100 YEARS AGO Jewish derelicts were hired to recite Psalms for a person who had died. The relatives of the deceased gave one of them, Aaron Kalish, a bit of cash for all of them. Kalish went out and bought some cake and a bottle of illegally distilled alcohol for the group. He then returned to the synagogue on Orchard Street where theRead More
100 YEARS AGO • One of our readers has sent in a personal letter from the shtetl of Krinik, near Grodno, in which a small revolution has taken place. The town’s residents have attacked the police. Krinik is known as the birthplace of revolutionary Shmuel Sikorski, the Jewish tanner who, together with Russian revolutionaries, bombed the carriageRead More
100 YEARS AGO The real holiday this week won’t be on account of Lincoln’s Birthday, but on account of the big benefit in the Thalia Theater for the striking Capmakers’ Union. The Thalia Company will be presenting the play “Mirele Efros,” with all its biggest stars. It goes without saying how important it is that the benefit be aRead More
100 YEARS AGO• A telegram arrived this week from members of the Jewish Labor Bund in Russia describing events over there. Part of it read, “At the behest of the Bund’s Central Committee, massive strikes have broken out in all regions where the Bund is active: in Vilna, Bialystok, Kovno, Dvinsk, Pinsk, Mohilev, Berditshev,Read More
100 YEARS AGO• Melville Dewey, director of the New York State Library and inventor of the Dewey Decimal System, was called before the State Regents’ Library Committee to explain his position as president of an upstate hotel that not only restricts Jewish customers, but also openly advertises this fact. A number of well-connected JewsRead More
100 YEARS AGO Word from St. Petersburg indicates that a full-fledged revolution has finally broken out in Russia. It is being reported that strikers protesting in front of the tsar’s Winter Palace in St. Petersburg were brutally attacked by the Imperial Army, leaving over 2,000 dead and over 5,000 wounded, many of them women and children.Read More
100 Years Ago This week marks a new era in the history of the Yiddish press: The Forward is now being printed on its very own printing press, the newest, most advanced press available. The new press is evidence of the incredible growth of the Forward, which, in only eight years, has gone from selling a few hundred copiesRead More
100 Years Ago It has already been three weeks since cap makers have gone on strike and the machines in their shops have stopped operating. The shop bosses have been busy looking for scab laborers to send into the shops — but not long after they begin working, they also join the picket lines. It appears that every morning, the bosses walk intoRead More
100 Years Ago Sam Fefferman ran a dry goods store on New York City’s Orchard Street. Things were going well for him and he decided to expand. Therefore he hired one Mendel Frucht to stand outside his store with a pushcart. For this he paid Frucht $8 per week. Fefferman’s business continued to succeed. Thus it was with great surprise that heRead More
100 YEARS AGO• Last Saturday night, the police arrested the gang of counterfeiters that has been flooding New York City’s Lower East Side, passing out fake half-dollars and dimes. Among those arrested were East 4th Street residents Frank Schleiman and Elizabeth Reiber. Two other members of their gang were arrested uptown. TheRead More
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