Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Culture

March 20, 2009

100 Years Ago in the forward

When Joseph Leibel, a Jewish fruit peddler from Hartford, Conn., met Becky Betsalel, he fell for her. She felt the same, and together they were destined to go under the wedding canopy. But Leibel traveled in the state to Meriden on business, and there he made the acquaintance of Fanny Perry and decided that it was not Betsalel but Perry who was his bashert. And so, Leibel began to visit Perry regularly, giving her expensive gifts. Betsalel knew about it but kept quiet. Just as Leibel made the move to Perry from Betsael, Perry made the move to another young man from Meriden (it’s that kind of town), Edward Stamler. She returned the wedding dress and jewelry Leibel had bought her. Still in the market for marriage, Leibel went back to Betsalel and gave her the dress and jewels he bought for Perry. It worked, and the two were happily married in Hartford. But Stamler dumped Perry and left her in Meriden. (Ed. Note: Meriden means “hemorrhoids” in Yiddish, which makes the name of the town quite humorous for Yiddish readers).


75 Years Ago in the forward

The sport of boxing is in big trouble. Only a few years ago, boxing was one of the most popular sports, with gates bringing in upward of $1 million. But boxing has fallen on hard times: It’s palace, New York City’s Madison Square Garden, used to have fights every week. But the Garden has stopped this because the fans have stopped coming. Much of this has to do with the scandals that arise — the fixes and the dives that fighters take. Case in point: the recent fight between Kingfish Levinsky and German fighter Walter Neusel. The Kingfish clearly won the 10 rounder, but the fight was called for Neusel. Levinsky was the favorite going into it, and word in the stands from the gambling crowd was sheer joy as the fight progressed. But when Neusel came out the winner, furious bettors wanted to know who had paid off the judges.


50 Years Ago in the forward

Egypt has moved to ban all movies that star famed American actress Elizabeth Taylor. According to Egyptian film censor Mohammed Ali Nassef, movies starring the actress will be stringently banned in Egypt and Syria (currently united as the United Arab Republic) because it was discovered that Taylor had purchased $100,000 worth of Israel bonds. Nassef added that the United Arab Republic will ban any movie that stars an actor who “helps the Zionists.” Taylor purchased the bonds at a recent fundraiser in Beverly Hills, Calif., that netted more than $1 million for Israel. Among the other attendees were Jack Benny, Eddie Cantor, Milton Berle, George Burns, Nat King Cole, Dinah Shore, Frank Sinatra and Danny Thomas.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.

If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.

Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism. 

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.