedem story. But
when the performance ended,
he asked Taussig if he could
take it a step further: Fisher
wrote plays in his spare time,
and he was still holding onto a
childhood dream of getting one
to Broadway. Now he wanted
to write a play inspired by the
story of Taussig and Vedem.

Taussig gave his blessing, on
one condition.

“I just want to see it on
Broadway before time does to
me what Hitler failed to do,”
Taussig said to Fisher.

The choir director wrote the
play and in October 2020, after
30 years of running youth choir
programs, he retired. Then, he
decided to raise money and turn
the play into an off-Broadway
production, hoping it would be
ready to debut just as the world
was ready to reopen after the
pandemic faded.

“The Last Boy” was the first
NYC premiere since the theater
industry closed in March 2020.

Taussig can’t attend this run
because he’s recovering from a
broken femur, but the plan was
never for him to be there: It was
for him to be in the audience
for the Broadway opening.

“We do have hopes of
moving it to Broadway, and
we’ll bring him up from Florida
as the inspiration for the story,”
Fisher said.

Tickets to the remaining
shows are available via the
event’s website: thelastboy.

info. Ten percent of the
proceeds will go to NMAJH in
honor of the late real estate
icon Ron Rubin, who was
instrumental in the museum’s
founding, according
to Suzanne Cohn, a Philadelphia
resident, Holocaust survivor
and friend of both Fisher and
Rubin. l



social announcements
BIRTH PHOTO BY JESSICA LAUREN PHOTOGRAPHY
SADIE GRACE WEINSTEIN
K ANNIVERSARY
SANDLER urray and Violet (née Nemez) Sandler of
Wynnewood joined a select club on July 1 as
they celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary.

According to U.S. Census Bureau statistics, less
than 0.1% of married couples reach their 70th
anniversary. The Sandler were married on July 1, 1951 in
Philadelphia. They marked the occasion with a
celebratory family dinner at the Capital Grille in
Center City. Sharing their joy are their children
Rob and Pat, Ken, Jon and Stacey, and grandsons
Jeffrey and Lee.

M ate and Mark Weinstein announce the birth of
Sadie Grace on May 1 in Philadelphia. Sharing
in their joy are grandparents Lana and Robert
Weinstein of Colmar and Denise and Earl Dodds of
Leola. Sadie was named after Mark’s maternal
grandmother, Rosalie Diamond.

PHOTO BY ELLIE EATON
BIRTHDAY LORI PAIKIN
illian Paikin of Jenkintown turned 105
years old on July 14.

She enjoys spending time with her
grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and
even does the books for her grandson’s car
business, Frank Paikin Auto. Her motto is
not to worry — because worrying causes
wrinkles. Happy birthday to the remarkable
“Mama Lily.”
L PHOTO BY JESSICA LAUREN PHOTOGRAPHY
COURTESY OF THE PAIKIN FAMILY
J ZACHARY NOAH ROIG
ill (née Weinstein) and Jonathan Roig and brother
Asher announce the birth of Zachary Noah on
March 30 in Scottsdale, Arizona.

Sharing in their joy are grandparents Lana and
Robert Weinstein of Colmar; Bobbie Berkman of
Walnut Creek, California; and Randy Roig and Ellen
Sampson of Oakland, California.

Zachary was given the Hebrew name of Zev
Raphael in loving memory of his great-grandparents,
Ronald and Rosalie Diamond.

J ENGAGEMENT
RUBINSTEINDOLLIN oel Rubinstein (Lisa Levin) of Newtown, Beth Rubinstein of Santa
Cruz, California, and Rabbi Bruce and Tamra Dollin of Denver
announce the engagement of their children, Michelle Rubinstein and
Akiva Dollin.

Michelle is a graduate of the Haas Business School at the
University of California, Berkeley, where she earned her bachelor’s
degree in business administration with a minor in education. She
works as a senior product manager for Visa.

Akiva is a graduate of the Jewish Theological Seminary of
America, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in Jewish history;
Columbia University, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in
PHOTO BY ELLIE EATON
computer science; and The Grainger College of Engineering, where
he earned a master’s degree in computer science. He works as a
program manager for Microsoft.

Michelle is the granddaughter of Mark and Joan Kay of Bala Cynwyd, and the late Arthur and
Arlene Rubinstein (z”l) of Philadelphia. Akiva is the grandson of Rabbi Herbert (z”l) and Judy Morris of
Walnut Creek, California, and Marvin (z”l) and Florence Dollin of Albuquerque, New Mexico.

JEWISHEXPONENT.COM 23