May 21, 2010

100 Years Ago in The Forward

Mass arrests of Jews have been taking place in Kiev. Many of the families that have been cruelly victimized by the czar’s policies have been given only two days to leave the city. Police have been forcing Jews out of Kiev proper and into a number of smaller towns outside the city. After a short time, these Jews are then forced to leave the towns for parts unknown. While an official Russian government telegram denied these allegations, reports in the Viennese press indicate that Jews have been brutally forced out of a number of Russian cities during the past few weeks. It has also been reported that special Russian army battalions have been sent to Kiev to help root out its Jewish residents.

75 Years Ago in The Forward

Organized-crime syndicates are working together in order to break the stranglehold that these racketeers have over the city’s industries and unions. The police department has said that it is currently investigating a number of local industries and that it plans to root out not only the small-time crooks involved, but the major players, as well. Among the gangsters in which the police are interested are Dutch Schultz, Joe Weiner, Lepke Buchalter and Abner “Longy” Zwillman, all of whom have been implicated in graft and racketeering in many of New York’s unions and industries.

50 Years Ago in The Forward

Anat Lavi, a recent winner of one of Israel’s major beauty pageants, is currently visiting New York as part of an Israeli delegation. Interestingly, Lavi was born Annette Levy in Warsaw, and lived in the ghetto during the beginning of the war; however, she was given to a Christian family on the Aryan side before the ghetto was liquidated and the Nazis murdered her parents. Raised by Poles during the war, she was 9 years old when she first found out that she was Jewish. When she arrived in Israel in 1957, her beauty was quickly recognized and she was entered in a pageant. Lavi is now working as a model.

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