Week of June 16

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June 16, 1968

Jennie Grossinger Day!

June 17, 1908

Birth of Trude Weiss-Rosmarin, editor and commentator on American Jewish life

June 18, 1901

First North Carolinian graduates from Smith College

June 19, 1939

Mizrachi Women meet independently for first time

June 19, 1953

Execution of Ethel Rosenberg

June 19, 1995

First syndicated appearance of "Rhymes With Orange"

June 20, 1910

Fanny Brice's Ziegfield Follies debut

June 21, 2004

Felice Gaer asks U.N. to take on anti-Semitism

 

June 16, 1968

Jennie Grossinger Day!

Jennie Grossinger, who helped make the Catskills resort Grossinger's into the most famous retreat of its kind, was born in Austria on June 16, 1892. At age eight, she immigrated with her family to New York, where she struggled to learn English and succeed in school. At thirteen, she left school to work in a garment factory, providing her family with much-needed income. In 1914, her father bought a piece of land in the Catskills, intending to leave factory work and return to farming. It soon became clear that the rocky soil would never support a prosperous farm, and Jennie suggested that the family take in boarders. The first year, the family charged $9 a week and cleared a net profit of $81. From that modest beginning, Grossinger's was born.

Although the initial farmhouse lacked heat, electricity, and indoor plumbing, its other amenities helped to make it a success. Jennie Grossinger's mother, Malka, was a good kosher cook, and Jennie's warm personality was credited with making guests feel at home. In addition, Jennie's husband Harry (a cousin with the same last name), who had stayed in New York, was able to send guests their way. By 1919, the family had made enough money to sell the original farmhouse and buy a nearby hotel. Grossinger's thrived in the 1920s, becoming an opulent resort with tennis courts, a children's camp, crystal chandeliers, and an auditorium that featured world-class entertainers. It was in this decade that Grossinger's became a destination of choice for upwardly mobile East Coast Jews.

Although the decade of the Great Depression brought hard times, Grossinger's managed to stay open. One innovative development was the establishment of a training camp for boxers. The boxers provided much-needed income, while Grossinger's provided a Jewish atmosphere and facilities. In the years after the Second World War, Grossinger's fame spread from Jews to non-Jews. While maintaining its kosher kitchen, the resort began to attract a non-Jewish clientele. Part of this was due to the successful national distribution and marketing of "Grossinger's Rye," accompanied by Jennie Grossinger's image and signature. By 1970, non-Jews were estimated to make up one third of the 150,000 annual guests. In the post-war years, such prominent figures as Eleanor Roosevelt, Robert Kennedy, and Nelson Rockefeller visited the resort.

In addition to providing what the New York Times called "the tone of the place" at Grossinger's, Jennie Grossinger was active in a variety of philanthropic endeavors. She endowed a clinic and a convalescent home in Israel. In 1955, she was recognized by the Jewish War Veterans for "devoted service to the Jewish community and to the promotion of interfaith understanding." The same year, she was honored by the South Hudson, NJ, Women's Division of the American Jewish Congress "for her humanitarianism and her contributions to the happiness and welfare of others." In 1968, Governor Nelson Rockefeller designated June 16, Grossinger's birthday, as Jennie Grossinger Day in New York State. It was the first time such an honor had ever been bestowed on a living woman.

Although she turned over the administration of Grossinger's to her children in 1964, Jennie Grossinger remained the soul of the resort. According to her obituary, she fostered "an atmosphere that combined urgent family solicitude for guests with an elegance that gave to many an opulent feeling they never enjoyed at home." She continued to live in a cottage on the resort property until her death on November 20, 1972. In 1985, Grossinger's was sold to a group of investors, passing permanently out of the family hands. The resort has been closed ever since, as it has passed from one investor to another, none of which has succeeded with renovation plans. Only the Grossinger's golf course remains open to the public.

Sources: Jewish Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia, pp. 556-558; New York Times, March 16, 1955, May 19, 1955, November 21, 1972, October 19, 1985; www.brown.edu/Research/Catskills_Institute/hotelnews/grossinger4.html; www.brown.edu/Research/Catskills_Institute/hotelnews/grossinger2.html; Joel Pomerantz, Jennie and the Story of Grossinger's (New York, 1970); Antler, Joyce, You Never Call! You Never Write!: A History of the Jewish Mother (New York, 2007), pp. 116–121.

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June 17, 1908

Birth of Trude Weiss-Rosmarin, editor and commentator on American Jewish life

Born in Germany on June 17, 1908, Trude Weiss-Rosmarin became a major commentator on the nature of American Jewish life. Raised in Frankfurt, Weiss-Rosmarin was active in Jewish and Zionist organizations throughout her youth. After studying at the Universities of Berlin and Leipzig, she earned a doctorate in Semitics, philosophy, and archeology at the University of Wurzburg in 1931. Later that year, she immigrated to New York with her husband.

Unable to find a teaching position in Assyriology, her academic specialty, Weiss-Rosmarin and her husband opened the School of the Jewish Woman in Manhattan in October 1933, initially under the auspices of Hadassah. Dedicated to combating what she saw as women's inadequate access to Jewish education, Weiss-Rosmarin offered classes in Hebrew, Yiddish, Bible, and Jewish History. In 1935, she introduced a school newsletter, which soon became the Jewish Spectator. Although the school closed in 1939, Weiss-Rosmarin edited the Spectator for another fifty years.

The Spectator, billed as "a typical family magazine, with a special appeal to the woman," covered a wide range of Jewish topics, including fiction, poetry, and Weiss-Rosmarin's editorials. It was through these editorials that Weiss-Rosmarin wielded influence on the American Jewish community. Though her opinions were sometimes controversial, her columns were distinguished by passionate yet nuanced and logical arguments on a range of topics. A Zionist from her youth, she used her column to argue for Jewish-Arab coexistence in Israel, and attacked bureaucracy and inefficiencies in Jewish communal organizations such as the Jewish Agency. Always dedicated to Jewish education, she argued for the primacy of the synagogue over the federation, and advocated for Jewish day schools even when many American Jews saw them as un-American. She argued for changes in Jewish family law, especially the laws governing divorce, but opposed women's prayer groups on the grounds that self-segregation was no better than segregation imposed by others. In her column, she pushed for egalitarianism in both worship services and in Jewish public life.

In addition to editing the Spectator, Weiss-Rosmarin contributed to other Jewish periodicals around the world, including a regular column in the London Jewish Chronicle. She also served on the boards of the National Jewish Curriculum Institute and the Jewish Book Council, and as national co-chair of education for the Zionist Organization of America. She taught briefly at both New York University and the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, and published books on a variety of subjects, including women's roles in Judaism, and the relationship between Judaism and Christianity. Weiss-Rosmarin died of cancer in 1989.

Sources: Jewish Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia, pp. 1463-1465; New York Times, September 3, 1967.

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June 18, 1901

First North Carolinian graduates from Smith College

On June 18, 1901, Gertrude Weil became the first North Carolina resident to graduate from Smith College, in Northampton, Massachusetts. Born and raised in Goldsboro, NC, Weil returned to her hometown after college. She immediately began to apply the lessons of women's rights, political action, and social justice she had absorbed at Smith, becoming a lifelong leader of progressive social causes.

Born in 1879 to a prominent and civically involved German-Jewish family, Weil was educated in the Goldsboro schools until age 15, when she was sent to the coeducational and progressive Horace Mann School in New York City.

Weil took up her family legacy of social service after graduating from Smith. Her first communal role was with the Goldsboro Women's Club, of which she soon became president. Her zeal was soon recognized by the North Carolina Federation of Women's Clubs, and she became an officer in that organization. Her enthusiasm for the work earned her the nickname "Federation Gertie." Although she was offered the presidency of the Federation in 1919, she turned it down in order to concentrate on the fight for women's suffrage.

Weil first became involved with the suffrage movement in 1914, when she helped found the Goldsboro Equal Suffrage Association. By 1917, she was an officer in the North Carolina Equal Suffrage League; she became the League's president in 1919. Her involvement in such a controversial issue was rare for a Jewish woman, especially in the South. Fearing the repercussions of anti-Semitism, particularly after the 1913 lynching of Leo Frank in Atlanta, most Southern Jews maintained a low political profile. Weil, however, stood at the forefront of a very public and bitter campaign. Despite her best efforts, women's suffrage had to advance without North Carolina. Her state's legislature failed to ratify the 19th amendment in 1920. Undaunted, Weil turned her efforts to a new cause, founding the North Carolina League of Women Voters to educate women about voting and other newly-won rights.

Over the next five decades, Weil was a major presence in Goldsboro's civic life. Awarding her a Smith College medal in 1964 (the first year the medals were bestowed), the college president noted that Weil's "career of public service [was] so extensive that it is difficult to find in the State of North Carolina a cultural, charitable, welfare, civic or educational organization with which [her] name . . . has not been connected." Her affiliations ranged from the Temple Sisterhood to the Art Society, from the Girl Scouts to the Community Chest, a Depression-era relief agency. She taught Sunday School, worked for labor reform legislation, and funded a county nurse before the creation of a public health system.

Among these varied causes, one of the most significant was racial integration. Long before the start of the national civil rights movement, Weil joined organizations working for interracial cooperation. In 1930, she participated in the Anti-Lynching Conference of Southern White Women, and then joined the Association of Southern Women for the Prevention of Lynching. These groups countered the assertion that lynching was necessary to protect white women from the supposed sexual threat of African-American men. In 1932, Weil was appointed to the North Carolina Commission on Interracial Cooperation. Her dedication to civil rights remained strong through the decades. She continued to live in downtown Goldsboro long after most white people had left, inviting African-American neighbors into her house in defiance of Southern norms. In 1963, she convened a Bi-Racial Council in her home. In addition, she was active in establishing parks and pools for underprivileged African-American neighborhoods.

Weil's commitment to this wide variety of civic causes lasted throughout her life. When she died in Goldsboro on May 3, 1971, she left behind a strong legacy of social justice and social welfare work and a community intimately shaped by her long career of involvement in progressive activism.

Sources: jwa.org/exhibits/wov/weil/ (JWA web exhibit on Gertrude Weil); Jewish Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia, pp. 1459-1461; Moses Rountree, Strangers in the Land: The Story of Jacob Weil's Tribe (Philadelphia, 1969).

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June 19, 1939

Mizrachi Women meet independently for first time

The Mizrachi Women's Organization opened its first independent meeting on June 19, 1939, in Atlantic City. Although it was the group's fourteenth annual meeting, it was the first conducted separately from a men's organization. Now the largest religious Zionist organization in the United States (under the name AMIT), the organization owes its creation to Freda Resnikoff.

Born in Russia in 1880, Resnikoff settled in New York City with her husband and four children in 1907. Just three years later, she helped found Bnos Mizrachi, an educational charity that was incorporated as Mizrachi Women in 1925. In contrast to secular Zionist women's organizations, Mizrachi Women was especially devoted to the needs of religiously observant Jewish girls in Palestine. The first and second major waves of European immigration to Israel consisted almost entirely of secular Jews; by the early twentieth-century, however, more and more religious Jews from both Europe and Arab countries were settling there. This demographic change created new needs and new opportunities for charitable organizations like Resnikoff's.

Originally founded to create vocational schools for religious girls in Palestine, Mizrachi Women soon became a major force in the field of education in Israel. The organization opened its first vocational high school for girls in Jerusalem in 1933, and a second school in Tel Aviv in 1938. In 1943, the organization's role expanded when it took charge of a group of children who had arrived in Israel through Youth Aliyah, as refugees from Nazi-occupied Europe. Because few of the existing resettlement agencies could accommodate the needs of religiously observant youth, Mizrachi Women founded a series of child-care centers and youth villages to meet their needs. In 1984 and 1991, the organization was central to the absorption of Ethiopian Jewish youth.

In 1981, the Israeli government recognized the Mizrachi Women schools, bringing them into the public religious education network. In 1983, the organization began working with troubled youth, establishing a system of family-like settings for them. In 1996, this work was recognized by the Ministry of Education's Religious Education Prize.

In 1983, the Mizrachi Women's Organization changed its name to AMIT. In doing so, it marked its long-standing autonomy from the religious Zionist organizations of Mizrachi men. Although the organization had been autonomous since 1934, the change of name was a symbol of its independent status. Today, AMIT claims 80,000 members in 475 chapters. Freda Resnikoff died on April 29, 1965, but her daughters, daughters-in-law, and granddaughter have remained involved with AMIT, with several serving successively as national president and national vice president of the organization.

Sources: Jewish Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia, pp. 48-49, 1145; New York Times, June 20, 1939.

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June 19, 1953

Execution of Ethel Rosenberg

Although they were tried and executed more than half a century ago, Ethel and Julius Rosenberg's names remain familiar to most Americans. Put to death on June 19, 1953, after their conviction for conspiracy to commit treason, the Rosenbergs were at the center of one of the most famous and controversial espionage cases of the twentieth century. Fifty-four years after her death, Ethel Rosenberg's role remains one of the most contested aspects of the whole affair.

Despite her sensational death, Ethel Rosenberg was not a lifelong political activist. Born to Russian immigrants on New York's Lower East Side in 1915, the young Ethel hoped for a career in theater or music. Although she went to work instead of to college after her 1931 graduation from high school, she studied experimental theatre at the Clark Settlement House and also studied music. She joined the Schola Cantorum, a vocal group that performed at Carnegie Hall and the Metropolitan Opera House. Even as she maintained the dream of a musical career, her work in a shipping company was leading her in a new direction.

At work, Ethel Rosenberg was introduced for the first time to union organizers and Communist Party members. Exploring radical political philosophy through music and theatre as well as evening discussions, she came to agree with many of the Communist Party's goals, such as fighting fascism and racism and supporting unions. When the workers in her union called a strike in 1935, she was one of four members of the strike committee. She continued to sing, however, and it was at a performance at a Seaman's Union benefit that she met Julius Rosenberg. They were married in 1939. After their marriage, Julius remained active in the Communist Party, but Ethel left both politics and music behind to focus on raising their two sons.

Following the arrest of a German-born physicist who had worked on the Manhattan Project to develop the U.S. atomic bomb, a series of revelations led, in June 1950, to the arrest of Julius Rosenberg as an atomic spy. Ethel's arrest followed in July. The pair were turned in by Ethel's youngest brother, David Greenglass, apparently to protect his own wife from prosecution. Evidence suggests that Ethel was held mainly in an effort to force her husband to reveal further names and information.

On March 29, 1951, following a high-profile trial, the Rosenbergs were convicted of treason, in the form of passing atomic secrets to Russia. Ethel's refusal to fulfill a stereotypical feminine role by breaking into tears during the trial was thought to show that she was unwomanly and more attached to Communism than to her children. Her stoicism may have helped to turn the jury of 11 men and one woman against her.

The global political context was also a clear factor. In pronouncing their death sentence, Judge Irving Kaufman described the Rosenbergs' crime as "worse than murder ... causing the communist aggression in Korea," thus blaming them for the Korean War. The conviction and sentence were followed by a lengthy series of appeals.

Although a number of leftist organizations protested the verdict, Jewish organizations were conspicuously absent in the Rosenbergs' defense. Public condemnation of the Rosenbergs, a general identification of Jews with left-wing causes, and the shadow of McCarthyism made many Jews fear that their own loyalty was under scrutiny. Some Jewish leaders, including the American Jewish Committee, publicly endorsed the guilty verdict.

Following failed pleas for clemency to President Truman and then to President Eisenhower, the Rosenbergs were executed on June 19, 1953. Ethel was only the second woman ever to be executed by the federal government. To the end, both Rosenbergs insisted on their innocence. Documents recently unsealed in both the U.S. and Russia show that although Julius Rosenberg was probably guilty, Ethel's role in any conspiracy was tiny at most.

While scholarly debate over the Rosenberg case continues, their names remain a touchstone for many. Playwright Tony Kushner, for instance, offered a powerful portrayal of Ethel Rosenberg's strength and humanity in his landmark production Angels in America. Heir to an Execution (2004), a recent documentary by the Rosenbergs' granddaughter, Ivy Meeropol, presents a particularly moving portrayal of how Ethel confronted her arrest, trial and execution.

Sources: Jewish Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia, pp. 1174-1176; Marjorie Garber and Rebecca Walkowitz, eds., Secret Agents: The Rosenberg Case, McCarthyism, and Fifties America (New York, 1995); Ilene Philipson, Ethel Rosenberg: Beyond the Myth (New York, 1988); Ronald Radosh and Joyce Milton, The Rosenberg File: A Search for the Truth (New York, 1983); Joseph Sharlitt, Fatal Error: The Miscarriage of Justice that Sealed the Rosenbergs' Fate (New York, 1989); Los Angeles Times, March 30, 1951; New York Times, April 6, 1951, June 20, 1953; Chicago Daily Tribune, October 14, 1952, June 20, 1953.

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June 19, 1995

First syndicated appearance of "Rhymes With Orange"

The cartoon strip Rhymes With Orange appeared in syndication for the first time on June 19, 1995. With its debut, twenty-five-year-old cartoonist Hilary Price became the youngest woman ever to have a nationally-syndicated cartoon strip.

Raised in Weston, MA, and educated at Stanford, Price worked in advertising before becoming a cartoonist full time. Her cartoons first appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle. Today, Rhymes With Orange appears in more than 100 daily newspapers across the country. The strip has also been featured in People, Glamour, and The Funny Times.

So what really rhymes with orange? Nothing. Price says she chose the title "to show the singularity of the strip's perspective." That perspective, she notes, is not "traditionally represented on the comics page" and comes out of her own experience: "Being Jewish, feminist, gay—it all informs my work." Rather than regular characters, Rhymes With Orange uses a changing cast of people, animals, and household objects to provide social commentary on the details of daily life. Price feels like she has a special opportunity to present Jewish themes: "when I get ideas about Jewish holidays for the strip I know not everyone in the general population will get it. But I also know that those who do get the Passover strip love it."

Price cites Dr. Seuss, Shel Silverstein, and a variety of New Yorker cartoonists as influences. Vitally important, however, was the work of Sandra Boynton, one of very few successful female cartoonists during Price's youth. Price credits Boynton with showing her that a woman could succeed professionally in this male-dominated field. As a successful cartoonist herself, Price hopes to provide a similar example for young women today.

In addition to her daily strip, Price's books include Rhymes With Orange (1997), Reigning Cats and Dogs: A Rhymes With Orange Tribute to Those Who Shed (2003), and Pithy Seedy Pulpy Juicy: Eleven Rhymes with Orange Books in One (2007). Price currently lives—and draws—in Massachusetts.

Sources: Re://collections (Jewish Women's Archive), vol 6:2 (Fall, 2004); www.rhymeswithorange.com; www.kingfeatures.com/features/comics/orange/bioMaina.htm.

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June 20, 1910

Fanny Brice's Ziegfield Follies debut

In her unfinished autobiography, Fanny Brice wrote, "I lived the way I wanted to live and never did what people said I should do." What Brice wanted to do was act, and in a career that spanned over four decades, she achieved success as a comic actress on Broadway and on radio. Born in New York City in 1891, Brice acted in neighborhood amateur contests as a child, and determined early in life that she wanted a professional performing career.

Her first break came in 1907, when she joined a touring production of The Royal Slave, a popular melodrama. When the acting company went bankrupt, she joined a burlesque troupe, with which she performed for three years. It was in the 1909-1910 season that she first performed Irving Berlin's comedy song, "Sadie Salome, Go Home." Brice made the song a hit by performing it with a pronounced Yiddish accent. Though Brice reportedly spoke no Yiddish, she played into the popularity of ethnic comedy by adopting stereotypical mannerisms and the accent.

The style that Brice adopted for "Sadie Salome," relying on physical comedy, parody, and an accent, became her trademark for the rest of her career. Performing similar characters of her own creation, she found success in the Ziegfeld Follies, where she first performed on June 20, 1910, and where she ultimately performed for nine seasons. Brice was less successful in serious roles. In 1918's Why Worry? and in 1926's Fanny, she attempted to establish herself as a dramatic actress, but both shows were critical flops. During the 1920's, however, she continued to appear in the Follies and also made several successful records. In the 1921 Follies, she performed an uncharacteristically serious song, "My Man", which was a success with audiences. Yet when she became the first woman to star in a sound motion picture, also called My Man, the film was a box-office disaster. She later made five more movies, none a success.

Despite these disappointments, Brice continued to find success when she performed as a comedienne. In 1930 and 1931, she appeared in the musical revues Sweet and Low and Crazy Quilt and also began a series of popular radio broadcasts. In the late 1930s, Brice created the character for which she is perhaps best remembered, Baby Snooks. Snooks, a character Brice played for over a decade, was a terrible toddler without a trace of Yiddish accent. In 1938, Brice began a weekly radio program in which she played only Baby Snooks. Despite competition from the new medium of television, Brice's show remained popular until the end of her life. Brice died from a stroke on May 29, 1951. In her obituary, the New York Times called her "a burlesque comic of the rarest vintage."

Brice's life was profiled in movies that helped make a star of Barbra Streisand, Funny Girl (1968) and Funny Lady (1975).

Sources: New York Times, May 30, 1951; Jewish Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia, pp. 176-181; Herbert Goldman, Fanny Brice: The Original Funny Girl (1992); Barbara Grossman, Funny Woman: The Life and Times of Fanny Brice (1991); jwa.org/discover/comedy/brice.html; www.MakingTrouble.com.

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June 21, 2004

Felice Gaer asks U.N. to take on anti-Semitism

On June 21, 2004, Felice Gaer gave a speech entitled "Unlearning Intolerance: Anti-Semitic Incidents Are Not Hooliganism—They Are Human Rights Abuses; The United Nations Should Address Them As Such" at the United Nations Conference on Anti-Semitism. Gaer has long been a familiar figure at the U.N. Between 1993 and 1999, she served in nine American delegations to United Nations human rights negotiations, including the U.N. Commission on Human Rights, the World Conference on Women and the World Conference on Human Rights. In 2003, she was re-elected to the United Nations Committee Against Torture, where she is the first American and the only woman on the 10-member committee.

Gaer's focus on anti-Semitism in her June, 2004, talk reflected her ongoing work within and on behalf of the American Jewish community. She is the director of the Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights at the American Jewish Committee, where she has recently used her position to critique the treatment of Israel in international forums. In particular, she has criticized major human rights groups like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International for paying scant attention to Palestinian violence while singling out Israel for condemnation. In addition to her work at the Blaustein Institute and with the U.N., Gaer is vice chair of the Committee Against Torture and the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, a body that advises Congress, the Secretary of State, and the President.

Through more than two decades of activism in these various arenas, Gaer has established herself as a leading voice in the struggle for human rights. In 2002, the Forward newspaper chose her as one of its "Forward 50," calling her "the American Jewish international human rights expert in residence."

Sources: www.ajc.org/site/apps/nl/content2.asp?c=ijITI2PHKoG&b=1531911&ct=873105; www.ajc.org/site/c.ijITI2PHKoG/b.817837/k.2F1F/AJC_Experts.htm; www.forward.com; www.hri.ca.

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