Looking Back: May 4, 2012
100 Years Ago in the Forward
Reports are coming in offering details of a particularly brutal pogrom that recently took place in Fez, Morocco. Hundreds of Jews were killed and wounded, many Jewish women were raped, children were kidnapped and babies were slaughtered. The pogromists apparently were so vicious that they threw babies off of rooftops. Twelve thousand Jews are currently homeless because of the attack. Most have camped out in an open area near the sultan’s palace. It is said that dozens are dying of hunger each day. Numerous Europeans were also attacked during the pogrom. Many were beheaded; others were buried alive.
75 Years Ago in the Forward
Anyone who recently happened to be at the Jewish Arbitration Court that is in Manhattan on Madison Avenue at Clinton Street got a good glimpse of how strange Jewish life is in the New World. There they would have seen a real live “angel” from Harlem-based Father Divine’s Black Heaven — a Jewish angel, one that left the Garden of Eden on the Lower East Side; she left her husband and children to go uptown and join the good father’s International Peace Mission. Though she can barely speak English, Sarah Eisenberg does speak a fine Warsaw Yiddish. She was brought to court by the landsmanshaft, the Warsaw Fraternal Society, which is attempting to ban her for joining the strange uptown cult.
50 Years Ago in the Forward
Last year’s great fear for Israel was that Egyptian strongman Gamal Abdel Nasser was pouring weapons into the Sinai for a potential attack on its northern neighbor. This year, however, the fears relate more to the fact that the Soviet Union is eagerly arming a number of Arab countries, all of which have Israel in their sights. The danger, according to Israeli Foreign Minister Golda Meir, is that the Arabs have consistently refused to accept Israel, or even to recognize it as a legitimate state. These states, the foreign minister claims, have refused to accept “Israel’s outstretched arm in the name of peace.” Until they do, there will be antagonism.
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
News Why Zohran Mamdani believes he’ll win over Jewish voters, as Israel critic surges to second behind Cuomo in NYC mayoral race
In Case You Missed It
-
Culture 10 duets Barbra Streisand and Bob Dylan should have chosen for her upcoming album
-
Fast Forward Reconstructionist leader to step down as head of movement riven by tension over anti-Zionism
-
Culture Alfred Dreyfus was not the man you think he was — and the history of Jews in France is a little different too
-
Yiddish World This synagogue ‘gets’ why you need Yiddish on Yom Hashoah
-
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.