April 22, 2011

100 Years Ago in The Forward

The Jews of Manhattan’s Lower East Side were shocked to discover that Christian missionaries who have posted themselves in the neighborhood in order to “save” Jewish souls have been converting local children without their parents’ knowledge. The main location for these conversions is on Second Avenue between Houston and First, at a place called The East Side Parish House for All Nations. The Parish House functions as a Sunday school where Christianity is taught to children. A representative of the Clara de Hirsch Society was shocked to discover that nearly all of the 200 children that go there each Sunday are Jewish. Many of them are “brainwashed” into believing what the missionaries tell them.

75 Years Ago in The Forward

Eleven Jews were killed in terror attacks in Jaffa as the Arabs of Palestine declared a general strike. The Arab National Party declared the strike in Shechem in connection with a demonstration made by an Arab youth group. They announced that the protest would last “until all Arab demands were met.” Meanwhile, the British high commissioner declared a curfew in the Tel Aviv-Jaffa area during which residents would not be permitted to leave their homes from 7 p.m. to 5 a.m. David Ben-Gurion, chairman of the Jewish Agency, requested that Jews abide by the curfew.

50 Years Ago in The Forward

Adolf Eichmann declared to the Israeli court trying him that though he had nothing to do with the Nazi plan to exterminate the Jews, technically he is guilty. Eichmann read answers to questions posed to him by Israeli police investigators, replies to queries that now comprise six volumes of typewritten pages. Next week, Columbia University Jewish history professor Salo Baron is expected to testify at the trial on the pre-World War II status of Jewish communities in Europe in order to gauge what has happened to the Jews in the wake of their extermination by the Nazis.

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