1.
Yiddish
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Yiddish is the historical language of the Ashkenazi Jews. Yiddish is written with a fully vocalized alphabet based on the Hebrew script, the earliest surviving references date from the 12th century and call the language לשון־אַשכּנז or טײַטש, a variant of tiutsch, the contemporary name for Middle High German. Colloquially, the language is sometimes called מאַמע־לשון, distinguishing it from לשון־קדש, the term Yiddish, short for Yiddish-Teitsch, did not become the most frequently used designation in the literature until the 18th century. In the late 19th and into the 20th century the language was commonly called Jewish, especially in non-Jewish contexts. Modern Yiddish has two major forms, Eastern Yiddish is far more common today. It includes Southeastern, Mideastern, and Northeastern dialects, Eastern Yiddish differs from Western both by its far greater size and by the extensive inclusion of words of Slavic origin. Western Yiddish is divided into Southwestern, Midwestern, and Northwestern dialects, the term Yiddish is also used in the adjectival sense, synonymously with Jewish, to designate attributes of Ashkenazi culture. Prior to the Holocaust, there were over 10 million speakers of Yiddish, 85% of the Jews who died in the Holocaust were Yiddish speakers, assimilation following World War II further decreased the use of Yiddish both among survivors and Yiddish-speakers from other countries. However, the number of speakers is increasing in global Hasidic communities, the established view is that, as with other Jewish languages, Jews speaking distinct languages learned new co-territorial vernaculars, which they then Judaized. Exactly what German base lies behind the earliest form of Yiddish is disputed, both Weinreich and Solomon Birnbaum developed this model further in the mid-1950s. In Weinreichs view, this Old Yiddish substrate later bifurcated into two versions of the language, Western and Eastern Yiddish. They retained the Semitic vocabulary needed for religious purposes and created a Judeo-German form of speech, recent linguistic research has finessed, contested, or challenged the Weinreich model, providing alternative approaches to the origins of Yiddish. Some theorists argue that the fusion occurred with a Bavarian dialect base, the two main candidates for the germinal matrix of Yiddish, the Rhineland and Bavaria, are not necessarily incompatible. There may have been developments in the two regions, seeding the Western and Eastern dialects of Modern Yiddish. Dovid Katz proposes that Yiddish emerged from contact between speakers of High German and Aramaic-speaking Jews from the Middle East, wexlers model has met with little academic support, and strong critical challenges, especially among historical linguists. Alternative theories recognize the extent of Yiddishs Germanic vocabulary. Ashkenaz was centered on the Rhineland and the Palatinate, in what is now the westernmost part of Germany and its geographic extent did not coincide with the German principalities of the time, and it included northern France. Ashkenaz bordered on the inhabited by another distinctive Jewish cultural group, the Sephardim or Spanish Jews
2.
American Jews
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American Jews, also known as Jewish Americans, are Americans who are Jews, either by religion, ethnicity, or nationality. The Jewish community in the United States is composed predominantly of Ashkenazi Jews and their US-born descendants, Minority Jewish ethnic divisions are also represented, including Sephardic Jews, Mizrahi Jews, and a smaller percentage of converts to Judaism. The American Jewish community manifests a wide range of Jewish cultural traditions, depending on religious definitions and varying population data, the United States is home to the largest or second largest Jewish community in the world. In 2012, the American Jewish population was estimated at between 5.5 and 8 million, depending on the definition of the term and this constitutes between 1. 7% and 2. 6% of the total U. S. population. Jews have been present in what is today the United States of America since the mid-17th century, however, they were small in number, with at most 200 to 300 having arrived by 1700. The majority were Sephardic Jewish immigrants of Spanish and Portuguese ancestry, until after 1720 when Ashkenazi Jews from Central, after passage of the Plantation Act of 1740, Jews were specifically permitted to become British citizens and immigrate to the colonies. Until about 1830, Charleston, South Carolina had more Jews than anywhere else in North America and they primarily became merchants and shop-owners. Jewish migration to the United States increased dramatically in the early 1880s, as a result of persecution, many Jews also emigrated from Romania. Over 2,000,000 Jews landed between the late 19th century and 1924, when the Immigration Act of 1924 restricted immigration, most settled in the New York metropolitan area, establishing the worlds major concentrations of Jewish population. In 1915 the circulation of the daily Yiddish newspapers was half a million in New York City alone, in addition thousands more subscribed to the numerous weekly papers and the many magazines. American Jewish writers of the time urged assimilation and integration into the wider American culture,500,000 American Jews fought in World War II, and after the war younger families joined the new trend of suburbanization. There, Jews became increasingly assimilated and demonstrated rising intermarriage, more recent waves of Jewish emigration from Russia and other regions have largely joined the mainstream American Jewish community. Americans of Jewish descent have been successful in many fields. Scholars debate whether the historical experience for Jews in the United States has been such a unique experience as to validate American exceptionalism. Korelitz shows how American Jews during the late 19th and early 20th centuries abandoned a racial definition of Jewishness in favor of one that embraced ethnicity. The key to understanding this transition from a racial self-definition to a cultural or ethnic one can be found in the ‘’Menorah Journal’’ between 1915 and 1925, siporin uses the family folklore of ethnic Jews to their collective history and its transformation into an historical art form. They tell us how Jews have survived being uprooted and transformed, many immigrant narratives bear a theme of the arbitrary nature of fate and the reduced state of immigrants in a new culture. By contrast, ethnic family narratives tend to show the more in charge of his life
3.
Kol Yisrael
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Kol Yisrael is Israels public domestic and international radio service, operated as a division of the Israel Broadcasting Authority. Kol Yisrael was originally an underground Haganah radio station that broadcast from Tel Aviv and it started consistently broadcasting in December 1947 under the name Telem-Shamir-Boaz, and was renamed to Kol HaHagana in March 1948. With Israels declaration of independence on May 14,1948, it was transformed into the official station Kol Yisrael, another station named Kol Yisrael operated in Haifa, and was renamed Kol Tzva HaHagana. The first Kol Yisrael transmission was a live broadcast from Tel Aviv of David Ben-Gurion reading of the declaration of independence and it was operated by a department of the Ministry of the Interior responsible for domestic and international broadcasts. Responsibility for the service was transferred to the Office of Posts and Telegraphs. Kol Yisrael staff was made up both of former PBS personnel as well as former staffers at the radio stations run by the Haganah. Kol Yisrael pioneered the use of FM transmission, in the early years, stations were operated in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and Haifa. The PBS had had its transmitter in Ramallah, but this transmitter was lost to Kol Israel due to Ramallah being in the Arab sector, in 1958, the international service was merged with the domestic broadcaster, with both services operating under the Kol Israel name. In 1965, the Israel Broadcasting Authority, an independent public entity, was created, in 1973, the IBA adopted the name Shidurei Yisrael for the services domestic radio and television services. The name Kol Yisrael was revived for the domestic and international service in 1979. A previous station named Kol Yisrael had briefly been operated by the Haganah in 1940 on the 42-meter band, however, the station was soon renamed when the Haganah decided that the Kol Yisrael name should be reserved until independence. Besides meaning voice of Israel, Kol Yisrael is also a wordplay which in Hebrew sounds like the all of Israel. An internet radio station was launched in 2014 and operated through 2015 under the name of Voice of Israel. This station is not connected to the official Kol Yisrael run by Israel Radio International, currently, Israel Radio International consists of a relay of REKA, plus an extended Persian broadcast. Reshet Aleph, also referred to as Kol Yisrael – General talk, Hebrew news are at the same times as Reshet Bet, listed below. Reshet Bet – Popular radio station with news and current affairs programming, there are news bulletins on the hour in Hebrew. Reshet Gimel – Radio station devoted for promoting Israeli music, as with Reshet Aleph, there are news bulletins in Hebrew at the same times as Reshet Bet. Reshet Dalet – Arabic-language radio station, REQA – Radio for olim to Israel
4.
Social Democratic Party of America
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The Social Democratic Party of America was a short-lived political party in the United States, established in 1898. The group was formed out of elements of the Social Democracy of America, following the defeat of the 1894 American Railway Union strike, the former populist Eugene V. Debs exhaustively read socialist literature provided to him by Milwaukee publisher Victor L. Berger and other independent Socialists and this paper was a major success, quickly gaining a paid subscribership of 80,000 and invigorating the Socialist movement. Debs was named the head of project and the planets were thus aligned for the formation of a new national political organization. A convention of the remnant of the American Railway Union was called for June 15,1897 in Chicago. The convention which gave birth to the new organization actually began as a final conclave of the American Railway Union, director William E. Burns called the meeting to order and A. B. Adair of the Typographical Union presided. President of the ARU Eugene Debs delivered an address to the assembled delegates, the first three days of the convention were occupied with hearing reports of officers and of committees and closing up the affairs of the American Railway Union. On Friday, June 18, the organization changed its name to the Social Democracy of America. The convention was thrown open to delegates representing other organizations. The Social Democracy of America initially did not have an official head — its executive powers were vested in an Executive Board, the unit of organization of the Social Democracy was the Local Branch of at least 5 members. On the first Tuesday in April, each of these Local Branches was to elect a representative to the State Union. An initiation fee of 25 cents was set, and monthly dues pegged at 15 cents per month, office of the organization was established at 504 Trude Building, Corner of Randolph and Wabash Aves. The Social Democracy of America proved to be a short lived and disparate group of Marxists, trade unionists, Owenite socialists, populists, the SDA initially sought to establish socialist cooperative colonies. In August 1897 a three-member Colonization Committee was established, consisting of Col. Richard J. Hinton, Wilfred P. Borland and this trio explored the possibility of establishing a colony to seed the future Cooperative Commonwealth in the Cumberland plateau of Tennessee. The colonization scheme failed to materialize by the time of the convention of the SDA, held in Chicago from June 7–11,1898. Frederic Heath, the first historian of the movement, recounted the gathering in a 1900 book, outwardly the meeting presented the picture of a pleasing and harmonious gathering, creditable to the Socialist movement. Under the surface, however, there was a hostility that meant almost certain rupture, the presence of such well-known Anarchists as Mrs. These branches had been organized by William Burns and the members of the national board
5.
Eugene V. Debs
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Through his presidential candidacies, as well as his work with labor movements, Debs eventually became one of the best-known socialists living in the United States. Early in his career, Debs was a member of the Democratic Party. He was elected as a Democrat to the Indiana General Assembly in 1884, after workers at the Pullman Palace Car Company organized a wildcat strike over pay cuts in the summer of 1894, Debs signed many into the ARU. To keep the running, President Grover Cleveland used the United States Army to break the strike. As a leader of the ARU, Debs was convicted of charges for defying a court injunction against the strike. In jail, Debs read various works of socialist theory and emerged six months later as an adherent of the international socialist movement. Debs was a member of the Social Democracy of America, the Social Democratic Party of America. Debs ran as a Socialist candidate for President of the United States five times, including 1900,1904,1908,1912, and 1920 and he was also a candidate for United States Congress from his native state Indiana in 1916. Debs was noted for his oratory, and his speech denouncing American participation in World War I led to his second arrest in 1918 and he was convicted under the Sedition Act of 1918 and sentenced to a term of 10 years. President Warren G. Harding commuted his sentence in December 1921, Debs died in 1926, not long after being admitted to a sanatorium due to cardiovascular problems that developed during his time in prison. He has since cited as the inspiration for numerous politicians. Eugene Debs was born on November 5,1855, in Terre Haute, Indiana, to Jean Daniel and Marguerite Mari Debs and his father, who came from a prosperous family, owned a textile mill and meat market. Debs was named after the French authors Eugene Sue and Victor Hugo, Debs attended public school, dropping out of high school at age 14. He took a job with the Vandalia Railroad cleaning grease from the trucks of freight engines for fifty cents a day and he later became a painter and car cleaner in the railroad shops. In December 1871, when a locomotive fireman failed to report for work. He decided to remain a fireman on the run between Terre Haute and Indianapolis, earning more than a dollar a night for the three and half years. In July 1875 Debs left to work at a wholesale grocery house, Debs had joined the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen in February 1875 and became active in the organization. In 1877 he served as a delegate of the Terre Haute lodge to the national convention
6.
Milwaukee
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Milwaukee is the largest city in the state of Wisconsin and the fifth-largest city in the Midwestern United States. The county seat of Milwaukee County, it is on Lake Michigans western shore, Milwaukees estimated population in 2015 was 600,155. Milwaukee is the cultural and economic center of the Milwaukee–Racine–Waukesha Metropolitan Area with an estimated population of 2,046,692 as of 2015. Ranked by estimated 2014 population, Milwaukee is the 31st largest city in the United States, the first Europeans to pass through the area were French Catholic missionaries and fur traders. In 1818, the French Canadian explorer Solomon Juneau settled in the area, large numbers of German immigrants helped increase the citys population during the 1840s, with Poles and other immigrants arriving in the following decades. Known for its traditions, Milwaukee is currently experiencing its largest construction boom since the 1960s. In addition, many new skyscrapers, condos, lofts and apartments have been built in neighborhoods on and near the lakefront, the word Milwaukee may come from the Potawatomi language minwaking, or Ojibwe language ominowakiing, Gathering place. The first recorded inhabitants of the Milwaukee area are the Menominee, Fox, Mascouten, Sauk, Potawatomi, Ojibwe, many of these people had lived around Green Bay before migrating to the Milwaukee area around the time of European contact. In the second half of the 18th century, the Indians at Milwaukee played a role in all the wars on the American continent. During the French and Indian War, a group of Ojibwas, in the American Revolutionary War, the Indians around Milwaukee were some of the few Indians who remained loyal to the American cause throughout the Revolution. After American independence, the Indians fought the United States in the Northwest Indian War as part of the Council of Three Fires, during the War of 1812, Indians held a council in Milwaukee in June 1812, which resulted in their decision to attack Chicago. This resulted in the Battle of Fort Dearborn on August 15,1812, the War of 1812 did not end well for the Indians, and after the Black Hawk War in 1832, the Indians in Milwaukee signed their final treaty with the United States in Chicago in 1833. This paved the way for American settlement, Europeans had arrived in the Milwaukee area prior to the 1833 Treaty of Chicago. French missionaries and traders first passed through the area in the late 17th and 18th centuries, alexis Laframboise, in 1785, coming from Michilimackinac settled a trading post, therefore, he is the first European descent resident of the Milwaukee region. Early explorers called the Milwaukee River and surrounding lands various names, Melleorki, Milwacky, Mahn-a-waukie, Milwarck, for many years, printed records gave the name as Milwaukie. One story of Milwaukees name says, ne day during the thirties of the last century a newspaper calmly changed the name to Milwaukee, the spelling Milwaukie lives on in Milwaukie, Oregon, named after the Wisconsin city in 1847, before the current spelling was universally accepted. Milwaukee has three founding fathers, Solomon Juneau, Byron Kilbourn, and George H. Walker, Solomon Juneau was the first of the three to come to the area, in 1818. He was not the first European settler but founded a town called Juneaus Side, or Juneautown, in competition with Juneau, Byron Kilbourn established Kilbourntown west of the Milwaukee River and made sure the streets running toward the river did not join with those on the east side
7.
Republican Party (United States)
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The Republican Party, commonly referred to as the GOP, is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, the other being its historic rival, the Democratic Party. The party is named after republicanism, the dominant value during the American Revolution and it was founded by anti-slavery activists, modernists, ex-Whigs, and ex-Free Soilers in 1854. The Republicans dominated politics nationally and in the majority of northern States for most of the period between 1860 and 1932, there have been 19 Republican presidents, the most from any one party. The Republican Partys current ideology is American conservatism, which contrasts with the Democrats more progressive platform, further, its platform involves support for free market capitalism, free enterprise, fiscal conservatism, a strong national defense, deregulation, and restrictions on labor unions. In addition to advocating for economic policies, the Republican Party is socially conservative. As of 2017, the GOP is documented as being at its strongest position politically since 1928, in addition to holding the Presidency, the Republicans control the 115th United States Congress, having majorities in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. The party also holds a majority of governorships and state legislatures, the main cause was opposition to the Kansas–Nebraska Act, which repealed the Missouri Compromise by which slavery was kept out of Kansas. The Northern Republicans saw the expansion of slavery as a great evil, the first public meeting of the general anti-Nebraska movement where the name Republican was suggested for a new anti-slavery party was held on March 20,1854, in a schoolhouse in Ripon, Wisconsin. The name was chosen to pay homage to Thomas Jeffersons Republican Party. The first official party convention was held on July 6,1854, in Jackson and it oversaw the preserving of the union, the end of slavery, and the provision of equal rights to all men in the American Civil War and Reconstruction, 1861–1877. The Republicans initial base was in the Northeast and the upper Midwest, with the realignment of parties and voters in the Third Party System, the strong run of John C. Fremont in the 1856 United States presidential election demonstrated it dominated most northern states, early Republican ideology was reflected in the 1856 slogan free labor, free land, free men, which had been coined by Salmon P. Chase, a Senator from Ohio. Free labor referred to the Republican opposition to labor and belief in independent artisans. Free land referred to Republican opposition to the system whereby slaveowners could buy up all the good farm land. The Party strove to contain the expansion of slavery, which would cause the collapse of the slave power, Lincoln, representing the fast-growing western states, won the Republican nomination in 1860 and subsequently won the presidency. The party took on the mission of preserving the Union, and destroying slavery during the American Civil War, in the election of 1864, it united with War Democrats to nominate Lincoln on the National Union Party ticket. The partys success created factionalism within the party in the 1870s and those who felt that Reconstruction had been accomplished and was continued mostly to promote the large-scale corruption tolerated by President Ulysses S. Grant ran Horace Greeley for the presidency. The Stalwarts defended Grant and the system, the Half-Breeds led by Chester A. Arthur pushed for reform of the civil service in 1883
8.
David Dubinsky
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David Dubinsky was an American labor leader. David Isaac Dobnievski, known to history as David Dubinsky, was born February 22,1892 in Brest-Litovsk, Dubinsky and his family moved to Łódź, Poland, shortly before he turned three. Davids father Bezalel Dobnievski, a religious Jew, owned a bakery, davids mother Shaina Wyshengrad died when he was eight, with his father remarrying a year and a half later. David worked from early childhood delivering bread from his fathers bakery to local shops, while attending a Hebrew school, where he studied Polish, Russian, and Yiddish. He was later forced to leave a semi-private school he attended to take work in his fathers bakery to replace a brother who had left abruptly. He joined the union, which was controlled by the Bund. By age 15, David was a committed socialist, in 1907, David was arrested for helping to plan a bakers strike and was held for three days. In January 1908, David was arrested again, this time for attending an election meeting held without a police permit. Not quite 16, the boy was held for 18 months in jails in Łódź, Warsaw, Dubinsky went to work in a garment factory in Brooklyn, then joined the Socialist Party in the aftermath of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire. With the help of his brothers connections through the Bakery Workers Union, Dubinsky got a job as a cutter in a cloak shop, Dubinsky was elected to the locals executive board in 1918, became vice-president of it the following year and president in 1921. He was elected to the Internationals Executive Board as a Vice-President in 1922, shortly after Dubinsky was elected to the International Executive Board Benjamin Schlesinger, the Internationals President, resigned. Dubinsky campaigned hard for election of Morris Sigman, a former IWW member who took office in 1923, Sigman began to remove Communist Party members from leadership of locals in New York, Chicago, Philadelphia and Boston. The left wing won control of the New York Joint Board, the body that coordinated the activities of all of the New York City ILGWU locals in all aspects of the industry, that year. When it called a strike on July 1,1926 Dubinsky was given a nominal role in the strike, reflecting his power base in the cutters union. That strike was a failure, leading to the rout of leftist leadership from the Joint Board and ultimately from the industry. At the 1928 convention of the ILGWU he first proposed that Sigman resign in favor of Schlesinger – a suggestion seen by many as part of a plan by Dubinsky to become the head of the union. Dubinsky denied any personal ambitions and rebuffed a proposal from Abraham Cahan of the Forward to promote him as Sigmans heir apparent, five months later, after the unions Executive Board rejected an attempt by Sigman to merge two unions, Sigman resigned and Schlesinger returned to office. The Communist Party USA opposed the new agreement but was by that time too weak to muster any resistance to Dubinsky
9.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
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Franklin Delano Roosevelt, commonly known as FDR, was an American statesman and political leader who served as the 32nd President of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. A Democrat, he won a record four presidential elections and emerged as a figure in world events during the mid-20th century. He directed the United States government during most of the Great Depression and he is often rated by scholars as one of the three greatest U. S. Presidents, along with George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. Roosevelt was born in 1882 to an old, prominent Dutch family from Dutchess County and he attended the elite educational institutions of Groton School, Harvard College, and Columbia Law School. At age 23 in 1905, he married Eleanor Roosevelt, and he entered politics in 1910, serving in the New York State Senate, and then as Assistant Secretary of the Navy under President Woodrow Wilson. In 1920, Roosevelt was presidential candidate James M. Coxs running mate and he was in office from 1929 to 1933 and served as a reform governor, promoting the enactment of programs to combat the depression besetting the United States at the time. In the 1932 presidential election, Roosevelt defeated incumbent Republican president Herbert Hoover in a landslide to win the presidency, Roosevelt took office while in the United States was in the midst of the worst economic crisis in its history. Energized by his victory over polio, FDR relied on his persistent optimism and activism to renew the national spirit. He created numerous programs to support the unemployed and farmers, and to labor union growth while more closely regulating business. His support for the repeal of Prohibition in 1933 added to his popularity, the economy improved rapidly from 1933–37, but then relapsed into a deep recession in 1937–38. The bipartisan Conservative Coalition that formed in 1937 prevented his packing the Supreme Court, when the war began and unemployment ended, conservatives in Congress repealed the two major relief programs, the WPA and CCC. However, they kept most of the regulations on business, along with several smaller programs, major surviving programs include the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Wagner Act, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and Social Security. His goal was to make America the Arsenal of Democracy, which would supply munitions to the Allies, in March 1941, Roosevelt, with Congressional approval, provided Lend-Lease aid to Britain and China. He supervised the mobilization of the U. S. economy to support the war effort, as an active military leader, Roosevelt implemented a war strategy on two fronts that ended in the defeat of the Axis Powers and initiate the development of the worlds first atomic bomb. His work also influenced the creation of the United Nations. Roosevelts physical health declined during the war years, and he died 11 weeks into his fourth term. One of the oldest Dutch families in New York State, the Roosevelts distinguished themselves in other than politics. One ancestor, Isaac Roosevelt, had served with the New York militia during the American Revolution, Roosevelt attended events of the New York society Sons of the American Revolution, and joined the organization while he was president
10.
Isaac Bashevis Singer
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Isaac Bashevis Singer was a Polish-born Jewish writer in Yiddish, awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1978. The Polish form of his name was Icek Hersz Zynger. He used his mothers first name in a literary pseudonym, Izaak Baszewis. He was a figure in the Yiddish literary movement, writing and publishing only in Yiddish. Isaac Bashevis Singer was born in 1902 in Leoncin village near Warsaw, Poland, a few years later, the family moved to a nearby Polish town of Radzymin, which is often and erroneously given as his birthplace. The exact date of his birth is uncertain, but most probably it was November 21,1902 and it is also consistent with the historical events he and his brother refer to in their childhood memoirs. The often-quoted birth date, July 14,1904 was made up by the author in his youth and his father was a Hasidic rabbi and his mother, Bathsheba, was the daughter of the rabbi of Biłgoraj. Singer later used her name in his pen name Bashevis, both his older siblings, sister Esther Kreitman and brother Israel Joshua Singer, became writers as well. Esther was the first of the family to write stories, the family moved to the court of the Rabbi of Radzymin in 1907, where his father became head of the Yeshiva. After the Yeshiva building burned down in 1908, the moved to a flat at ul. In the spring of 1914, the Singers moved to No.12, the street where Singer grew up was located in the impoverished, Yiddish-speaking Jewish quarter of Warsaw. There his father served as a rabbi, and was called on to be a judge, arbitrator, religious authority, in 1917, because of the hardships of World War I, the family split up. Singer moved with his mother and younger brother Moshe to his mothers hometown of Biłgoraj, a traditional shtetl, when his father became a village rabbi again in 1921, Singer returned to Warsaw. He entered the Tachkemoni Rabbinical Seminary and soon decided that neither the nor the profession suited him. He returned to Biłgoraj, where he tried to support himself by giving Hebrew lessons, in 1923 his older brother Israel Joshua arranged for him to move to Warsaw to work as a proofreader for the Jewish Literarische Bleter, of which the brother was an editor. In 1935, four years before the German invasion, Singer emigrated from Poland to the United States and he was fearful of the growing Nazi threat in neighboring Germany. The move separated the author from his common-law first wife Runia Pontsch and son Israel Zamir, they emigrated to Moscow, the three met again twenty years later in 1955. Singer settled in New York City, where he took up work as a journalist and columnist for The Jewish Daily Forward, after a promising start, he became despondent and for some years felt Lost in America
