One hundred years ago, the Jewish Exponent looked a lot different than it does today, complete with a prodigious masthead and the slogan “A Weekly Journal Devoted to the Interests of the Jewish People.”
On that day, those front-page interests included the dispatch “Rights of Jewish Groups in Foreign Lands” and “A European Letter to the Jewish Exponent,” as well as a poem titled “Beginning and End.”
The European letter is the more interesting item, as it’s subtitled “The Palestine Pavilion at the Wembley Exposition.”
Although the dateline is Paris, writer Henrietta Masalle apparently visited the British Empire Exhibition in London, which was designed as a tour de force of British strength post-World War I.
Among the attractions was the Palestine Pavilion, which showcased life a quarter-century before Israel’s founding.
Masalle was impressed.
“The Palestine Pavilion is one of the smallest at the exposition. But when you walk through the various sections, and you see the photographs of the Jewish colonies, when you finger some of the Bezalel works of art and a Magen David occasionally meets your eye, you feel moved,” she wrote. “Regardless of whether you are a Zionist or not, the feeling that Jewish pioneers are helping in the birth of a land makes you swell with pride.”
Elsewhere in the Exponent came word that Jacob D. Lit, the president of Mount Sinai Hospital, had resigned unexpectedly after 25 years of service. Lit and his brother did pledge $50,000 toward the construction of a new building to replace the existing structure at Fifth and Dickinson streets in South Philadelphia. That hospital closed in 1997.
On the editorial pages, the Exponent opined about the murder in Jerusalem of Jacob Israël de Haan, a Dutch Jewish writer and journalist. Years later, it was discovered he was assassinated by the Haganah for his anti-Zionist activities.
In many regards, the advertising is more interesting than the often-stilted prose found in the news content.
For example, on the bottom right corner of page 11 is a small ad for Dairy Maid, a North Broad Street purveyor of frozen puddings and desserts, touting its ‘mah jong’ pudding. What goes better with two bam or three crack than pudding described as “very delicious and attractive for your ‘Mah Jong’ Party’”?
On the same page, legendary retailer Snellenburg’s advertised five different phonograph cabinets ranging from $110 to $165. Just $5 down “delivers any of these Phonographs. Balance On Out Easy Payment Plan.”
And along with numerous ads for Jersey beach lodging, movie buffs could visit the Stanley at 19th and Market streets to see Buster Keaton in “Sherlock Jr.”