December 2, 2005
100 YEARS AGO IN THE FORWARD
Manhattan’s Lower East Side residents Rebecca Sadowsky, Sarah Leshinsky, Beka Rosenberg and Otto Levsky, who range in age from 9 to 14, appeared this week in the Essex Market Court, accompanied by their parents. All four children had been arrested for truancy, and records indicated that they had not appeared in school for quite some time. The police officer who made the arrest informed the judge that all the children work in sweatshops in order to help out their impoverished families. Though none of them could read or write very well, the judge had pity on them and set them free.
75 YEARS AGO IN THE FORWARD
The population of Brooklyn’s largest Jewish orphanage, Pride of Judea, stands at 300 children and is still growing. One of New York’s largest such institution, it takes up an entire city block. As a result of the current economic depression, many parents are no longer able to support their families and have had to place their children in orphanages. Most of the orphanges’ children are there as a result of desertion cases, and they range in age from just a few months to 16 years. These kids are well cared for and well educated, and it is hoped that they will grow up to become upstanding members of society.
Mother Jones is dead at the age of 100. The renowned labor rights activist and mother of the labor movement passed away surrounded by friends and family. Fearless and fiery, Mother Jones spent most of her life struggling for the rights of working men and women. Born Mary Harris, she came to the United States from Ireland at age 6 after her father became a wanted man for revolutionary activity. After losing all her children in a yellow fever epidemic, she began to work for the labor movement — the miners in particular — though she involved herself in the struggles of a variety of different industries.
50 YEARS AGO IN THE FORWARD
For the third time since the end of the war, the Soviet press has begun an antisemitic campaign. In nearly every Soviet newspaper published throughout Russia, openly antisemitic articles have appeared. They accuse certain “criminals,” all of whom have obviously Jewish names, of a variety of crimes against the Soviet people. Over the past few months, articles in newspapers from Moscow to Minsk have accused people with such names as Avram Lazarovitch Kreizman and Zelig Davidovitch Shmuelevitch of bribery, swindle and theft. To emphasize their Jewishness, the names are repeated multiple times throughout the articles.
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