Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Culture

Forward Looking Back

1916 100 Years Ago

New York City’s cloak makers have responded with a massive strike after bosses locked organizing workers out of their factories last week. When the clock struck 11 on a Wednesday morning, tens of thousands of cloak makers stood up, left their machines and walked out of their factories. With so many on the picket lines, the Cloakmakers Union leaders, Benjamin Schlesinger, Jacob Halpern and Saul Metz, along with others, addressed the workers while a roll call was made of all the striking shops. All told, 2,317 shops were counted among those that the strikers shut down. While New York City police were fairly tolerant of the strikers, several New Jersey strikers were arrested: eight in Jersey City and six in Bayonne.

1941 75 Years Ago

According to the Bulgarian newspaper Yutro, the first thing the Nazis did upon successfully occupying Greece was to institute anti-Jewish laws. In order to make it appear as if these laws were being enacted locally, the Nazis demanded that the Quisling Greek government they installed announce the anti-Semitic legislation and, additionally, blame the Jews for the war. The campaign in Greece is similar to what the Nazis have done in Yugoslavia; there, however, the Nazis spread the rumor that Jewish students convinced other Yugoslavian students to protest against the Nazis. This is because Yugoslavian students played an integral role in attempting to defend their country from the Germans.

1966 50 Years Ago

Under political pressure from the Arab states, the Soviet Union has decided to cancel a scheduled appearance in Russia by the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. Talk in diplomatic circles has centered on the fact that the Syrian premier, who visited Moscow recently, convinced the Soviets that it would not stand them in good stead with their Arab allies if the Israeli orchestra played there. In fact, while the Syrian leader was visiting Moscow, both he and the Soviet premier made sharp attacks on Israel and on the Zionist movement. Diplomatic reports indicate that the USSR is seeking to move Syria, as well as other Arab countries, closer to the Soviet orbit. Among Israelis, there is worry that this episode will mark the beginning of a worsening of Israeli-Soviet relations.

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 credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link 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.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.