One of the most horrifying stories to come out of the Holocaust is the one about the Nazis turning Jews into bars of soap. But is it true? In Jeff Cohen’s new play, “The Soap Myth,” which is now in previews Off Broadway, a Holocaust survivor pits his eyewitness version of the truth against historians and museum curators who insist on documentary evidence. The play asks searching questions about how the Holocaust should be remembered and understood in an age in which survivors are dying out and Holocaust deniers spew their own hateful views.

She brought a mystical Jewish strain into her career in the Church and gave comfort to many converts from Judaism who struggled to maintain a connection to Jewish belief and practice. Teresa of Avila, a 16th-century saint whose grandfather was forced to renounce his Jewish identity by the Spanish Inquisition, never lost touch with her Jewish roots. In Begonya Plaza’s new play, “Teresa’s Ecstasy,” starring the playwright, the nun’s Jewish heritage is seen as a driving force in her life and work.