April 30, 2010
100 Years Ago in the forward
Louis Cantor, a Philadelphia-based pimp, was sentenced to six years in prison for raping and forcing a woman, Dora Rubin, into a life of prostitution. The trial, which riveted Jewish Philadelphia, contained moments of real drama, such as when Rubin took the stand to testify against Cantor. The entire courtroom was silent, and even then it was nearly impossible to hear the victim’s testimony. Her voice was so quiet that members of the jury had to cup their hands around their ears in order to hear. Rubin met Cantor in a restaurant near the handkerchief factory where she worked. He was kind, and the two began to date. Cantor even proposed to her. One night, he took her to a restaurant and drugged her. She was dragged to a hotel, where he raped her. Subsequently, he moved her from apartment to apartment, where she was forced to service numerous men. Eventually she managed to escape, and alerted police.
75 Years Ago in the forward
Hitler’s Minister of the Interior, Wilhelm Frick, has announced that German Jews, half-Jews and even those with one Jewish grandparent will have their German citizenship revoked. Only pure Aryans, he says, can have German citizenship. This means that more than half a million Jews will become officially stateless, and more than 3 million partial Jews will suffer the same fate. It is not known what will become of these now former German citizens. In addition, the Nazis have begun a campaign against German Catholics, breaking into monasteries and arresting monks and priests.
50 Years Ago In the forward
Taking their cue from their colleagues in New York, dockworkers in Montreal are picketing the Egyptian-flagged ship Star of Asia because of Egypt’s official boycott of ships that deal with Israel. Dockworkers have refused to board the ship and have picketed it with posters that oppose Gamal Adbel Nasser. Because most of the passengers on the ship were immigrants, the dockworkers allowed them to leave before the protest began. A similar demonstration took place the previous week in New York City, when the Egyptian ship Cleopatra docked there. As a result, the International Confederation of Arab Trade Unions sent a message to President Eisenhower, condemning the actions of these “Zionists” who are damaging American-Arab relations.
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