July 25, 2003

100 YEARS AGO

• Socialist revolutionaries all over Russia are protesting and demonstrating. Last week in Baku, more than 40,000 workers took over the streets of the city and did battle with government troops. The revolutionaries also attacked a train carrying czarist soldiers, tearing up the tracks and derailing the cars. Government ships were also held in the shipyard. The courageous workers of Baku, along with their many supporters, are standing up to the tyranny of the czarist government. Revolutionaries in the rest of the country are emboldened by their actions.

75 YEARS AGO

• There are pickets outside of the biggest synagogue in the Bronx, the Beth Hamedrash Hagodol, but the fight isn’t between workers and bosses, but between synagogue members. And the inside of the shul has become a real battlefield. The police have become frequent guests there in order to break up fights that have been occurring during prayer and meetings. The conflict has its origins in a 3-year-old merger between the synagogue and a nearby Talmud Torah. The rabbi of the synagogue began to complain that the principal of the Talmud Torah was not religious enough. The members who sent their children to the Talmud Torah, however, are standing by the principal, who they say is excellent. In the meantime, a court order has been issued on behalf of the rabbi that does not permit the principal to enter the synagogue.

• According to a study by the Department of Commerce, there are now more than 4 million Jews in the United States, 2 million of whom live in the state of New York. The statistics were taken from the rolls of the nearly 3,000 Jewish congregations and other organizations. According to the study, far more Jews live in large cities than in small towns. One apparent flaw in the study is the fact that there are Jews who do not belong to synagogues or any other Jewish organizations.

50 YEARS AGO

• For the first time since the end of Hitler’s regime, neo-Nazis have been openly promoting antisemitic propaganda. They have even published a brochure saying that it was Jews who organized the murder of their brethren during the war so that they could sue Germany for war crimes and place the blame on the Germans as mass murderers. While this development is disheartening, it was also reported that the vast majority of German political parties staunchly oppose the entrance of neo-Nazis into their new democracy.

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