Looking Back: February 3, 2012
100 Years Ago in the Forward
A gang of suspected horse poisoners is believed to be behind the recent murder of blacksmith Louis Blumenthal, who worked at Lower Manhattan’s Witkin’s Stables, located at Division and Ludlow streets. With several horses dead, the police are sure that there are witnesses, but it is obvious that they are too frightened to come forward and testify. Although everyone initially questioned by the police claims to have seen and heard “nothing,” the assistant district attorney claims that he has three witnesses willing to testify that they saw one Jacob Cohen feeding a horse on Monroe Street. A veterinarian who was called determined that the horse had been poisoned. Cohen says he is innocent.
75 Years Ago in the Forward
An anti-Jewish leaflet has been seen posted around town, apparently a response to the growing anti-Nazi boycott of German goods:
“White People! Do not buy from Jews! Keep your money in America. The Jew, Samuel Untermeyer, president of the ‘non-sectarian’ (Jewish) Anti-Nazi League, says that Jews will stop the Schmeling-Braddock fight. The reason he gives is that ‘we don’t want any of the money to go to Germany.’ But such behavior is a stick with two ends: Let us stop the businesses of the kikes because we don’t want the money to go to Palestine.”
Calling for a boycott of Jewish businesses, as well as for pogroms against Jews, the leaflet closes with “Fry the kikes in boiling pig fat” and is signed by the “Anti-Jew League to Protect American Rights.”
50 Years Ago in the Forward
An Eastern Airways plane flying to Miami from New York’s LaGuardia Airport crashed onto Rikers Island shortly after takeoff. Of the 101 people on board the ill-fated flight, 20 passengers are dead, half of them thought to be Jewish. Among them was Forverts writer Leo Robbins, who had planned a vacation in Miami Beach. Twenty more passengers were taken to area hospitals, in critical condition. The remaining passengers, many of whom were injured, were also taken to the hospital. Blizzardlike weather conditions are the suspected cause of the crash.
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