This is the Forward’s coverage of Jewish culture where you’ll learn about the latest (and sometimes earliest) in Jewish art, music (including of course Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen), film, theater, books as well as the secret Jewish history of…
Culture
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April 18, 2003
100 YEARS AGO • The police arrested a gang of eight Italians and charged them with the murder of an unknown person whose body had been found stuffed in a barrel on 11th Street. Those arrested are alleged to be members in the mysterious secret society called “mafia.” The group of eight was already under…
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April 11, 2003
100 YEARS AGO • A policeman found Lower East Side celebrity and restaurateur Big Dave Bernstein stumbling around the Bowery with a revolver hanging out of his pocket. Big Dave, known locally for his strength, had blood pouring out of a wound in his chest. When the cop tried to help him, he pushed the…
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April 4, 2003
100 YEARS AGO • When her tenement on Henry Street went up in flames, 14-year-old Rosie Rothstein ran into the hallway screaming for someone to save her 84-year-old grandfather. But in the chaos, no one in the crowd paid any attention to her. “You’re a bunch of sissies,” the girl yelled, running back into the…
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March 28, 2003
100 YEARS AGO • A project is underway in the Pale of Settlement to give Jews of small shtetls the same legal status as that of the peasantry. This is worrisome to the Jews, since this places them under direct control of the noble class, which has the legal right to physically beat their subjects….
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March 21, 2003
100 YEARS AGO • A savage mass attacked the Jewish quarter of Filippov, Bulgaria, after a rumor spread that a Jew planned to kidnap a Christian child and use his blood to make matzo on Passover. A number of Jews were killed and the community is in fear for its life. Stores have been shuttered,…
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March 14, 2003
100 YEARS AGO • From Rivington to Hester Street, and all over the Lower East Side, dozens of Jews stood around waving their fists, threatening to “hang that Haman” even before Purim. “Haman,” in this case,” is Sanitation Commissioner Woodbury, who declared that the selling of fish from pushcarts will be permitted no longer. It…
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March 7, 2003
100 YEARS AGO • A strike like no other has broken out in Omaha, Neb. The small Jewish community is up in arms since the Shabbat goyim have gone on strike, demanding an increase in their wages. The Shabbat goyim, who light the gas and turn on the ovens for the Jews, decided that 10…
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February 28, 2003
100 YEARS AGO • Three Jewish workers from the cloak-maker shop of Kastovitz and Polanski came into the offices of the Forward and informed us of the following terrible conditions in their shop. The sewing machine operators are all Jews, but the 12 pressers are all Italians who let themselves be treated like slaves. The…
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January 31, 2003
100 YEARS AGO • The Essex Market Court was a full house after the police came out in force to arrest petty criminals on the Lower East Side. Among those in custody was one George Meyer, who was arrested on an accusation made by Harris Katz, who said that Meyer had shot at him with…
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Arabic Grows at Ivy League In Burst of Post-9/11 Interest
When Rachel Smith began taking Arabic at Princeton University two years ago, she had no choice about which class to take: Only one was offered. Today there are three sections. Since the attacks of September 11, 2001, many more students at Ivy League colleges have begun studying Arabic. Like Smith, many of these students are…
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A ‘Screen Test’ as Teacher To the Hollywood Crowd
God knows how I became a teacher. At 29, I’d spent most of my post-Cornell years working on a writing career. First came my stellar screenwriting stint, the highlights of which included one “Winnie the Pooh” special (I put Eeyore on Prozac), two shelved studio comedies and, I’m sorry to say, one of those tawdry…
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Opinion Outrage over Nicholas Kristof’s op-ed on sexual assault of Palestinians is missing the point
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