Forward.com

November 28, 2008100 Years Ago in the Forward: Police are currently investigating the murder-suicide that occurred in New York City at 123 Clinton Street, in the apartment of Max and Molly Goldstein. As it appears, following a fight, Max, a 75-year-old pushcart peddler, stabbed his wife to death and then killed himself.
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November 21, 2008100 Years Ago in the Forward: A massive fire broke out in Beth Elohim, a Reform synagogue on Kip Street in Brooklyn. Joseph Dresher, the synagogue’s next-door neighbor, discovered the blaze. He alerted the shames (synagogue caretaker), who, upon opening the door, saw the entire eastern wall of the synagogue engulfed in flames. It took firefighters awhile to get things under control. Beth Elohim’s rabbi, Simon Cohen, suspected that thieves set the fire to cover their tracks. Firemen, however, thought that faulty wiring behind the ark might have been the cause. It is expected that further investigation will shed some light on what really happened.
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November 14, 2008100 Years Ago in the Forward: In response to a query about the religious views of president-in-waiting William Howard Taft, Theodore Roosevelt, the outgoing president, has declared that a president’s religious orientation should not play a role in his ability to perform his duties. The query noted that Taft is a Unitarian and alleged that such religion is tantamount to being a nonbeliever. Although Roosevelt argued that it would be difficult to get elected president of the United States as a nonbeliever, he added that Abraham Lincoln refused to belong to any church of any kind. He added that in his Cabinet there are Protestants, Catholics and Jews, all of whom perform their duties without connection to their religious beliefs. He also said that one day, there will even be a Jewish president.
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