The Wait: Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, along with Mort Sobell (left), all accused of espionage, are transported back to prison as the jury deliberated on what was to be a final and fateful verdict for the Rosenbergs, who were eventually executed in New York. Image by Forward Association

1914 • 100 years ago

Betrayed by Sister and Husband

Nine years ago, Sam and Ida Weiner were married and living happily in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn, where he worked as a carpenter in a trim factory. The Weiners had three lovely children: 7-year-old Rosie, 5-year-old Sam and 2-year-old Saraleh. About nine months ago, Ida Weiner’s younger sister, 19-year old Sarah Lakovsky, came from her family’s shtetl, Sokolke, to stay with the Weiners. After a while, Ida Weiner noticed that her pretty younger sister was getting along a little too nicely with her husband, so she asked if Lakovsky would move to another sister’s home, in West Hoboken, New Jersey. But Sam Weiner and his sister-in-law had already hatched a plan: He emptied his and his wife’s bank account of their $75 life savings and sold a small lot he owned in Jersey City to a fellow carpenter; then he and Lakovsky disappeared. Now Ida Weiner is stuck without a cent and with three young children to feed, all of whom keep asking, “When is Papa coming home?”

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1939 • 75 years ago

Palestine Jews on Lockdown

As a result of renewed disturbances, the British military powers in Palestine have halted transit for Jews in and out of Jerusalem and are investigating potential terrorist activity in the neighborhoods of Rechavia and Romema, and on Jaffa Road. The British have also instituted a collective punishment on three poor Jewish neighborhoods in Jerusalem and have begun to do the same in Haifa. A sum of $5,000 was demanded from the neighborhoods of Beit Yisrael, Habukharim and Meah She’arim. Traffic in and out of Jerusalem was suspended after an Arab was lightly wounded during a shootout on King George Avenue. Police began house-to-house searches in Rechavia after a bomb was thrown at a truck, wounding three Arabs. Among the houses searched was that of Menahem Ussishkin, well-known Zionist ideologue. After the bombing, the British shut down the entire neighborhood, refusing to permit traffic to enter, and not permitting residents to go to work.

1964 • 50 years ago

State Department Unrest

The State Department has sharply condemned the 13 ambassadors, all from Arab countries, who signed a letter claiming that the current visit of the Israeli premier, Levi Eshkol, to the United States was in order to buy weapons and to undermine the good relations that exist between the Arabs and the United States. Under Secretary of State George W. Ball called all 13 ambassadors into the State Department and told them that their statement was an insult to the integrity of America’s foreign policy. U.S. foreign policy experts claimed that such an admonition to so many different countries had never been given. Other foreign policy wonks said the Arab statement was a “mistake,” and “nonsense.”

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