January 7, 2011

100 Years Ago in the Forward

As shop worker Anna Dienstag came home to her tenement on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, her former fiancé, Jacob Moshkovitz, was waiting for her. Upon seeing him, Dienstag ran into her apartment. Moshkovitz followed her and begged her to take him back. When she refused, he pulled out a revolver and shot her twice in the chest and ear. When Moshkovitz’s case went to trial, Dienstag was there, waiting to testify. As police brought the young man into the courtroom, he saw Dienstag and leaped out of their grasp. He then got down on one knee and screamed, “Anna, I still love you.” Moshkovitz was taken back to jail, and the trial was postponed until further notice.

75 Years Ago in the Forward

The Forverts received a letter from a female reader in Rhode Island who is furious with Jewish boys. “Did you know,” she writes, “that in a small town like Providence, it’s considered a miracle if a Jewish boy goes with a Jewish girl? The most desirable sons from the wealthiest families all go out with poor Irish girls. And not because they’re prettier or more educated, but because they’re Irish.” The letter continued, but in language that we at the Forverts cannot print.

50 Years Ago in the Forward

It is being reported that in Casablanca, Morocco’s chief of police has received orders from a high government office that instructed him to prevent local Jews from giving their children any name that is not found in the Bible. This is troublesome for Francophile Moroccan Jews, who often give their children French names.

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