December 25, 2009

100 Years Ago in the Forward

Samuel Rogoff, a resident of Manhattan’s Harlem section, was brought into Special Sessions Court, accused by the police of being New York City’s “king of the pimps.” Police told the judge that Rogoff operates dozens of underground brothels throughout the city; his method is to rent apartments and set up a prostitution operation run by a different madam in each one. Although many of his madams had been arrested previously, none of them gave up the boss. Only when the police busted Freda Stern, a madam running a brothel on Cathedral Parkway, and threatened her with prison. did they manage to figure out that Rogoff was running the show.

75 Years Ago in the Forward

Hitler has poisoned the minds and destroyed the souls of Germany’s youth with his racism. The young people of Germany have been infected with this racism, and crazily seek out “Jewish blood” so that they can purge it from their midst. One young woman became so obsessed with trying to find Jews in her family that she began measuring the noses of her relatives. She came to the conclusion that her father’s nose was too long. From there, she decided that his skin was too dark and that he used his hands too much when he spoke. After doing some genealogical research, she concluded that her father’s great-grandmother was a Jewess. Realizing that she herself had a few drops of Jewish blood running through her Nazi veins, she flipped. But she knew what she had to do: She shot her father.

50 Years Ago in the Forward

The sleepy resort town of Lake Elsinore, Calif., looks like a nice place from afar, but inside, the town is roiling with hatred for its Jewish citizens. Profiled recently in a documentary called “City of Hate,” Lake Elsinore has a group of citizens called the “freedom fighters” who have thrown rocks at Jews and Jewish homes and scrawled antisemitic statements on walls as part of a concerted campaign to drive out the Jews. The town first became popular as a resort after natural mineral waters were discovered there. As a result, Jews began coming to take the waters, and many ended up staying, much to the chagrin of some of the locals.

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