Holocaust Survivor To Receive Mezuzah Crafted From Iranian Missile After Antisemitic Attack

One month after a mezuzah was torn from the doorway of his Toronto apartment in what appeared to be an act of intimidation against Jews, 98-year-old Holocaust survivor Nate Leipciger will be given a new mezuzah, enclosed in a case specially created for him from fragments of an Iranian missile.

The presentation will take place today on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, during an event marking International Holocaust Remembrance Day and the launch of an Israeli high-tech delegation that will participate this year in the March of the Living at Auschwitz. Leipciger will attend alongside dozens of other Holocaust survivors.

Several elderly Jewish residents, many of them Holocaust survivors, live in Leipciger’s building. Mezuzahs were torn from the doors of all their apartments.

The New York Stock Exchange event is intended as a show of strength and solidarity. Leaders of 25 Israeli high-tech companies and venture capital funds will close the trading day by ringing the iconic bell together with four Holocaust survivors, including Leipciger and Sara Weinstein of Israel, who previously addressed the plenary session of the United Nations General Assembly.

The mezuzah case was created by artist Yaron Bob from the Eshkol region near Gaza, who fashions Judaica from missile metals, including projectiles launched at Israel from Iran and fragments of Iron Dome interceptors. Leipciger’s mezuzah was made from an Iranian missile and designed in the shape of the American B-2 bomber, one of the aircraft used in strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

The mezuzah will be presented to Leipciger by Revital Yachin Krakowsky, CEO of the March of the Living in Israel, together with Micha Kaufman, CEO of Fiverr, who initiated the Israeli high-tech delegation and organized the New York Stock Exchange ceremony.

“Holocaust survivors are our moral compass, and it is a great privilege to honor Nate at the heart of the world’s economic capital, the New York Stock Exchange,” Kaufman said.

Yachin Krakowsky added, “Nate survived Auschwitz as a teenager, marched in the death marches, was liberated from Dachau and became a witness who has told his story to thousands of young people who take part in the March of the Living each year. This mezuzah represents the connection between Holocaust memory, Jewish identity and today’s reality.”

Leipciger was born in Poland in 1928. After the German invasion, his family attempted to flee but was eventually deported to Auschwitz, where he last saw his mother and sister alive. Imprisoned together with his father, Nate survived multiple concentration camps until both were liberated in 1945. Two years later, they immigrated to Canada.

For decades, Leipciger has led youth delegations from Canada to the March of the Living in Poland. He has participated in 21 marches so far and is expected to join his 22nd this April. Each year, following the ceremony at Birkenau, he enters the barracks where he was held as a child and recounts his experiences to hundreds of visitors.

Last year, standing inside that same barracks, he delivered an emotional message to young people from Canada: “Never hide your symbols. Stand up to whoever it is, because they want you to bow your head and hide your identity. But no more.”

He has also spoken of his deep concern that Jews in the diaspora, particularly young people, are afraid of antisemitic attacks and therefore conceal their Jewish identity or even deny it, viewing it as a burden rather than a source of strength. He noted sorrowfully that some remove the mezuzah from their homes out of fear of retaliation.

“Woe to us if we hide our Judaism,” he said. “I will continue to carry my Judaism with pride and call on young Jews to do the same.”