April 1, 2011
100 Years Ago in The Forward
Yiddish theater actor Joseph Shoengold, son of famed Odessa actor Abba Shoengold, and son-in-law of famed director Joseph P. Adler is out on $2,000 bail after being accused of fathering an out-of-wedlock child with Sarah Kaufman, a Vaudeville chorus girl. These revelations are considered shocking, because Shoengold married Adler’s daughter only two months ago. Kaufman’s attorney argued that Shoengold had promised to marry his client. The attorney produced letters written by Shoengold promising as such and promising to send her money, as well.
75 Years Ago in The Forward
According to reports in Poland’s Yiddish press, the Jews of the city of Pshitik acted heroically to defend their neighborhoods from attacks by pogromists. It was, in fact, the Polish police who drove away the Jewish defenders and permitted the pogromists to return and continue their destruction. Moreover, when a group of local Jews went to their government administrator to request help, they were told that officials could do nothing until deaths were reported. Meanwhile, local Jews are living in fear. For example, recently there was a market day, a time for Jews gather to buy and sell their wares. But hooligans carrying thick clubs wrapped with barbed wire met them when they arrived at the market square, driving them away.
50 Years Ago in The Forward
The trial of Nazi mass murderer Adolf Eichmann is expected to begin within the next few weeks. In a recent interview, Israeli Premier David Ben-Gurion said that the trial is of enormous importance for Israel and the entire world. “We always speak of the 6 million,” he said, “a huge number, a terrible number. But we have to make people aware that among those 6 million were the best of our people; those who created Hebrew and Yiddish culture; those who became the first Zionist pioneers in the early 1880s; out of whom came brilliant people like Bialik and Einstein. A terrible burden is carried, not only by the Germans, but by France and the United States, countries that could have saved the Jews, but did not. The burden is epecially heavy for England, which could have saved the Jews by allowing them to [immigrate] to Palestine.”
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