Looking Back: January 13, 2012

Wanna Fight? [75 years ago] These girls from Westchester Collegiate Center in White Plains, N.Y., have formed a boxing team under the tutelage of Milton Greenberg (left). They are looking for fights with boys. Image by Forward Association
100 Years Ago in the Forward
A fire occurred at New York City’s Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society, a Jewish orphanage on 151st Street and Broadway. More than 700 children live in the orphanage, and they were all on different floors when the fire, which started at a construction site next to the orphanage, broke out. A police officer walking his beat saw the fire and sounded the alarm. He then ran to tell the head of the orphanage, who rang the bell to alert the children. There was initially great fear and much confusion, although the children quickly managed to get out of the building. They watched the smoke pour out. The firefighters arrived and determined after a short time that the fire was not dangerous; they quickly extinguished it. As the firefighters packed up, the orphan boys had a snowball fight on the street.
75 Years Ago in the Forward
A Nazi organization called the German Christians has rewritten and modernized the New Testament to show how Jesus and his apostles were opposed to Jews and how they fought against Jewish influences. This new Hitler-approved edition also transforms Jesus himself into a Nazi and an anti-Semite. Initially, it seemed that the Nazis wanted to do away with Christianity because of the troubling fact that Jesus was a Jew. But a great deal of opposition arose, especially from Catholic precincts. Among the opposition was the influential Archbishop Michael von Faulhaber, who began to preach against the Nazis. As a result, Nazi propagandists got the idea of remaking Jesus and his apostles in their own mold, as anti-Semites, in order to gain acceptance among Christians.
50 Years Ago in the Forward
Half of the 5,000 Jews who were forced to leave Egypt by the Nazi-like regime of Gamal Abdel Nasser have arrived in Israel. The rest, according to news sources, are en route. Another 10,000 Egyptian Jews are said to have boarded ships already and are ready to sail to Israel. It’s thought that another 25,000 Jews remain in Egypt, and if current political and social conditions remain the same, they will also end up leaving the country. The situation in Egypt is such that the government has restricted Jewish businesses so much that it has become impossible for Jews to make a living. Jewish lawyers are no longer permitted in court, and Jewish doctors have been forbidden to practice. Jews also are not permitted to take money out of their bank accounts. As a result, they are leaving in droves.
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
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 polarized discourse.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a gift today!
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Most Popular
- 1
Fast Forward Why the Antisemitism Awareness Act now has a religious liberty clause to protect ‘Jews killed Jesus’ statements
- 2
Culture Trump wants to honor Hannah Arendt in a ‘Garden of American Heroes.’ Is this a joke?
- 3
Fast Forward The invitation said, ‘No Jews.’ The response from campus officials, at least, was real.
- 4
Opinion A Holocaust perpetrator was just celebrated on US soil. I think I know why no one objected.
In Case You Missed It
-
Opinion The Trump administration just gave a gigantic gift to extremists in the West Bank
-
Opinion In this Hegelian age, we should be talking about Herzl not Trump
-
Culture What a lion, a rabbi, and a dog taught me about grief
-
Music After decades of waiting, we’re finally getting a Bob Dylan-Barbra Streisand duet
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.