August 26, 2011
100 Years Ago in The Forward
Sarah Cohen, 18, was walking home from work on Manhattan’s Lower East Side when a thief accosted her, snatching her purse. The thief wasn’t fast enough, and Ms. Cohen managed to grab him. But along came another thief, apparently a friend of the first one, and grabbed the purse as victim and perpetrator tussled. Ms. Cohen was having none of it. She grabbed the first one by the collar and started running after the second, catching him at the end of the block. She then yelled for the police, who arrived and arrested the men. They were local residents Frank Feldman and David Falk. The magistrate in the Essex Market Court commended Ms. Cohen for her bravery.
75 Years Ago in The Forward
If one goes to the old, religious yishuv in Jerusalem — in Meah-Shearim, for example, — it’s easy to find out the reasons for the wave of terrorism in Palestine: It’s because of Jewish women. According to dozens of paskvilim, or the wall placards on which the ultra-Orthodox community gets its news, the responsibility for terrorist attacks in which Jews and Arabs have been killed has less to do with politics and more to do with women’s clothing. “The reason for all the difficulties, troubles and tragedies from which the Jewish people in both the Diaspora and especially in our land are suffering, is due to the profligacy of our Jewish wives and daughters,” one of the placards read. “They wear sleeveless shirts in public. The material of their shirts is so thin that they are practically naked and when one sees the outlines of their body parts, even truly religious men cannot control the evil inclination.”
50 Years Ago in The Forward
It has been 13 years since Yiddish culture was destroyed in the Soviet Union. So when it was announced last spring in Moscow that a new Yiddish journal would begin publication, the news was welcomed. But it’s been more than a year and nothing has appeared. They say, however, that the first issue of a magazine called Sovetish Heymland will appear on newsstands in short order. Edited by poet Aron Vergelis, the publication is looked upon as a step forward in the opening up of Jewish cultural life. In order to combat the claim that Yiddish literary life in the USSR had been destroyed in 1952 with the executions of major Yiddish literary talents, he showed journalists a list of hundreds of names of Yiddish writers and said they were all writing in Yiddish regularly.
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a gift today!
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Most Popular
- 1
Culture Cardinals are Catholic, not Jewish — so why do they all wear yarmulkes?
- 2
News School Israel trip turns ‘terrifying’ for LA students attacked by Israeli teens
- 3
Fast Forward Ye debuts ‘Heil Hitler’ music video that includes a sample of a Hitler speech
- 4
Fast Forward Student suspended for ‘F— the Jews’ video defends himself on antisemitic podcast
In Case You Missed It
-
Yiddish קאָנצערט לכּבֿוד דעם ייִדישן שרײַבער און רעדאַקטאָר באָריס סאַנדלערConcert honoring Yiddish writer and editor Boris Sandler
דער בעל־שׂימחה האָט יאָרן לאַנג געדינט ווי דער רעדאַקטאָר פֿונעם ייִדישן פֿאָרווערטס.
-
Fast Forward Trump’s new pick for surgeon general blames the Nazis for pesticides on our food
-
Fast Forward Jewish feud over Trump escalates with open letter in The New York Times
-
Fast Forward First American pope, Leo XIV, studied under a leader in Jewish-Catholic relations
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.