Steve North

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Jun 9, 2021, 3:24 PM

Lin-Manuel Miranda and my German-Jewish grandma both made ‘The Heights’ what it is

The author’s grandmother, Jenny Bachenheimer, stands outside her Washington Heights building in 1978. (Steve North)

The community of immigrants the film depicts have different languages and songs and foods than my family did, but it's all very familiar, just the same

Nov 3, 2020, 11:08 PM

We talked of peace, I stood at his grave: Yitzhak Rabin’s indelible mark on me

Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in Washington, DC, on November 16, 1993. (AP Photo/Charles Tasnadi)

In our long-ago interview, Rabin foreshadowed his own tragic fate when he told me Israel would be taking a lot of risks for peace

Jun 4, 2020, 10:50 PM

The Yekke Connection

Steven Lowenstein. (Meir Kruter)

It was perhaps my most memorable moment of surprise, discovery and delight during a half-century of genealogical research, sparked by a meeting with Steven Lowenstein, the prominent Jewish historian, author and professor who died on May 31st in Los Angeles...

Apr 29, 2020, 10:57 PM

Remembering an encounter with the ghosts of Dachau

Train station of the town of Dachau (Photo: Steve North)

It’s been 37 years since my visit to Dachau, and I am still haunted by one moment from my three hours in the former concentration camp. Who was that man? Did I actually see what I thought I saw? In...

Jan 28, 2020, 7:07 AM

From Berlin to Boynton Beach — via Auschwitz

His life’s journey has taken him from Berlin to Boynton Beach – via Auschwitz. To mark today’s 75th anniversary of the liberation of the largest and most notorious of the death camps, Auschwitz-Birkenau, I decided to visit a relative who was...

Nov 23, 2013, 5:43 PM

The Jew who killed JFK’s killer

Encounters with the family of Jack Ruby, who may have shot Lee Harvey Oswald 'to show that Jews had guts'

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About Me

Steve North is a longtime broadcast and print journalist, and a former interviewer for Steven Spielberg's USC Shoah Foundation.