June 22, 2007
100 Years Ago in the forward
Jacob Radin (nee Nokhem Radovski), a 35-year-old seltzer delivery man, was murdered this week while driving on his route in the Harlem area of New York City. As Radin was driving his truck Wednesday night, two crooks stole two cases of seltzer from it. Radin went looking around the uptown neighborhood for his missing seltzer, when he came upon a group of toughs standing around one of the cases. When Radin approached the thugs, one of them smashed a seltzer bottle over his head, killing him. The police caught two suspects, who are now being held at $2,000 bail.
75 Years Ago in the forward
Morris Weiss, an American Jewish doctor, was sitting in a cafe in Vienna with a date when a young Nazi came in and demanded loudly that all the so-called ‘Jewish’ and ‘Zionist’ newspapers that were littered about the café be replaced with ‘real’ German newspapers, but only those that supported Hitler. Upon seeing Weiss, the Nazi, evidently gathering that he was an American, said: “Oh, and here’s another Jew. Not an American, but an Ameri-cohen!” Fed up, Weiss jumped up and attacked the Nazi with a flurry of punches that knocked him out of the café and into the street.
Training for his upcoming title fight with Jack Sharkey, German boxing contender Max Schmeling is in upstate New York in the Catskills, surrounded by Jews. Schmeling, who is not Jewish, has spent the past three summers in kosher hotels, training for his fights. To the great chagrin of the gentile reporters following the German champion, they cannot butter their rolls during meat meals, nor can they put milk in their coffee. The reason for this situation is that Schmeling has the utmost respect for his manager, whom he refers to as ‘Herr Direktor Yakobs’ and who is generally known as Joe Jacobs, alias Yussel the Muscle. Jacobs keeps strictly kosher and insists on staying in Jewish hotels. His young German charge is just fine with that. And who knows? A little kosher food just might win Schmeling the championship.
50 Years Ago in the forward
While the current economic depression is usually discussed in terms of how it affects city dwellers, it is important to consider that the crisis also affects rural folk, quite often severely. Take New Jersey, for example. Some of the most popular poultry products available in New York City come from Jewish farmers in New Jersey, whose poultry farms have long produced excellent chickens and eggs. But these farmers, while not going hungry, live under a huge cloud of debt and may be forced to sell their farms in order to survive.
A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.
If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
