Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Culture

September 15, 2006

100 Years Ago in the forward East Broadway seltzer vendor Henry Mittleman was blown to bits last week after a seltzer tank exploded in the basement of his store. Mittleman, who was working just a few feet from the tank, was thrown more than 20 feet by the blast. After he arrived at the hospital, it was determined that both his legs were broken in a number of places and that he suffered severe internal injuries. He died just an hour after admittance. Ironically, Mittleman had just completed a deal with the Mineral Water Workers Union and had an appointment to meet with them this week.

75 Years Ago in the forward As members of the Linden Credit Corporation were holding a meeting in a synagogue in the Brownsville area of Brooklyn to discuss High Holy Day loans, four men came in. While it was thought that they wanted to purchase tickets for the holidays, their needs became clearer after they pulled out revolvers and yelled, “Hands up!” Benjamin Levy, the corporation’s treasurer, tried to hide some money under the table, but one of the robbers saw him and began to beat him over the head with his pistol. The members of the corporation then handed over all their cash and jewelry to the thieves, who netted a total of $250.

In a related matter, the American Jewish Committee released a report this week on Jewish criminality. According to the AJCommittee’s findings, only 6,846 of the 395,080 prisoners in America’s jails are Jews — about 1.74% of the whole. American Jews make up 3.43% of the entire population, which means that Jewish prisoners make up half their numbers proportionally. The report also indicated a similar situation in Europe. In Poland, for example, 4.8% of prisoners are Jewish, whereas the percentage of Jews in the general population is 13%.

50 Years Agoin the forward Six Israeli soldiers were killed this week in a bloody battle with Jordanian soldiers near Bet Guvrin. Also, by using dynamite, Egyptian terrorists destroyed part of the railroad tracks running from Beersheba to Tel Aviv. Apparently the Egyptians had planned to blow up a train, but the explosives went off early and only destroyed the tracks. The tracks of the terrorists indicated that they entered Israel through Gaza and exited through Jordan. The Israeli Foreign Ministry condemned the sabotage and blamed Egypt for the aggression.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

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.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

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.