Jan 9, 2009

75 Years Ago in the Forward

In the most recent issue of Tsienist, the monthly journal of the Zionist organization in Buenos Aires, Argentina, the Independent Jewish Club began a major advertising campaign calling for a mass meeting of Jews in order to combat prostitution. Of the 3,000 prostitutes in Argentina, it is estimated that 90% are Jewish girls who were tricked into going there by the lowest sort of people — known as “white meat merchants” — and then sent to brothels and forced to work in the most revolting conditions. The Independent Jewish Club has combined forces with the government of Argentina to battle this scourge on society.

75 Years Ago in the Forward

The weekly magazine The American Hebrew has obtained copies of the marriage certificate of New York City Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia’s parents. On June 3, 1880, Carlo Luigi LaGuardia married one Irena Cohen, in Padua, Italy. The mayor’s mother apparently was born in Trieste, which is formerly of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and currently part of Italy. When presented with this information, the mayor said that he never knew he had so much Jewish blood in him and that it is something to be proud of. It’s also a hardly known fact that LaGuardia has a sister in Budapest, where his mother is buried, who is not only a Jew, but quite a religious one at that. LaGuardia knows a fair amount of Yiddish, and he says he’d like to learn more.

50 Years Ago in the Forward

America’s chess establishment finally deserves a mazel tov on its new champion, 15-year-old Erasmus Hall High School student Bobby Fischer. In his hometown, the Brooklyn neighborhood of Flatbush, Fischer is being called “Shmulik the Second,” after Polish-born chess wunderkind Shmulik Rezhevski, who made it big in America’s chess world 40 years ago — an indication as to how weak chess is in this country. But Fischer holds great hopes for American chess. Over the past year, he has traveled around the world, winning matches all over Europe. True, he lost in a private match to Grandmaster Botvinnik in Moscow, but his future as a champion looks very bright.

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and the protests on college campuses.

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO