March 13, 2009
100 Years Ago In The Forward
With a small boy of about 4, who had gleaming black eyes, a woman by the name of Sarah Markowitz came into the office of the Forward to explain her predicament. She and her husband live on Allen Street in a stoop-level, two-room apartment with their children. Her husband works as a puller-in for a shoe store in the Bowery and brings home $5, sometimes $6 per week. This money has to cover the family’s $13 a month rent and their food, clothing and gas bills. When Sarah was in the grocery store two months ago, an acquaintance told her she could take in a small boy as a boarder for an extra $2 a week. Sarah agreed, and the boy, 4-year-old Harry, was brought to her. But instead of giving Sarah and her family $2 per week, the woman disappeared, and now they are stuck with another mouth to feed.
75 Years Ago In The Forward
Because Jews own a few of New York City’s biggest department stores, there exists a common misconception that all the city’s department stores are in Jewish hands. But nothing could be further from the truth. Wanamaker’s, for example, is not Jewish owned, and neither is Best’s or Lord & Taylor. Altman’s was founded by a Jewish family but is now owned by an Irish one. That said, among the few Jewish-owned department stores in New York City are Macy’s, Gimbel’s, Saks, Abraham & Strauss, Bloomingdale’s and Bamberger’s. All of them are managed by Jews.
50 Years Ago In The Forward
The Arab League held an emergency meeting in order to convince countries in the Communist bloc to put a halt to Jewish emigration from those lands to Israel. Word from Cairo, where the meeting was held, indicated that another of the resolutions included a warning to Italy to avoid friendly relations and any economic cooperation with the State of Israel, or it would risk damaging the good relations it maintains with the Arab states. The league also enacted an emergency resolution to create a plan to return to Arab hegemony the territory on which Israel stands.
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