July 3, 2009
100 Years Ago in the forward
Like a conquering army, the streets of Manhattan’s Lower East Side were filled with thousands of white-capped, white-shirted bakers waving red flags and beaming with joy at the final settling of their strike. Thousands of well-wishers lined the streets to cheer them on and to listen to the bands that joined in the march. The procession stopped in front of the offices of the Forward on East Broadway, and the marchers cheered the paper that supported them throughout the strike. The leaders of the march entered the Forward’s offices to give the editors a special citation for their support. The bands then launched into “La Marseillaise” before continuing down the street.
75 Years Ago in the forward
Class consciousness does not appear to exist among Polish hooligans, who have recently been attacking Jews — mostly poor Jews — in great numbers of late. For these hooligans, every Jewish chest is good enough for a knife, but it is the poor, whose Jewish appearance isn’t masked in middle-class garb, who are taking the brunt of it. And it is the poor, the workers, the socialists who have put forth the call for Jews to arm themselves. In recent days, it has been the working Jews of Lodz who have put dozens of these hooligans in the hospital and even killed two of them. In Bialystok, militant Polish nationalists now fear entering Jewish neighborhoods. The message being put forth is that those who attack Jews should know that it is a dangerous business.
50 Years Ago in the forward
The Forward received a number of letters in response to an article by its religious correspondent, Rabbi Aaron Shurin, in which the rabbi argued that the law providing for separation of men and women in synagogue should be held to as stringently as the laws of keeping the Sabbath, or that of eating matzot on Passover. Referring to a case that is being heard in the Michigan court system, in which a congregant sued his synagogue after it voted to remove the mehitza, or separation wall, between men and women, readers argued not only that traditional Yiddishkeit will not be possible in modern America, but also that Shurin’s reasoning was based on a faulty reading of the Shulhan Aruch.
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a gift today!
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Most Popular
- 1
Fast Forward Ye debuts ‘Heil Hitler’ music video that includes a sample of a Hitler speech
- 2
Opinion It looks like Israel totally underestimated Trump
- 3
Culture Cardinals are Catholic, not Jewish — so why do they all wear yarmulkes?
- 4
Fast Forward Student suspended for ‘F— the Jews’ video defends himself on antisemitic podcast
In Case You Missed It
-
Fast Forward Federal security grants to synagogues are resuming after two-month Trump freeze
-
Fast Forward NY state budget weakens yeshiva oversight in blow to secular education advocates
-
Fast Forward Margot Friedlander, German Holocaust survivor who landed a Vogue cover, dies at 103
-
Culture Is this heaven or is it New Jersey? 9 innings of the Jewish-American pastime
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
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 comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag 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.