February 16, 2007
100 Years Ago In the Forward
Jacob and Sadie Michaelson, whose wedding was to have taken place February 24, will be buried together after having drowned as a result of the sinking of the steamship Larchmont, which crashed into the pier and sank after arriving in New York City from Providence, R.I. Found washed up together on the Queens shore were the bodies of the Michaelson couple, who were also first cousins. The pained looks on their faces, and their gnarled lips, showed that they died in tears. Jacob Michaelson had just finished building the home in which they were to live. More than 120 people died in the Larchmont tragedy.
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75 Years Ago In the Forward
In a victory for progressive thinkers all over the country, Judge Benjamin Cardozo has been selected to replace Oliver Wendell Holmes on the Supreme Court of the United States of America. After being nominated by President Herbert Hoover, the New York judge was ushered into the U.S. Senate for confirmation. Born into a prominent Sephardic Jewish family that has been in America for five generations, Cardozo has an uncle who was a cantor in the famed Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue in New York City. Cardozo’s nomination was supported by some of the leading politicians and intellectuals in the country.
A report from Chattanooga, Tenn., indicates that Jews in the Southern United States are living in fear after a rumor spread that they are responsible for the country’s current economic crisis. These rumors are being spread in churches, at public meetings and on the radio. The main source of this Jew hatred is reported to have come from a revivalist preacher by the name of Mordecai Hess, who travels the region preaching to thousands. He recently went so far as to challenge Jews to show up at his revival meetings to rebut his claims. Thus far, no Jew has taken him up on the offer.
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50 Years Ago In the Forward
Former Morgn Freiheit writer Ben Fenster, who recently moved over to the Forward, has excoriated his former newspaper and its editor, Pesach Novick, who sits at the helm of the 35-year-old communist daily. Fenster wrote that when the Freiheit called the Hitler-Stalin Pact of 1939 “a victory for freedom,” most of the paper’s writers left in disgust, but Novick still became the editor. Fenster claims that Novick never missed a chance to attack noncommunist Jewish culture and, especially, Zionists. Novick was not available for comment.
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