A Little Joy, a Little Oy by Marnie Winston-Macauley

Author:Marnie Winston-Macauley
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 0-7407-1867-3
Publisher: Andrews McMeel Publishing
Published: 2001-09-15T00:00:00+00:00

THE JEWISH KING?

Along with David and Solomon, Jews can also lay (some) claim to the hipp-i-est king of all, Elvis! His maternal great-great-grandmother, Nancy Tackett, was Jewish. According to traditional Jewish law, religious identity passes through the mother, and the line between Tackett and Elvis is female, so . . .

Elvis could be considered a Jew! It’s the Emmes!

HE SPREAD THE WORD

The Reuter’s News Agency, the European counterpart of the Associated Press and United Press International, was founded by Paul Julius Reuter (born Israel Beer Josaphat), a German Jew. But did you know that the former bank clerk launched his illustrious career dispatching the news with homing pigeons? In 1849 he started a pigeon post service to bridge a gap in the telegraph line between Aachen, Germany, and Verviers, Belgium. However, he utilized more sophisticated methods when in 1851 he moved to England, became a citizen, and opened his news agency. The agency boomed, particularly after relaying an 1858 speech by Napoleon III. In 1871, the duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha made Reuter the Baron Paul Julius von Reuter.

FROM TITANIC TO TV

Most of us connect the name David Sarnoff with broadcasting. But the Russian-born Jew, who had the idea of radios that could “bring music into homes by wireless,” was made a brigadier general by President Roosevelt and dubbed Father of American Television by the Television Broadcasters Association. What many may not know is that it was this same Sarnoff who, at age twenty-one, following the Titanic disaster on April 14, 1912, remained glued to his wireless earphones for seventy-two hours in the telegraph station at John Wanamaker’s New York store and was one of the first to relay the names of the survivors to the world.

ON ACCOUNT OF A CART

Jews have always loved shopping—almost as much as talking. And eating. And making jokes, which brings me to Sylvan Goldman. Who, you may ask, is Sylvan Goldman? The man who invented the single most important object in retail. Sylvan Goldman, a Humpty Dumpty store owner in Oklahoma City, converted folding chairs, mounted them on wheels, and introduced the first viable shopping cart, in 1937.

That very cart is on display at the State Museum of Oklahoma, in Oklahoma City. It’s the Emmes!

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